2 Kings 6 vs. 24 - end and 2 kings 7 v. 1 - end. Please lets follow carefully.

" 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 l 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 l said to her on the next day, ' Give your son, that we may eat him; but she has hidden her son.'

Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body. Then he said, ' God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!'

But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting  with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, ' Do you see how this son of a murderer  has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, ' Surely this calamity is from the LORD; why should l wait for the LORD any longer."

This is the first part of the scripture l want to consider, from above we can see that there was a serious famine in the land and people where already eating their children to stay alive. l want to believe that the people didn't see anything wrong in this act as they were seriously fighting to stay alive and anything would do in order to stay alive during this very severe famine.

If you read Genesis 37 vs. 28 and Matthew 26 vs 15 respectively, you will see that Joseph was sold by his brother for 20 pieces of silver and Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver, but in the case of Samaria, the head of a donkey was being sold for 80 pieces of silver.

During this famine it was a lot cheaper to sell or eat a human being than to get the head of a donkey which was several times more expensive than a whole human being. During this times there where no full donkeys for sale l think they must have all been sold for food and only their heads remained which probably at first was worth very little but as the famine got worse the price hit the roof.

I also think probably all other animals might have been sold or eaten and there was very little food to eat in Samaria, no crops, no grass in the fields and people were losing hope of survival.

I also would want to imagine that people were already dying from starvation and everyone was very desperate - no food, no water.

Despite these very bad issues some four lepers had hope and they took some steps which we would look at from the Bible in the next article.

Remember - Jesus Loves you and cares about you always.

Stay blessed.