Bible Dictionary

HUNGER

Christian Life • Both

Hunger is the craving or need for food, and may also describe starvation caused by scarcity. Scripture uses it figuratively for a deep desire for righteousness and for the soul’s need satisfied in Christ.

Definition

Hunger is the desire or physiological need for food, associated with emptiness of the stomach. It may also mean starvation resulting from lack of food or general scarcity. The term can describe hardship caused by idleness and can be used figuratively for an intense desire for moral and spiritual righteousness.

Biblical Usage

Scripture speaks of hunger as a condition of scarcity and hardship, while also presenting freedom from hunger as a feature of future happiness. Jesus is said to have hungered, and “hungering and thirsting after righteousness” describes passionate striving for moral and spiritual rectitude. The soul that receives Christ is described as one that shall not hunger.

Historical Background

The term may refer either to a bodily sensation or to famine. In some passages translated “hunger,” the Revised Version uses “famine” when general scarcity of food is intended; “an hungred” reflects an older expression for a continuing condition.

Related Figures

Historical Bible Dictionaries

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)

hun'-ger (ra`abh; limos (subs.), peinao (vb.):(1) The desire for food, a physiological sensation associated with emptiness of the stomach, and dependent on some state of the mucous membrane;(2) starvation as the effect of want of food, as Ex 16:3; Isa 49:10;(3) to feel the craving for food as De 8:3; when used to indicate the condition due to general scarcity of food as Jer 38:9; Eze 34:29 it is replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by "famine." The word is used to express the poverty which follows idleness and sloth (Pr 19:15). The absence of this condition is given as one of the characteristics of the future state of happiness (Isa 49:10; Eze 34:29; Re 7:16). Metaphorically the passionate striving for moral and spiritual rectitude is called hungering and thirsting after righteousness (Mt 5:6); and the satisfaction of the soul which receives Christ is described as a state in which "he shall not hunger" (Joh 6:35).On two occasions it is said of our Lord that He hungered (Mt 21:18; Lu 4:2); 9 times the old English expression "an hungred" is used, the "an" being a prefix which indicates that the condition is being continued (Mt 12:1,3; 25:35,37,42,44; Mr 2:25; Lu 6:3 the King James Version). In Mt 4:2 the King James Version, "an hungred" has been changed to "hungered" in the Revised Version (British and American). "Hard bestead and hungry" in Isa 8:21 means bested (that is, placed) in a condition of hardship, "sore distressed," the American Standard Revised Version. The word occurs in Spenser, "Thus ill bestedd and fearful more of shame" (I, i, 24). The reference of the aggravation of the sensation of hunger when one who is starving awakes from a dream of food (Isa 29:8) is graphically illustrated by the experience of the antarctic voyager (Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, II, 9).Alexander Macalister

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