Bible Strands
2 Kings 6:25
So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator reports the conditions inside Samaria during Ben-hadad’s prolonged siege, positioned between the Aramean army’s arrival and a desperate woman’s appeal to the king of Israel on the city wall.
The words — The Hebrew רָעָב (ra'av) signifies a severe famine, and צָרִים (tza'rim) identifies the besieging forces surrounding the city.
The thread — This famine reality continues in 2 Kings 6:28 when the woman explains her starvation crisis, and resurfaces in Jeremiah 14:13 and 14:18 where false prophetic promises are contrasted with the actual devastation of famine and sword.
Why it lands — The text records the literal devaluation of human life and waste to silver prices, requiring a reader to acknowledge the absolute economic and physical collapse that siege warfare produces.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
Cross-references
- 2 Kings 6:28 Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’
- Jeremiah 14:13 “Ah, Lord GOD!” I replied, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword or suffer famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Jeremiah 52:6 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Jeremiah 32:24 See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!
- 1 Kings 18:2 So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria,
- 2 Kings 7:4 If we say, ‘Let us go into the city,’ we will die there from the famine in the city; but if we sit here, we will also die. So come now, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”
- 2 Kings 25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Ezekiel 4:13 Then the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”
- Leviticus 26:26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.