2 Kings 6:25

2 Kings 6:25

23 Then he prepared a great feast for them; and after they ate and drank, he sent them away and they went to their master. So ^athe bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel.

Syria Besieges Samaria in Famine

24 And it happened after this that ^aBen-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.

25 And there was a great ^afamine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a¹ kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

26 Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

27 And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?”

28 Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

29 So ^awe boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

30 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he ^atore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body.

31 Then he said, ^a“God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!”

Commentaries:

John Wesley's Notes

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2 Kings 6:26 >>

Famine in Samaria - Probably the siege was so sudden, that they had no time to lay in provisions. Pieces - Supposed to be shekels; and the common shekel being valued at fifteen pence of English money, this amounts to five pounds. A vast price, especially for that which had on it so little meat, and that unwholesome and unclean. A kab - A measure containing twenty - four eggs. Dung - This Hebrew word is of a doubtful signification, and no where else used, probably it means a sort of pease, which in the Arabick language (near a - kin to the Hebrew) is called doves dung: for this was a food much in use amongst the poorer Israelites, and was a very coarse food, and therefore fit to be joined with the asses head: and a kab was the usual measure of all sorts of grains and fruits of that sort.

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