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.
Jerusalem was set in the midst of great nations, exalted above all the hills, a city on a hill that all the world had its eye upon. She was meant to shine as light to the nations round about her, yet she stripped herself bare through her own rebellion.
AI summary
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...