2 Kings 6:25

6:25 Samaria’s food supply ran out. ¹  They laid siege to it so long that ²  a donkey’s head was selling for eighty shekels of silver ³  and a quarter of a kab ⁴  of dove’s droppings ⁵  for five shekels of silver. ⁶ 

2 Kings 15:20

15:20 Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria. ⁷  Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.

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¹ tn Heb “and there was a great famine in Samaria.”

² tn Heb “and look, [they] were besieging it until.”

³ tn Heb “eighty, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.

⁴ sn A kab was a unit of dry measure, equivalent to approximately one quart.

⁵ 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.

⁶ tn Heb “five, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.

⁷ tn Heb “and Menahem brought out the silver over Israel, over the prominent men of means, to give to the king of Assyria, fifty shekels of silver for each man.”