The Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Dearth
Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897)
a scarcity of provisions (1 Kings 17). There were frequent dearths in Palestine. In the days of Abram there was a “famine in the land” (Genesis 12:10), so also in the days of Jacob (47:4, 13). We read also of dearths in the time of the judges (Ruth 1:1), and of the kings (2 Samuel 21:1; 1 Kings 18:2; 2 Kings 4:38; 8:1). In New Testament times there was an extensive famine in Palestine (Acts 1 1:28) in the fourth year of the reign of the emperor Claudius (A.D. 44 and 45).
