Deuteronomy 28:54
So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave: So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:
The verse belongs to the chapter's plain covenant statement of the blessings connected with obedience to God's statutes, judgments, ordinances and commandments and the curses and adversity connected with disobedience and transgression, with prosperity sent for obedience and adversity for disobedience. The blessings and curses upon God's people depend on whether His law and commandments are obeyed or transgressed, setting the fearful results of transgression against the blessings of obedience as a choice between suffering the results of disobedience and enjoying the results of obedience. The chapter shows that God's promises are upon condition of obedience, and is to be read with Deuteronomy 1 to see why the adult men of the army that left Egypt were refused entrance into the promised land. Doing His judgments and keeping His ordinances and statutes to walk in them brings life, while disobedience causes the altering of His expressed purpose toward His people.
The verse belongs to God's lesson to Israel that disease comes upon human beings because of sin and transgressing the law of God. In providence God erected barriers to preserve Israel from disease so they might live in health and holiness and learn obedience under Christ's special direction and sheltering preservation, and breaking those barriers brings disease. Diligently hearkening to the voice of the Lord, doing right in His sight and keeping His commandments and statutes brings freedom from disease, for He is the Lord who heals. The threatened curse grows heavier through continued human disobedience and affects people, animals, trees and vegetation, and the verse is part of that warning.
In the chapter's siege setting the verse means that the suffering of famine and distress would be so extreme that even a man regarded as tender and delicate, normally gentle and tender, would have an evil eye and turn hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his surviving children left to him, quarreling over food. The verse foretells the extremity of famine, misery and suffering that came upon Jerusalem and the Jews in Jerusalem's destruction and overthrow by Rome under Titus in the Roman siege, which Christ foresaw. Starving inhabitants fought over morsels and the prophecy that mothers would kill and eat their own children was fulfilled. That calamity followed the people's proud resistance of the Redeemer and brought the sufferers to remember Christ's lesson.