A scarcity of food
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G3042 is a Greek noun for hunger, famine, or severe shortage of food. Acts joins a predicted famine to organized interchurch relief, Luke places famine within a vulnerable person's collapse, Romans names it as real suffering that cannot sever Christ's love, and Matthew includes famines among upheavals that do not by themselves reveal an end-date.
Reader summary
Full entry for λιμός (G3042) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3042 is a Greek noun for hunger, famine, or severe shortage of food. Acts joins a predicted famine to organized interchurch relief, Luke places famine within a vulnerable person's collapse, Romans names it as real suffering that cannot sever Christ's love, and Matthew includes famines among upheavals that do not by themselves reveal an end-date.
The BSB source-word alignment has 12 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include famine (7), famines (3), hunger (1), starving (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 24:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (4), Acts (2), Revelation (2), 2 Corinthians (1).
G3042 is a Greek noun for hunger, famine, or severe shortage of food. Acts joins a predicted famine to organized interchurch relief, Luke places famine within a vulnerable person's collapse, Romans names it as real suffering that cannot sever Christ's love, and Matthew includes famines among upheavals that do not by themselves reveal an end-date. The noun does not blame hungry people, promise believers exemption from scarcity, or authorize speculative timelines.
G3042 helps teachers address prophecy, relief, repentance, material suffering, endurance, and eschatological sobriety while rejecting date-setting, neglect of practical aid, shame-based assistance, prosperity claims, and the idea that spiritual confidence makes emergency planning or public responsibility unnecessary.
G3042 names literal hunger and famine in narrative, pastoral, and eschatological settings. New Testament passages respond with relief, honest recognition of hardship, repentance without universal victim blame, and watchfulness without predictive sensationalism.
One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world. (This happened under Claudius.)
Agabus foretells a widespread famine, and the Antioch disciples respond by determining to send relief according to ability.
After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need.
A severe famine deepens the younger son's destitution after he has exhausted his resources in a distant country.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Paul names famine among severe hardships that cannot separate believers from the love of Christ.
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Jesus includes famines among upheavals before the end while warning disciples not to be alarmed or deceived about timing.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Famine or acute food scarcity, not mere hunger; often apocalyptic sign of God's judgment or end-times upheaval.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
12 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read versea famine, hunger
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 6 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 12 lexical occurrence verses.
λιμός is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G3042 refuses to let famine become either mere statistics or a prediction device. Acts 11 records a prophetic warning whose practical fruit is planned relief: disciples give according to ability and send help to believers facing need. Luke 15 uses a severe famine within the younger son's descent, yet the parable does not authorize a general claim that every hungry person squandered resources.
Romans 8 treats famine as a grave threat without suggesting that Christians are insulated from it; the promise is that such suffering cannot separate them from Christ's love. Matthew 24 mentions famines while warning against alarm and premature conclusions about the end. These texts call churches toward measured urgency: verify needs, support trusted relief, preserve dignity, share across regions, plan for disruption, and refuse profiteering or coercive conversion.
They also call teachers to resist viral prophecy claims and simplistic blame. G3042 holds together material solidarity, repentance where actually warranted, endurance amid suffering, and confidence in Christ without denying policy, logistics, medicine, agriculture, peacebuilding, or the agency of affected communities.
Acts.11.28
G3042 is a Greek noun for hunger or famine and can denote an individual's hunger or a regional food crisis. Narrative and discourse context determine scale, cause, and theological function; the noun itself does not identify moral blame or eschatological timing.
Old Testament famines shape patriarchal movement, Joseph's planning, Ruth's migration, siege narratives, and prophetic warning. New Testament G3042 carries that material seriousness into relief, repentance, persecution, inseparable love, and restrained eschatological teaching.