( 2 Kings 6:25 ) has been generally understood literally. There are instances in history of the dung of pigeons being actually used as food during a famine. Compare also the language of Rabshakeh to the Jews ( 2 Kings 18:27 ; Isaiah 36:12 ). This name, however, is applied by the Arabs to different vegetable substances, and there is room for the opinion of those who think that some such substance is here referred to, as, e.g., the seeds of a kind of millet, or a very inferior kind of pulse, or the root of the ornithogalum, i.e., bird-milk, the star-of-Bethlehem.
Various explanations have been given of the passage in ( 2 Kings 6:25 ) Bochart has labored to show that it denotes a species of cicer , "chick-pea," which he says the Arabs call usnan , and sometimes improperly "doves" or "sparrows dung." Great quantities of these are sold in Cairo to the pilgrims going to Mecca. Later authorities incline to think it the bulbous root of the Star of Bethlehem (ornithogalum , i.e. bird-milk), a common root in Palestine, and sometimes eaten. --ED. It can scarcely be believed that even in the worst horrors of a siege a substance so vile as is implied by the literal rendering should have been used for food.