FAMINES.

Historical famines are, by definition, "cyclical famines," meaning that they are caused by unusual weather conditions, plagues, animal or insect infestation or a similar interruption of normal cycles. These cyclical famines are far different from the "structural famines" which much of mankind is experiencing today.

Even righteous Abraham suffered temporarily from such cyclical famines (Gen. 12:10). When Canaan's rains failed, he went to Egypt for food. In the days of his great-grandson Joseph, the rains and rivers everywhere failed for seven years, 96 and the famine was over all the face of the earth" (Gen. 41:56).

The historical books of the Bible speak frequently in, 11 Sam. 21:1; 1 Kings 18:2; Luke 4:25 of

a famine in the days of David,
a sore famine in Samaria,
a great famine was throughout the land

One very graphic incident is described in II Kings 6:25-29:

There was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver (about £370), and the fourth part of a cab (a pint) of dove's dung for five pieces of silver (about £20).

Between A.D. 1050 and 1350, severe famines struck all known lands, becoming especially severe in Egypt around A.D. 1065 and 1200, England around A.D. 1314, and all of Europe during the so-called "Black Death" of the 1350s. Around 1065, the combined ravages of war and drought caused a famine in Egypt, which must have rivalled in severity the seven-year famine under Joseph, approximately 2800 years previous.

During the famine of 1065, a single cake of bread sold for about £28 (modern equivalent), eggs £20 a dozen, and bushel of grain for more than £40. One woman, according to a historian of the time, gave a necklace worth thousands of dollars for a mere handful of flour. Others flung their jewels into the street.

Finally, the desperate Egyptians resorted to cannibalism. Butchers of men actually "fished" for their victims, letting down ropes attached to meat hooks in search of unwary pedestrians. After the shrieking victims were "hooked" and cooked, they were sold on the open market to the most desperate of Egypt's hungered masses.

In the England of Edward II, a great famine struck in 1314 as a kind of prelude to the upcoming "Black Death." Food was so scarce that even the king had a hard time securing food for his table. Men ate dogs, horses, cats, and tragically, human babies as well. Thieves and cannibals were arrested, but when a new criminal was thrown into jail, he was quickly seized upon by the starving inmates and literally torn to pieces for food.

In 1845, the entire potato crop in Ireland rotted from an unexpected blight. Ireland was as dependent on potatoes as many Asian nations are now dependent on rice as a main staple of life. The hunger was so severe that the death toll in Ireland was between 200,000 and 300,000. A greater number emigrated to England and America, while thousands of others died on board the emigrant ships. Ireland, a great nation of 8.3 million people in 1845, lost 2 million people to death and emigration in just five years. Even today Ireland has but one half of her peak population of 1845.

China is another land in which periodic famines strike unexpectedly. Severe famines in 1906 and 1911 were caused by the flooding Yangtze River basin. The well-trod path of 1) false religion, leading to 2) war and revolutionary struggle, leading to 3) famine is an oft-repeated chapter of man's sordid past. The India-Pakistan war of December, 1971 was a prime example. Conflicting religions led to conflicting political and social demands, which led to war, after which famine and disease ran rampant (aggravated by horrible natural disasters: in this case a typhoon which killed 500,000).

More recently, other chapters of similar grief have been written in Cambodia and in Ethiopia and the Republics of Mozambique and the southern Sudan, where famines killed more than a million as the direct result of war. This principle of war-caused famine is described in grisly detail in two parallel chapters of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. The nation Israel was here warned that if they did not obey God (that is, if they practised false religion and neglected God's Commandments) they would be overtaken by national curses leading to war. Read it in Leviticus 26:23-28 in a modern translation:

If after all this (internal, domestic curses) you have not learnt discipline but still defy me, I in turn will defy you and scourge you seven times over for your sins. I will bring war in vengeance upon you ... you shall be herded into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be given over to the enemy. I will cut short your daily bread until ten women can bake your bread in a single oven; they shall dole it out by weight, and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.
If in spite of all this you do not listen to me and still defy me, I will defy you in anger, and I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. Instead of meat you shall eat your sons and daughters

This prophesied pattern of national decline and deprivation has been followed many times in history, and it will be followed again! Less than 40 years after Christ uttered this prophecy of famines, a Roman war siege on Jerusalem caused such severe famine that even cannibalism reared its ugly head in the so-called "holy city" (read Josephus, Wars of the Jews, for the details of this siege).

Throughout the Middle Ages, such war-caused food shortages forced whole cities periodically into starvation, often followed by the bubonic plague or other diseases. At the very close of the Middle Ages, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was especially ferocious in this regard. Whole cities were sacked and destroyed, starvation was widespread, and there was even cannibalism.

Though such war-caused famines still strike the earth periodically today, but a new kind of famine threatens the Twenty-first Century.