How is the desperation of food most starkly expressed in Lamentations?

Nowhere in Lamentations is the desperation and scarcity of food during the siege more starkly described than in this verse. During the famine that prevailed in the city, women cooked and ate the flesh of their own children (see also Lamentations 2:20). What was only a question in Lamentations 2:20 had become a reality of repulsive extremes.¹ This was prophesied by Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 19:9). The adjective compassionate serves to highlight the acute contrast between the tender-heartedness of these mothers and the terrible deed to which they fell prey.² The loving maternal instincts of a mother have been replaced by self-preservation (see 2 Kings 6:24–29). Mothers committed an unbelievable atrocity, by which it became clear that God's wrath had been poured out on Jerusalem.³ It is clear from Deuteronomy 28:53–57 that this unthinkable behaviour by mothers is a curse for disobeying God. Jeremiah 14:15–16 and Jeremiah 15:2 also state that hunger and the sword are punishment for Israel's sins (Jeremiah 14:15–16; Jeremiah 15:2).⁴