“And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver. Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my Lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”” II Kings 6:24-29 NKJV
a. Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria: Though the kindness of Elisha and the king of Israel changed the heart of the Syrian raiders, it did not change the heart of the king of Syria. He launched a large, full-scale attack against his neighbor to the south.
i. He used the common method of attack in those days against securely walled cities: He besieged Samaria. A siege was intended to surround a city, prevent all business and trade from entering or leaving the city, and to eventually starve the population into surrender.
b. There was a great famine in Samaria: The siege strategy successfully starved Samaria. The famine was so bad that a donkey’s head or dove droppings became so expensive that only the rich could afford them.
i. Wiseman says that dove droppings is better translated as carob beans, and that five shekels of silver were more than a month’s wages for a laborer.
ii. Yet, Poole writes: “That dove’s dung, though it be hotter than ordinary, might in other respects be fitter for nourishment than other, as being made of the best and purest grains, and having some moisture in it.”
iii. “When Hannibal besieged Casiline, one mouse was sold for two hundred pence. Puddings made of dogs’ guts were dear bought at the siege of Scodra.” (Trapp)
c. Give your son, that we may eat him: This shows how terrible the famine was. Mothers were so hungry that they ate their own children.
i. Deuteronomy 28 contains an extended section where God warned Israel about the curses that would come upon them if they rejected the covenant He made with them. Part of that chapter describes the horrors fulfilled in this chapter: They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.(Deuteronomy 28:52-53)
ii. These terrors came upon Israel because they disobeyed God, rejected Him, and abandoned the covenant He made with them. (Guzik)
Disobeyed God!
Some parts of the Bible are hard to digest, like these verses! But we have to remember that this happened because they disobeyed and rejected God!
The book of Revelations is prophecy about the end times and what happens to mankind because they rejected God. Thank God for Jesus Christ!
I am glad I won’t be around for what is coming!
I am reminded about the lyrics in a song about meeting friends again someday, “Here, there, or in the air”!
If I don’t see you here, I will see you there (heaven) or in the “air” during the rapture!
“Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” I Thessalonians 4:17 NKJV
I can’t wait to go home to be with the Lord!
What about you?
Blessings
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