2 Kings 6:25 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

An ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, &c.— If we reckon these pieces of silver at fifteen pence a-piece, they come to five pounds sterling: a great price for that which had on it so little meat, and that too unclean, according to the law, Leviticus 11:26. In times of famine, however, and extreme necessity, the Jews themselves were absolved from the observation of the law; nor are there wanting instances in history, where other people, upon the same occasion, have been reduced to the like distress; if what Plutarch tells us, in the Life of Artaxerxes, be true, viz. that in that prince's war with the Caducii, an ass's head could scarcely be purchased at the price of sixty drachms; i.e. two pounds five shillings of our money. A cab, according to the Jews, contained as much as the shells of twenty-four eggs would hold. The word יונים חרי chire yonim, rendered dove's dung, as Bochart has fully proved, signifies vetches or pulse: and accordingly some late traveller tells us, that at Grand Cairo and Damascus there are magazines where they constantly fry this kind of grain, which those who go on pilgrimage buy, and take with them as part of the provision for their journey. The Arabs to this day call this kind of pulse or vetches by the name of dove's dung. See Bochart, Hieroz. p. ii. lib. i. c. 7.