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FAMINE.—In Palestine, famine is usually due to failure of the rainfall (Lev_26:19, Amo_4:6-7). Both crops and pasturage depend on the proper amount falling at the right time, the ‘early rain’ in Oct.–Nov., the ‘latter’ in March–April. Its importance and uncertainty caused it to be regarded as the special gift of God (Deu_11:11; Deu_11:14). Accordingly famine is almost always a direct judgment from Him (1Ki_17:1, Eze_5:1-17, and continually in the Prophets; Jam_5:17). Hence we find it amongst the terrors of the eschatological passages of NT (Mar_13:8, Rev_18:8). The idea is spiritualized in Amo_8:11 ‘a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.’ In Egypt, famine is due to the failure of the annual inundation of the Nile, which is ultimately traceable to lack of rain in the Abyssinian highlands of the interior.
Crops may be destroyed by other causes—hail and thunder-storms. (Exo_9:31, 1Sa_12:17); locusts and similar pests (Exo_10:15, Joe_1:4, Amo_4:9). Further, famine is the usual accompaniment of war, the most horrible accounts of famines being connected with sieges (2Ki_6:25; 2Ki_25:3, Jer_21:9, Lam_4:10).
These passages should be compared with the terrible description of Deu_28:49-57, and with Josephus’ account of the last siege of Jerusalem (BJ V. x. 3). So in Rev_6:5 scarcity, connected with the black horse, follows on bloodshed and conquest; but a maximum price is fixed for wheat and barley, and oil and wine are untouched, so that the full horrors of famine are delayed. A natural result of famine is pestilence, due to improper and insufficient food, lack of water, and insanitary conditions. The two are frequently connected, especially in Ezk. and Jer. (1Ki_8:37, Jer_21:9, Luk_21:11 [not Mat_24:7]).
Famines are recorded in connexion with Abraham (Gen_12:10) and Isaac (Gen_26:1). There is the famous seven years’ famine of Gen_41:1-57 ff., which included Syria as well as Egypt. It apparently affected cereals rather than pasturage, beasts of transport being unharmed (cf. per contra 1Ki_18:5). The device by which Joseph warded off its worst effects is illustrated by Egyptian inscriptions. In one, Baba, who lived about the time of Joseph, says: ‘I collected corn, as a friend of the harvest-god, and was watchful at the time of sowing. And when a famine arose, lasting many years, I distributed corn to the city each year of famine’ (see Driver, Genesis, p. 346). Other famines, besides those already referred to, are mentioned in Rth_1:1, 2Sa_21:1. The famine of Act_11:28 is usually identified with one mentioned by Josephus (Ant. XX. ii. 5, v. 2), which is dated a.d. 45. But famines were characteristic of the reign of Claudius (Suetonius mentions ‘assiduae sterilitates’), so that the exact reference remains uncertain.
C. W. Emmet.