[So that] the man [that is] tender among you, and very delicate,.... Not only the rustic that has been brought up meanly, and used to hard living; but one that has been bred very tenderly, and lived in a delicate manner, like the rich man in Lu 16:19; that fared sumptuously every day:his eye shall be evil towards his brother, and towards the wife of his bosom, and towards the remnant of his children which he shall leave; that is, he shall begrudge his brother, who is so nearly related to him, the least bit of food; yea, his wife, he dearly loved, and is one flesh with him, his other self, and even his children, which are parts of himself, such of them as were left not eaten by him; or his eye should be evil upon then, he should look with an evil eye on them, determining within himself to kill and eat them next.
Though the particular instance in which his eye would be evil to them follows, yet no doubt there are other instances in which his eye would be evil towards them, as there were at the siege of Jerusalem, and have been since.
Josephus says,"that in every house where there was any appearance of food (or anything that looked like it, that had the shadow of it) there was a battle; and the dearest friends fought with one another, snatching away from each other, the miserable supports of life;''as the husband from his wife and children, and the wife from her husband and children; see more in De 28:56; and, in later times, we told by the Jewish historian , that wrote an account of their sufferings and distresses since their dispersion, that at Fez the Jews sold their children for slaves for bread.
De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 3. Shebet Judah, sive Hist. Jud. p.