📖WEB · 2 Kings 6:25
What does 2 Kings 6:25 mean?
"There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver."
— 2 Kings 6:25 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
He answered, “You shall not strike them. Would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.”
He prepared a great feast for them. When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria stopped raiding the land of Israel.
After this, Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.
There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
He said, “If Yahweh doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?”
The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’
Explanation
This verse describes the desperate conditions inside the city of Samaria during a military siege. The situation had become so dire that ordinary food was unavailable, and people were reduced to paying exorbitant prices for items that were normally considered worthless or even repulsive—a donkey's head (an animal considered unclean under Jewish law and not typically eaten) and a small measure of "dove's dung," which may refer literally to excrement used as fuel or possibly a type of cheap seed or vegetable matter that had taken on this crude nickname. Whatever the exact identity of these items, the point is unmistakable: the famine had driven the population to buy scraps and refuse at inflated prices simply to survive.
The historical context is the reign of King Jehoram of Israel, during a period of ongoing conflict with the Arameans (Syrians) under King Ben-hadad. In 2 Kings 6, the Aramean army had surrounded Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, cutting off supply lines and trade. This is one of several accounts in 1 and 2 Kings that show the political and military struggles of Israel's kings, often set against the backdrop of the prophet Elisha's ministry. The famine described here sets the stage for the following verses, where the king witnesses even more horrifying results of the siege—two women who agreed to eat their own children out of starvation (verses 26-29)—and where Elisha soon after prophesies a miraculous and sudden reversal of the famine.
Theologically, this verse illustrates the severe consequences of war and
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