Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds.
He says, then, fathers shall eat their sons in the midst of you, and this was certainly fulfilled: for Jeremiah speaks of women, but he comprehends men also. (Lamentations 4:10.) For he says that women are tender-hearted, he does not say mothers merely, but that they were humane beyond others; but we know that maternal affection is more tender.
We have here the explanation of the foregoing similitude: This is Jerusalem. Thus it is usual in scripture language to give the name of the thing signified to the sign; as when Christ said, This is my body. The prophet's head, which was to be shaved, signified Jerusalem, which by the judgments of God was now to be stripped of all its ornaments, to be...
Commenting on Ezekiel 5:5-17
Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee,.... Which was long ago threatened by the Lord, and prophesied of by Moses, Lev 26:27; and was fulfilled at several times in the people of Israel, as at the siege of Samaria, Kg2 6:28; at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Lam 4:10; and at the siege of the same city by Titus...