Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FAMINE

In the ancient world, the greatest of disasters (Lam. 4:9 prefers death by sword to a slow death of famine). Mentioned frequently in biblical and nonbiblical material from the ancient Near East, famine affected lives on many levels. Often seen as a major disaster along with pestilence and the sword (e.g., Jer. 14:12; Ezek. 6:11; Bar. 2:25; Matt. 24:7; Rom. 8:35), both environmental and socio-political changes contributed to the onset of famine. In the agrarian society of ancient Palestine, the people’s lives depended on rainfall. Droughts and subsequent crop failure often led to famine (e.g., Gen. 26:1; Ruth 1:1; 2 Sam. 21:1; 1 Kgs. 18:1-2; Hag. 1:1-10; Josephus Ant. 15:299ff.). Pestilence such as locusts (Joel 1:4-20) only added to the threat of famine. Political changes, including siege during warfare, also fostered famine. The book of Kings recounts the siege of Samaria by King Ben-hadad of Aram (2 Kgs. 6:24–7:20) and the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kgs. 25), both of which resulted in famine. Josephus tells of famine resulting from Antiochus IV’s siege of Jerusalem (Ant. 12:375ff.; cf. 1 Macc. 6).

In the arid ancient Near East, people expected, and even prepared for, famine. The elite were able to build storehouses. Biblical accounts attest to the storehouses of the temple (e.g., 1 Chr. 26:15; Neh. 10:38-39; 13:12-13; Mal. 3:10) and of the monarchs (e.g., 2 Kgs. 20:12-15; 2 Chr. 32:27-28; Isa. 39:3-4). Such royal storehouses may have offered rulers an opportunity to enhance the extant ancient Near Eastern royal ideology of ruler as benefactor of the poor. Gen. 41:56 tells of Joseph opening the storehouses to the Egyptian people.

Ideologically, biblical texts often characterize famine as divine retribution or as a direct result of disobedience to God (Lev. 26:14-20; Isa. 3:1; 51:19; Jer. 29:17-18; Zech. 14:17) and sometimes as a threat to encourage obedience (Deut. 11:17; 28:33; Amos 4:6). 1 Kgs. 8:33-40 provides an example of biblical prayers offered in an effort to prevent famine.

The consequences of famine were vast. As demand for food increased, so would prices (e.g., 2 Kgs. 6:24-25). Sources attest to the extreme despair of famine. For Josephus (BJ 5.515), famine “confounded all natural passions” as people turned against each other in robbery and other violent acts (5.424ff.). Several biblical texts report cannibalism (2 Kgs. 6:29; Lam. 2:20-21; 4:8-10). In addition to the internal strife brought on by famine, it exacerbated the vulnerability of the people and the land to external incursions. Furthermore, famine often resulted in the collapse of agrarian, subsistence-based economies which, in turn, forced people to migrate. Biblical examples of such migrations include Abraham (Gen. 12:10), Isaac (26:1), Jacob (ch. 46), and Elimelech (Ruth 1).

In the social stratification of the monarchic, agrarian society, the brief decrease in labor supply resulting from famine often increased opportunities for upward mobility. These gains, however, were short-lived and quickly counterbalanced, if not outweighed, by increased births. Thus, broadly viewed, famine did not change the propensity for peasants, who comprised the vast majority of the population, toward downward mobility. For another marginalized group, women, famine only contributed to their increasing confinement in the domestic sphere by increasing the demand for childbirth.

Alice Hunt Hudiburg

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

FAMINE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)