The Invisible Army and the Siege

Cutting beams by the Jordan, a prophet's axe-head falls into the water: "Alas, master! for it was borrowed." Elisha throws a stick in, "and the iron did swim." Elisha repeatedly warns the king of Israel where the Arameans will strike. "Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber."

Horses and chariots surround Dothan by night. "Alas, my master! how shall we do?" "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them… LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see." "And, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The Arameans are struck with blindness; Elisha leads them into Samaria. "My father, shall I smite them?" "Thou shalt not… set bread and water before them." "So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel."

Later, Ben-hadad besieges Samaria. "An ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver." A woman cries to the king on the wall. "This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him… and she hath hid her son." The king tears his clothes; the people see sackcloth underneath. "God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha… shall stand on him this day."

Siege prices

An ass's head (food normally forbidden) for 80 shekels; a quarter-kab (perhaps 0.3 liters) of "dove's dung" for 5. "Dove's dung" may be literal or a popular name for a plant (seed pods or bulbs); the Hebrew text itself has a marginal reading here. The library's Greek has 50 shekels instead of 80. See the passage page.

Cannibalism in siege

Assyrian treaty curses and siege accounts mention parents eating their children in extreme famine; Deuteronomy 28:53–57 and Lamentations 4:10 use the same horror. The story is told to show the depth of the crisis, not as an ordinary practice.

Dothan

Tell Dothan, north of Samaria, is the probable site; Joseph's brothers were there too (Genesis 37:17).