4 Kings 6:25
And there was a great famine in Samaria: and so long did the siege continue, till the head of an ass was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cabe of pigeon's dung, for five pieces of silver.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Factaque est fames magna in Samaria : et tamdiu obsessa est, donec venundaretur caput asini octoginta argenteis, et quarta pars cabi stercoris columbarum quinque argenteis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐγένετο λιμὸς μέγας ἐν Σαμαρείᾳ, καὶ ἰδοὺ περιεκάθηντο ἐπ᾽ αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἐγενήθη κεφαλὴ ὄνου πεντήκοντα ἀργυρίου καὶ τέταρτον τοῦ κάβου κόπρου περιστερῶν πέντε ἀργυρίου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִ֨י רָעָ֤ב גָּדוֹל֙ בְּשֹׁ֣מְר֔וֹן וְהִנֵּ֖ה צָרִ֣ים עָלֶ֑יהָ עַ֣ד הֱי֤וֹת רֹאשׁ חֲמוֹר֙ בִּשְׁמֹנִ֣ים כֶּ֔סֶף וְרֹ֛בַע הַקַּ֥ב חרי יונים בַּחֲמִשָּׁה כָֽסֶף
Haydock's commentary
In Samaria. It had raged in all the country above three years, (Salien) and continued other four, chap. viii. 1. The continuance of the siege added fresh horrors.
Pieces is not expressed in Hebrew: a sicle is understood. (Haydock)
Lyranus supposes that the whole ass was sold for about 38 crowns, (Haydock) or 130 livres; as we say commonly, "so much a head." But interpreters generally assert that the price of the head alone is given; which shews more forcibly the greatness of the famine. On other occasions the animal could not be eaten by the Jews. Artaxerxes was forced to kill his beasts of burden; and an ass's head was then sold for 60 drachms, or 25 livres. When Hannibal besieged Casilinum, a mouse (or rat) was sold for above 70, or for 200 denarii. (Pliny, [Natural History?] viii. 57.) (V. Max. vii. 6, 3.)
Cabe. Sufficient measure of corn for a man's daily sustenance. (Menochius)
The fourth part would be about a gill. (Haydock)
Dung. Bochart maintains that "chick-peas" are designated. The Arabic usnen and kali, "pigeon or sparrows' dung," are real eatables. Those who suppose that the Samaritans bought the dung of pigeons to use as salt or for food, or to burn, or to manure the earth, &c., produce not satisfactory reasons; no more than the Rabbins, who pretend that the corn which they had picked up was taken from their crop. (Tr. Megil. 3., and the Scholastic History.) Junius and Fuller would translate "belly," which is refuted by Bochart. (Anim. T. ii. B. i. 7.) Very disgusting things have often been used through extreme hunger, (Grotius) and some sort of birds' dung is said to fatten oxen and swine. (Varro 38.; Pliny xvii. 9.)
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But what nutriment can there be in that of pigeons, that people should go to buy it? (Calmet)
Houbigant understands a sort of peas to be meant. (Haydock)
The Hebrews called them kali when they were parched; and such food was very common, 2 Kings xvii. 28. (Bellon. ii. 53, and 99.) (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter XX. After the terrible siege of Samaria was ended in accordance with Elisha's prophecy, he relates what regard the four lepers showed for what was virtuous
118. There was a great famine in Samaria, for the army of the Syrians was besieging it. The king in his anxiety was making the round of the guards on the walls when a woman addressed him, saying: This woman persuaded me to give up my son, and I gave him up, and we boiled him and did eat him. And she promised that she would afterwards bring her son and that we should eat his flesh together, but now she hath hidden her son and will not bring him. The king was troubled because these women seemed to have fed not merely on human bodies, but on the bodies of their own children; and being moved by an example of such awful misery, threatened the prophet Elisha with death. For he believed it was in his power to break up the siege and to avert the famine; or else he was angry because the prophet had not allowed the king to smite the Syrians whom he had struck with blindness.