famine
ra.av denotes severe food shortage affecting a land and its people, with one explicit figurative use for lack of hearing the LORD’s words.
The term most often denotes a severe shortage of food in a land, bringing hunger, migration, food reserves, or death; it also appears once in a stated contrast where the lack is not of bread or water but of hearing the LORD’s words.
Senses in use
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Severe food scarcity in a land · dominant
The absolute noun identifies a condition of food deprivation affecting a territory and its inhabitants. In Genesis 41:36 the APB renders a clause about storing food for years of scarcity so that the land will not perish, while Genesis 47:13 renders the lack of food and the resulting languishing of Egypt and Canaan. In 2 Kings 25:3, the APB renders the scarcity in the city as severe and says that the people had no food.
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Lack of hearing the LORD’s words · rare
In Amos 8:11, two absolute tokens occur in an announced scarcity explicitly distinguished from a lack of bread or water. The APB renders the contrast as “not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD,” showing a non-food use defined by the verse’s own contrast.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly presents the term with “famine” in clauses about severe food shortage, lack of food, and threatened death. In Amos 8:11 it retains that wording within a contrast involving “hearing the words of the LORD”.