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II Kings describes the siege of Samaria and its famine. While some believe the dove's dung in 2 Kings 6:25 is literally the waste of the bird, others take it to be the bulb of the star of Bethlehem plant. Pigeons excrement has been eaten in times of desperate food shortage. Easton notes the language of 2 Kings 18:27; Isaiah 36:12. He also tells us the Arabs apply the name "doves dung" to various vegetable substances like the seeds of millet, an inferior kind of vegetable pulse, and the root of ornithogalum, sometimes called "bird-milk".
The bird-milk or star of Bethlehem plant grows on a stalk of about six inches and has long thin leaves. (See photos) It's bulb is dried, roasted and eaten or made into a flour. Italians sometimes eat them like chestnuts. "For centuries Syrians used it for food. Dioscorides, the historian, writes that in his time this bulb was added to flour made into thin cakes" (Walker).
1 Cab (Hebrew - kab) is equal to 1.1600 Quart (Standard). It was worth about 20 pieces of silver.
2 Kings 6:25 (KJV) And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until 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.
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