Lessons From Ruth: A Famine in the Land

Ruth 1:1 “In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land,”

Famine was something that happened all too often in Bible times and still does. The word for famine is also from the same root as the word hunger. Typically, when someone says they are famished or hungry, they are talking about the need to eat right now. When the Scriptures speak of famine, it is speaking about a widespread lack of food due to crop failure. It affects everyone in the region of the famine, young and old, male and female, even rich and poor. All feel the effects. The list of areas which were affected by famine included, Canaan, Egypt, Philistia, Aram, Moab, and Samaria. Famine was often part of GOD’S judgment on a people, either by altering the weather patterns or due to military conflict. (See Dt.32) Of course, there are natural occurring events which can bring about famine, or at least we think it is natural. There is a passage in Amos 8:11, which speaks of a different kind of famine, ““Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD GOD, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the WORDS of the LORD.”” Regardless of when, where, or how that spiritual famine was to take place for Israel, that same famine of not hearing the WORDS of the LORD still exists. Today, in our region of the world, access to a Bible is as easy as reaching over and taking one off a shelf or coffee table. Bibles can be purchased cheaply. Some are handed out free of charge. You can find them free online, on computer, tablets, and phones. Yet even some who claim to be children of GOD, find themselves without spiritual nutrition, by choice. Perhaps it is because they do not feel hunger and do not recognize thirst or are trying to satisfy their need by seeking nourishment from that which is NOT True Spiritual Food as Isaiah 55:2 describes. Remember, the LORD provides the feast. I must come to the table!

Russell Ashby