The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Jeremiah witnessed this himself: mothers boiled their own children. He calls them compassionate to show the horror, not praising them, but exposing the unnatural madness God's vengeance inflicted, that even naturally merciful women were seized with such fury.
AI summary
Jerusalem, once splendid as fine gold, has become dull and worthless dross. The temple's gold was sullied in the fire, its precious stones scattered like rubbish through the streets. When God withdrew His presence through provoked judgment, no wonder the sanctuary itself was profaned and cast down.
AI summary
Commenting on Lamentations 4:1-12
Women tender by nature toward their own children became so cruelly hardened by famine that they slaughtered and boiled them for meat. Moses foretold this curse; Josephus records it happened at Jerusalem's siege, the seditious found a mother had done precisely this.
AI summary