2 Raja-raja 6:25-29
Konteks6:25 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
6:26 While the king of Israel was passing by on the city wall, a woman shouted to him, “Help us, my master, O king!” 6:27 He replied, “No, let the Lord help you. How can I help you? The threshing floor and winepress are empty.” 7 6:28 Then the king asked her, “What’s your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Hand over your son; we’ll eat him today and then eat my son tomorrow.’ 6:29 So we boiled my son and ate him. Then I said to her the next day, ‘Hand over your son and we’ll eat him.’ But she hid her son!”
2 Raja-raja 18:27
Konteks18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. 8 His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” 9
[6:25] 1 tn Heb “and there was a great famine in Samaria.”
[6:25] 2 tn Heb “and look, [they] were besieging it until.”
[6:25] 3 tn Heb “eighty, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
[6:25] 4 sn A kab was a unit of dry measure, equivalent to approximately one quart.
[6:25] 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.
[6:25] 6 tn Heb “five, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
[6:27] 7 tn Heb “From where can I help you, from the threshing floor or the winepress?” The rhetorical question expresses the king’s frustration. He has no grain or wine to give to the masses.
[18:27] 8 tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.
[18:27] 9 tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”
[18:27] sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.