2 Kings 6:25

Great famine. Famines were not uncommon in Israel. At the time of Elijah there was a drought that lasted for three and a half years (1 Kings 17:1 to 8:1; Luke 4:25; James 5:17), and in the days of Elisha there was a famine for seven years (2 Kings 8:1). The present famine, however, was the result of the siege.

Fourscore pieces of silver. That is, 80 shekels (912 grams, about 2.5 lb. troy) of silver for the head of an ass. An ass was unclean to the Hebrews, and would not be eaten except as a last resort; and its head would be its worst and cheapest part. Plutarch records that at the time of a famine during the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the head of an ass sold for 60 drachmas, though ordinarily the entire animal could be bought for half that sum. And Pliny relates that during the siege of Casalinum, a mouse was sold for 200 denarii.

The fourth part of a cab. A cab was equal to about 1.11 dry qts. (1.2 liters). Five pieces of silver means five shekels (57 grams, 1.8 oz. troy) of silver. It is difficult to believe that human beings could be reduced to such terrible straits as to eat such impossible food, but Josephus mentions that during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, “some persons were driven to that terrible distress as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung they got there” (Wars v. 13.7). A more recent interpretation seeks to find in the expression “dove’s dung” a reference to some very cheap and undesirable form of vegetable produce — the meanest form of vegetable that could be used for human consumption. Such an identity cannot be proved.