Question

3.The Old Testament is an important primary source for information on the lives of the Ancient Hebrews. Consider the following bleak passage, which describes the Syrian siege of Samaria and the ensuing famine (2 Kings 6:24-29).

24 And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.

25 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.

26 And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.

27 And he said If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barn floor, or out of the winepress?

28 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son to morrow.

29 So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.

”Clearly, food and fuel prices rose during this time – to the point that the Samaritans were relying on cannibalism!

Using a supply and demand diagram, clearly explain why. (15%)

Answer 1

Solution :

During a famine, the supply of food falls and becomes limited, which makes the supply curve a vertical line indicating that at any price in the market for per unit of food, the supply remains constant. This is due to the reason that famine has struck the market and no more production of food is possible in the market. No additional production means no additional supply due to change in prices. The demand for food remains the same during famine. Food being a necessity will always be demanded by the consumers. Hence, the demand for food does not change. At the point where, demand and supply curves intersect each other creates the equilibrium E. At this point, the prices of food is extremely high at Pe while quantity is fixed at Qe. Hence, due to the extremely high price of per unit of food, the consumers are not able to consume even that amount of food which is available. Or even if some consumers are able to avail the quantity of food available, others are not able to. This would have led the people towards cannibalism, since hunger is something that cannot be postponed.