2 Kings 6:25

25. A great famine in Samaria In consequence of the siege, which cut off all means of supply to the city.

An ass’s head According to the law (Leviticus 11:3) the ass was an unclean animal, and therefore forbidden to be eaten at all. The head of the animal is, besides, the worst part of all to eat. But necessity knows no law; and how terrible must have been that famine which caused this part of an unclean animal to sell for such a fabulous price! The supposition of some, that the term ass’s head means a certain weight or measure, is too much wanting in evidence. An ass of bread, in 1 Samuel 16:20, is quite different from an ass’s head, and most naturally means, as the English version has it, an ass laden with bread. Surely if women ate their dead children, as 2 Kings 6:29 shows, we need not scruple to believe that an ass’s head would sell for a great price.

Fourscore pieces of silver Silver shekels are probably meant, in which case this amount would be about forty-five dollars of our currency.

A cab A hollow vessel capable of holding about two quarts.

Dove’s dung This is a literal translation of the Hebrew words חרי יונים , chire-yonim.

Josephus says it was used instead of salt; others think it was used for fuel, or for quickening the growth of garden vegetables. But the context seems clearly to show that it was used for feed, and hence some have, very naturally, supposed that the word denotes some vegetable food, inasmuch as the Arabs call the herb alkali, sparrow’s dung. Thomson says: “I believe that the Hebrew chir-yonim was the name of a coarse and cheap sort of food, a kind of bean, to which this whimsical title was given on account of some fancied resemblance between the two. Nor am I at all surprised at it, for the Arabs give the most quaint, obscure, and ridiculous names to their extraordinary edible mixtures. I would therefore not translate at all, but read thus, ‘A fourth part of a cab of chir-yonim for five pieces of silver,’ and be content with that, until we know what chir-yonim really is.” But after all, it is still more probable that literal dove’s dung is meant. Similar instances of human extremity in famine are not unknown in history. Josephus relates that in the siege of Jerusalem “some persons were driven to that terrible distress that they searched the common sewers and old dung-hills of cattle, and ate the dung which they got there.” During a famine in Egypt in 1200 the poor were driven to the necessity of eating dogs, and the carcasses of animals and men, and even the excrements of both. In England in 1316, during the reign of Edward II., there was a famine in which many of the people are said to have eaten their own children, together with dogs, mice, and pigeon’s dung. During the late civil war in the United States, the starving prisoners at Andersonville are said to have eaten, at times, their own excrement. Compare 2 Kings 18:27.

Five pieces of silver About three dollars.