What Does Deuteronomy 28:55 Mean in the King James?
So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew words for “straitness” and “distress” share a root of pressure: the siege reaches beyond the gates and into the household itself.
THE MEANING
This verse names deprivation so severe that a parent eats a child’s flesh and has nothing to give anyone else. Enemy pressure closes around every gate and enters the most intimate human bond.
THE ROOT
מָצוֹק
matsuq
GROWS FROM
צוּק
tsuq
To press, squeeze, or bring into straits.
“straitness / distress” in this verse is matsuq. English gives the noun as “straitness” and the verb as “distress,” while Hebrew forms both from the same root. The condition and the act pressing upon the household share one seed: the pressure reaches every gate and turns scarcity into terror.
ALSO GROWS
matsuq: Straits, distress, a tight place.
מָצוֹק
This names the state the household is trapped in.
yatsiq: Presses, distresses.
יָצִיק
This names the enemies’ act of pressing the household into that state.
הִשְׁאִיר
hish'ir
GROWS FROM
שאר
sha'ar
To remain or be left over.
The word translated “left” belongs to the root behind “remainder” and “remnant.” Here the verse makes the depletion absolute: no remainder survives from which he can give.
ALSO GROWS
she'ar: Remainder, what remains.
שְׁאָר
The verse says there is no remainder left to share.
she'erit: Remnant, surviving remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
This branch sharpens the force of the loss: not even a remnant remains.
THE PATTERN
Under siege, hunger can turn the body of one’s own child into food.
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.THE THREAD
Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.Psalm 107:6 uses the same root צוק (tsuq) for the “distresses” people cry out from. Here that root names the pressure pressing on every gate; there it names the pressure from which they are delivered. The shared root traces movement from constriction toward release.
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