The Fourth Wall - Day 15

2 Kings

2 Kings 6:24 Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.

26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!”

27 He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.” 28 But then the king asked, “What is the matter?”

She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.”

30 When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair. And as the king walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing burlap under his robe next to his skin.

31 “May God strike me and even kill me if I don’t separate Elisha’s head from his shoulders this very day,” the king vowed.

32 Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. We will soon hear his master’s steps following him.”

33 While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king said, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

(This pericope begins a story of trust, momentum, and recognizing that there is more happening in the world than we see in our everyday, regular lives. I went back to chapter 6 to show you how bad things are.)

In verse 25, did you notice that a donkey’s head would sell for 80 pieces of silver? I am assuming that is a great deal of money for that time and even for today. And who wants to eat a donkey’s head anyway? But that is not the worst of it. The worst is that a cup of dung from a dove sold for five pieces of silver!

How bad do things have to be for anyone to eat dove’s excrement? Things were horrible. And this is exactly what would happen during a siege and why they were so popular. The longer the siege lasts, the more desperate they become. This is why they created a water source inside the walls of Jerusalem called Hezekiah’s Tunnel. This tunnel allowed water to flow into the city from the spring of Gihon, which was relatively well-hidden outside the city.

This context is what we need to see how bad things were during the siege, and it sets the stage for the next part of the story. We see a horrible situation that is not getting better, desperate people and a king who is unsure what to do.

1. Have you ever felt this desperate? Even metaphorically? 
2. Can you imagine what a siege would be like back then? 
3. Do you ever feel like the enemy is besieging you and are at your wit's end? What do you do in that situation?