HUNGER
Lack of food, generally caused by lack of rain followed by crop failure, or by the impossibility of bringing supplies into a besieged city. Famine led Abraham to the decision to go to Egypt (Gen. 12:10).
This was one of the first famines that had effects on the history of the patriarchs and their descendants; It was famine that led the Hebrews to temporarily withdraw from Palestine (Gen. 26:1; 41:2756; 47:13). There were other times of famine: in the time of the Judges, Elimelech went to the country of Moab (Rt. 1:1).
He also had it under the reign of David (2 Sam. 21:1); in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 17:1 ff.); in the time of Elisha (2 Kings 4:38; 8:1); Under the reign of Claudius (AD 41 to 54), severe local shortages occurred successively in Judea (fourth year of the reign), in Greece (ninth year), and in Italy (eleventh year, Acts 11:28; Ant. 20:2 , 5; 5, 2; Tacitus, Annals 12:43).
Of the number of famines caused by wars, let us cite the one suffered by Samaria, besieged by Ben-hadad (2 Kings 6:24-7:20) and the famines that accompanied the different sieges of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (2 R. 25:1-3; Jer. 52:5, 6) and by Titus (Wars 5:10, 2 and 3). The prophecy expressly mentions famines among the signs of the end of the age (Mt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11; Rev. 6:5-6, 8).
The famine of Joseph’s time in Egypt had the peculiarity that it was pre-announced to Pharaoh through a dream, interpreted by Joseph (Gen. 41), which made it possible to anticipate the catastrophic effects, storing grain for the time of drought that I was going to continue.
Based on this, it has been possible to establish the identification of this important milestone in the history of Egypt, which had to meet the conditions of being a widespread famine, and foreseen in advance. Courville documents, based on documentary inscriptions, that this is what took place during the time of Serostris I, in the 12th dynasty, prior to the Hyksos, which in the revised chronology that he proposes and documents are undeniably identified with the Amalekites.