Naomi - Her Life And Times

Naomi - Her Life And Times

FAMINE

Pictures of the bloated stomachs and empty eyes of children dying of hunger hover in our minds long after the television is turned off. Famine today, just as in Bible times, is the great destroyer of the weak — of helpless children and defenseless elderly. The cries of mothers unable to save their hungry children echo throughout the years, a painful reminder of our dependence on the earth for our sustenance.

There are two rainy seasons in Palestine — October – November and March –April. When rain didn’t fall during these two periods, famine resulted. Famine could also occur when hail or insects destroyed the food supply or when invading armies devastated crops in order to bring a captured people into submission.

Throughout Scripture God seemed to use famine to bring about his purposes. Deuteronomy 28:22 – 24 gives a vivid description of the famine that would come if God’s people disobeyed him. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all left Palestine because of a famine in the land. The events of a worldwide famine brought Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his brothers to Egypt, where they eventually became the slaves of the pharaohs. In the book of Ruth, Naomi and her husband fled to Moab because of a famine in Israel, and, through their flight and its subsequent events, God brought Ruth into his holy plan as an ancestor of his Son, Jesus.

In the New Testament, Jesus predicted that famine would be one of the signs of the end of the ages (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11). In the book of Acts we learn that a believer by the name of Agabus foretold a severe famine (Acts 11:28); the next verse then reveals the opportunity this gave the believers to share with each other.

In one of Scripture’s most somber prophecies, Amos told of the time when God would bring about another sort of famine: “I will send a famine through the land — not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD” (Amos 8:11). In the past, God had always listened and responded when his people cried out to him, but Amos told of a time to come when their cries would be met with a frightening silence.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” asks Paul. “Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35). But then Paul answers his own question with that wonderful believer’s cry of victory: Nothing, not even famine, will ever separate us from God’s love.