“Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.”
Even the jackals offer the breast and nurse their young, but the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness—the verse compares Jerusalem's loss of maternal care to the abandonment of offspring by ostriches. The jackals (wild animals) show more maternal care than Jerusalem now does; this suggests a complete loss of basic human compassion and kinship. Theologically, the verse suggests that the siege conditions have so degraded Israel that even wild animals show more compassion. The reference to ostriches leaving young to die in the wilderness suggests an entire withdrawal of parental care. The verse suggests that judgment has stripped away humanity itself; what remains is cruelty and abandonment. The loss of maternal care represents the loss of the future; without mothers caring for children, there is no survival.
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