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Bible Dictionaries
Famine
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Famine. Several famines are noted in the Scripture history. Two are mentioned as occurring in Canaan in the days of Abraham and Isaac, compelling those patriarchs to remove to Egypt and to Gerar. Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1. Then succeeded that remarkable famine which Joseph was enabled to predict, and which extended widely over Egypt and various other regions. Genesis 41:53-57. A scarcity in Palestine was once occasioned, Judges 6:4-6, by the invasion of the Midianites, and another (or the same) is referred to in Ruth 1:1. Others are noted, sometimes caused by war or by locusts. 2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 17:7; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38; 2 Kings 8:1-2; Lamentations 5:10; Joel 1:10-12; Joel 1:17-18. We read in the New Testament, Acts 11:28, of a famine predicted by a Christian prophet named Agabus. Famine is sometimes used in a figurative sense; as when a worse destitution is described than that of bread, a sorer thirst than that for water—even a famine of the divine word, a thirst because the living streams of mercy flow out no more. Amos 8:11-14.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Famine'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/f/famine.html. 1893.
