Discovery Box2 Kings 6:25 
Context6:25 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
Context15:20 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.
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.”
