Dung

(Ex. 29:14, Lev. 4:11, 8:17, 2 Kings 18:27, Luke 13:8). In many eastern countries wood is so valuable and scarce that it is sold by weight. For this reason, as travelers testify, animal dung is frequently used for fuel, and constitutes chiefly the material for heating ovens, even among people of means. Dung, that is, the excrement and urine of animals, mixed with straw bedding, was also used for fertilizing the land (Luke 13:8, 14:35). With dung and the excrement of animals the deep degradation of the impious is frequently compared in Holy Scripture: “their carcasses shall be as dung in the streets… Moab shall be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the dunghill,” says the prophet Isaiah (as cited).

The Syrian commander threatens the Jews that, for their disobedience to Sennacherib, they will be brought to such an extremity that they will eat their own dung and drink their own urine (2 Kings 18:27, Is. 36:12). Such an extremity the Jews did in fact experience (2 Kings 6:25), when, during the siege of Samaria, they ate dove’s dung, which was sold for five shekels of silver a fourth part of a kab, and they experienced it especially during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. According to Niebuhr’s account, the dung of asses and camels in Arabia is gathered in the streets by children and mixed with chopped straw; it is then set out to dry in the sun, and thus becomes fit for fuel.

Sanitary regulations concerning such refuse were strictly prescribed in the Law of Moses (Deut. 23:12). For the maintenance of cleanliness, ordinary houses had special receptacles for refuse. To build one’s dwelling on heights where refuse was deposited, or where people generally relieved themselves, was considered a great dishonor (Dan. 2:5, 3:29). The extreme humiliation of the priests of the Old Testament is depicted by the prophet Malachi as the scattering of the dung of sacrificial animals upon their faces, and their being cast out along with the dung (Mal. 2:3).

A similar disgrace was expressed in the days of Jehu, king of Israel, upon the idols, when the statues of Baal were burned, his temple was destroyed, and his place was made into a place for refuse (2 Kings 10:27).