Dung

The uses of dung were two-fold—as manure and as fuel. The manure consisted either of straw steeped in liquid manure, (Isaiah 25:10) or the sweepings, (Isaiah 5:25) of the streets and roads, which were carefully removed from about the houses, and collected in heaps outside the walls of the towns at fixed spots—hence the dung-gate at Jerusalem—and thence removed in due course to the fields. The difficulty of procuring fuel in Syria, Arabia and Egypt has made dung in all ages valuable as a substitute. It was probably used for heating ovens and for baking cakes, (Ezra 4:12,15) the equable heat which it produced adapting it pecularily for the latter operation. Cow’s and camels dung is still used for a similar purpose by the Bedouins.

(1.) Used as manure (Luke 13:8); collected outside the city walls (Neh. 2:13). Of sacrifices, burned outside the camp (Ex. 29:14; Lev. 4:11; 8:17; Num. 19:5). To be “cast out as dung,” a figurative expression (1 Kings 14:10; 2 Kings 9:37; Jer. 8:2; Ps. 18:42), meaning to be rejected as unprofitable.

(2.) Used as fuel, a substitute for firewood, which was with difficulty procured in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt (Ezek. 4:12-15), where cows’ and camels’ dung is used to the present day for this purpose.

(Neh. 2:13), a gate of ancient Jerusalem, on the south-west quarter. “The gate outside of which lay the piles of sweepings and offscourings of the streets,” in the valley of Tophet.

To sit on a, was a sign of the deepest dejection (1 Sam. 2:8; Ps. 113:7; Lam. 4:5).