What Does Leviticus 26:29 Mean in the King James?

And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

Leviticus 26:29 · KJV

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

At the far edge of constriction, survival consumes its own future.

THE MEANING

This verse speaks the horror plainly: deprivation can reach a point where parents consume the flesh of their own children. The bonds meant to protect the next generation are swallowed by conditions that destroy life.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that family bonds alone can shield a household from total collapse.

THE ROOT

אָכַל

ʾākal

GROWS FROM

א־כ־ל

ʾ-k-l

Eat; consume.

“eat” in this verse is ʾākal. The verse repeats this root for both sons and daughters, making the horror comprehensive. The same seed can describe receiving nourishment or consuming what sustains life; here eating has become total destruction.

ALSO GROWS

ʾokhel: Food.

אֹכֶל

Food ordinarily sustains life, sharpening the violence of this verse, where the children themselves become food.

maʾakhal: Food or something eaten.

מַאֲכָל

This branch names what is consumed; the verse’s horror is that a parent’s own children occupy that place.

בָּנִים

banim

GROWS FROM

ב־נ־ה

b-n-h

Build; establish.

The Hebrew word for sons belongs to the word family associated with building. The verse shows the collapse reaching what carries a household forward: the lives through which its future is built.

ALSO GROWS

ben: Son; child.

בֵּן

The sons named here carry the family line and its continuation.

banah: Build; establish.

בָּנָה

This is the root verb associated with ben; its building sense casts the sons as part of what sustains and continues a household.

binyan: Building; structure.

בִּנְיָן

This related form makes the contrast vivid: the lives bound to building the future are consumed.

THE PATTERN

When deprivation turns a community against its own, the bonds meant to preserve life become part of the devastation.

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:

Deuteronomy 28:53 · KJVThe verse names siege and constriction as conditions in which people consume the children who should be protected.

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.

2 Kings 6:29 · KJVThe deprivation becomes an explicit act of consuming a child, and the next day’s demand shows the horror repeating.

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

Galatians 5:15 · KJVThe image of one person consuming another carries the same pattern into communal life, where people destroy those alongside them.

THE THREAD

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Genesis 2:16 · KJV

The Hebrew root ⁨אָכַל⁩ (ʾākal, eat or consume) links both verses. In Genesis, eating receives provision from abundance; here, the same act has become consumption of one’s own children.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us