[104] Gen. xxxvii. 17, _Dothain_, "two wells" (?).
[110] Adopting the reading of the Syriac version: "And when they [Elisha and his servant] came down to them [the Syrians]." The ordinary reading is "to _him_," which makes the narrative less clear.
[111] 2 Kings vi. 19. [Hebrew: manverim], [Greek: aorasia], only found in Gen. xix. 11.
[114] Vulg., _Non percuties; neque enim cepisti eos ... ut percutias._
[115] Jos., _Antt._, IX. iv. 4, [Greek: Krypha men ouketi ... phanerôs de].
[116] Kittel, following Kuenen, surmises that this story has got misplaced; that it does not belong to the days of Jehoram ben-Ahab and Benhadad II., but to the days of Jehoahaz ben-Jehu and Benhadad III., the son of Hazael (_Gesch. der Hebr._, 249). In a very uncertain question I have followed the conclusion arrived at by the majority of scholars, ancient and modern.
"'Tis truly no good plan when princes play The vulture among carrion; but when They play the carrion among vultures--that Is ten times worse." LESSING, _Nathan the Wise_, Act I., Sc. 3.
If the Benhadad, King of Syria, who reduced Samaria to the horrible straits recorded in this chapter, (2 Kings vi.) was the same Benhadad whom Ahab had treated with such impolitic confidence, his hatred against Israel must indeed have burned hotly. Besides the affair at Dothan, he had already been twice routed with enormous slaughter, and against those disasters he could only set the death of Ahab at Ramoth-Gilead. It is obvious from the preceding narrative that he could advance at any time at his will and pleasure into the heart of his enemy's country, and shut him up in his capital almost without resistance. The siege-trains of ancient days were very inefficient, and any strong fortress could hold out for years, if only it was well provisioned. Such was not the case with Samaria, and it was reduced to a condition of sore famine. Food so loathsome as an ass's head, which at other times the poorest would have spurned, was now sold for eighty shekels' weight of silver (about £8); and the fourth part of a _xestes_ or _kab_--which was itself the smallest dry-measure, the sixth part of a _seah_--of the coarse, common pulse, or roasted chick-peas, vulgarly known as "dove's dung," fetched five shekels (about 12_s._ 6_d._).[117]