What Does the Bible Say About Cannibalism?

Ezekiel 5:10 ESV / 17 helpful votes

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.

Leviticus 26:29 ESV / 13 helpful votes

You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

2 Kings 6:28 ESV / 10 helpful votes

And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

Lamentations 4:10 ESV / 9 helpful votes

The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Jeremiah 19:9 ESV / 8 helpful votes

And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them.’

Lamentations 2:20 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Look, O Lord, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Exodus 20:13 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“You shall not murder.

Deuteronomy 28:1-68 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. ...

Numbers 13:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes

So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

Genesis 9:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

Mark 9:43-48 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

Isaiah 40:3-5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 38:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

I said, In the middle of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.

Ephesians 1:11 ESV / 1 helpful vote

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

Jonah 2:1-10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head ...

Amos 9:2 ESV / 1 helpful vote

“If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.

Hosea 13:14 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.

Daniel 8:1-27 ESV / 1 helpful vote

In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first. And I saw in the vision; and when I saw, I was in Susa the capital, which is in the province of Elam. And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. ...

Ezekiel 9:6 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house.

Jeremiah 48:45 ESV / 1 helpful vote

“In the shadow of Heshbon fugitives stop without strength, for fire came out from Heshbon, flame from the house of Sihon; it has destroyed the forehead of Moab, the crown of the sons of tumult.

Jeremiah 19:6 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.

Jeremiah 19:2 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you.

Isaiah 66:2 ESV / 1 helpful vote

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

Isaiah 66:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?

Isaiah 57:9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

You journeyed to the king with oil and multiplied your perfumes; you sent your envoys far off, and sent down even to Sheol.

Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 53:12 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:4 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Isaiah 45:7 ESV / 1 helpful vote

I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Isaiah 40:22 ESV / 1 helpful vote

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;

Isaiah 9:7 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:2 ESV / 1 helpful vote

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.

Isaiah 9:1 ESV / 1 helpful vote

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Isaiah 6:10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Proverbs 23:13-14 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.

Proverbs 5:5 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;

Psalm 116:15 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

Psalm 89:48 ESV / 1 helpful vote

What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah

Psalm 31:17 ESV / 1 helpful vote

O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol.

Psalm 6:5 ESV / 1 helpful vote

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?

Job 33:22 ESV / 1 helpful vote

His soul draws near the pit, and his life to those who bring death.

Job 33:21-22 ESV / 1 helpful vote

His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out. His soul draws near the pit, and his life to those who bring death.

Job 21:13 ESV / 1 helpful vote

They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

Job 17:16 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?”

Job 17:13-14 ESV / 1 helpful vote

If I hope for Sheol as my house, if I make my bed in darkness, if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

Job 14:13 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

Job 7:21 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

2 Kings 23:10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech.

2 Kings 17:10 ESV / 1 helpful vote

They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree,

2 Kings 15:4 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 15:3 ESV / 1 helpful vote

And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.

2 Kings 6:29 ESV / 1 helpful vote

So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”

1 Kings 11:1-43 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ...

1 Kings 9:7 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

1 Kings 2:9 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Now therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man. You will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol.”

1 Kings 2:1-46 ESV / 1 helpful vote

When David's time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying, “I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ “Moreover, you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel, Abner the son of Ner, and Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, avenging in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war, and putting the blood of war on the belt around his waist and on the sandals on his feet. ...

Judges 9:1-57 ESV / 1 helpful vote

Now Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem to his mother's relatives and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother's family, “Say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal rule over you, or that one rule over you?’ Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.” And his mother's relatives spoke all these words on his behalf in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.” And they gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him. And he went to his father's house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself. ...

59 Bible Verses about Cannibalism