פירוש על קידושין 123:1

The verse I have translated “you shall eat the sword” is clearly meant to teach that “you shall be devoured by the sword” and that is how most translators render it. But literally translated it could be read as if you will eat the sword? What!!! Rava explains that the sword here is harsh food. Coarse bread, coarse salt and onions. We should note that this is not far off from what most people probably ate most of the time. One would hope for soft bread, but people ate a lot of bread back then.