ABSTRACT
This chapter shows some examples from biblical and Judaic sources how severe famine led to hunger and poverty, this being considered equal to death. The Israeli scholar David Flusser correctly called Jesus' parable of 'The Compassionate Father of Two Difficult Sons', commonly called in English 'The Prodigal Son', 'ein Meisterwerk der erzhlenden Volksprosa'. In Jesus' parable, the Prodigal Son 'spent everything', so that when a severe famine took place, 'he began to be in need'. Hos.14.210 was the haftarah or prophetic reading for the Sabbath of Repentance just before the Day of Atonement in the Palestinian triennial lectionary system. R. Joshua b. Levi, a first generation Palestinian Amora, then asks what 'went about dejectedly' means, and maintains that King Ahab now 'went barefoot'. The homiletically Midrash now explains how Ahab, a notorious sinner, idolater, even murderer, then sought repentance and was granted it.
