Discovery Box2 Kings 6:24-25 
Context6:24 Later King Ben Hadad of Syria assembled his entire army and attacked 1 and besieged Samaria. 2 6:25 Samaria’s food supply ran out. 3 They laid siege to it so long that 4 a donkey’s head was selling for eighty shekels of silver 5 and a quarter of a kab 6 of dove’s droppings 7 for five shekels of silver. 8
1 tn Heb “went up.”
2 map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.
3 tn Heb “and there was a great famine in Samaria.”
4 tn Heb “and look, [they] were besieging it until.”
5 tn Heb “eighty, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
6 sn A kab was a unit of dry measure, equivalent to approximately one quart.
7 tn The consonantal text (Kethib) reads, “dove dung” (חֲרֵייוֹנִים, khareyonim), while the marginal reading (Qere) has “discharge” (דִּבְיוֹנִים, divyonim). Based on evidence from Akkadian, M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 79) suggest that “dove’s dung” was a popular name for the inedible husks of seeds.
8 tn Heb “five, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
