Why does God allow hunger?

It is a great mercy of God that He sometimes deprives us of food to such an extent that we become extremely hungry. He did this to Israel after that favoured nation had been miraculously delivered from the bondage of Egypt through the passage of the Red Sea, with exultant rejoicing in God's redeeming grace and power. He could easily have provided the food they needed from the outset of their journey, but rather than this He allowed them to hunger, that is, to feel their depriva­tion sufficiently to stir within them serious exercise and concern. This concern came to the point of bitter complaint and murmuring, but in a certain sense this was good. Why? Because it brought out what was actually in their hearts.

God was humbling and proving them. This is essential discipline for every child of God. We must learn from the time of conversion that our history on earth is not to be a bed of roses (without the thorns!), but one in which the selfishness of the flesh within us must be checked and judged. And it needs to be exposed before we shall have any concern about judging it. However, when this fleshly selfishness was exposed by the complaining of unbelief, it is most striking that God did not reprove Israel, but in pure, marvellous graceanswered them, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you" (Ex. 16:4). When they were hungry enough to cry out for bread, God gave them bread. How true for us also! If He had first given them bread without their hungering, they might well have complained that they wanted something different, for the flesh in us invariably thinks it knows what we need better than God.

A famine was in the land of Israel. Why? Because the literal famine was to draw attention to the spiritual famine that came before it, a famine for hearing the words of God. Though Israel suffered from the spiritual famine, they did not feel it. So God sent them something they would feel!

If then, for any reason, divine blessing is withheld, the house of bread becomes a place of famine. Well do we know that it is not the desire of God that His people should suffer. He is no niggard, and if the rain is withheld, the fault is with His people and not with Him. He had emphasized this for them, so that they well understood that when heaven was "shut up" it was in chastening.

The famine then was God's call to repentance, and should ever have been so considered: "When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain because they have sinned against Thee." Even where there had been no public departure from God, such an affliction should always have brought them upon their faces, in heart-searching inquiry, Why is this?

"A dearth in the land!" How that would please the Devil. For would not the godless nations that hated Israel say with scornful utterance: "Is that all the Jehovah in Whom you have boasted can do for you? You came to this land when it flowed with milk and honey, and behold it now, dry as a sunbaked or rainless desert, and you, the chosen people, beloved of the Lord, hungry and dying. Our gods are better than yours." But Israel only was to blame; they were suffering because they had broken the commandments of the Lord, and because they were suffering the Devil was delighted, the tender heart of God was grieved, and His Name was blasphemed among the Gentiles.

Verse 16 assures us that the terrible famine in Egypt and Canaan was not merely a providential happening, but God “called for a famine upon the land” to carry out His purpose. It was one ordered item in the great sequence of events.

The siege of Samaria with all its horrors, and the grace of God in all its fulness, were soon forgotten. Neither misery endured, nor mercy received, turned the nation to the Lord their God. Nevertheless, God does not abandon His people. He still acts on their behalf, even though it may be in the way of chastening because of their evil. Thus we find Elisha saying, "The Lord has called for a famine." It is not only revealed to the prophet that a famine is coming, but, that it is sent directly by the Lord, proving the truth of that word which says, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets."

God answers David that the famine was His own governmental judgment because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house having killed some of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites had been allowed by Joshua and the elders of Israel to live in the land, though they were Amorites. They had deceived Joshua into thinking they were from another territory, and Joshua swore by the Lord in making a league with them (Joshua 9). Once this was done, it could not be changed, but Saul was zealous for Israel and Judah, and decided he could kill off these people who were not Israelites. This was not zeal for God, for it involved breaking an oath of God, and though God delayed punishment for this, Israel had to feel the responsibility for it in the infliction of famine.

Who that believes God's word can doubt that the wonders so opposed to nature were all the more evidently of divine purpose? But that purpose was worthy of His goodness and compassion. In a world of sin and suffering, of death and moral ruin and wretchedness He works alike by uncommon bounty and by the hard pinch of want; and for the good of souls yet more by the pain than by the prosperity, that in his anguish the heart might consider why such an affliction came from such a God. The teaching of the two dreams was enigmatic in their forms, but identical in the aim; abundance to the fullest followed by the most abnormal consumption. But why the seven kine and repeated? why the seven ears of corn no less repeated? This needed His interpretation who sent the dreams. Man's power was powerless to open the lock. Wisdom was essential, not that which is earthly, sensual, demonish, but what comes down from above.

The motive is given at its best, designedly. Without questioning the motives which might have been hidden under the ostensible one, nothing of this sort could avail to remove the dishonor from the Lord's name which they had permitted to remain there. The famine showed that, spite of the time that had elapsed, He had not forgotten nor could pass over this; and this should have instruction for us in the ways of God, and give us to realize our need of exercise with regard to them.