And there was a famine. רָעָב, from a root signifying to hunger, the primary. idea appearing to lie in that of an ample, i.e. empty, stomach (Gesenius, Furst). The term is used of individuals, men or animal (Psalms 34:11; Psalms 50:12); or of regions (Psalms 41:1-13:55).
In the land. Of Canaan, which, though naturally fertile, was, on account of its imperfect cultivation, subject to visitations of dearth (cf. Genesis 26:1; Genesis 41:56), especially in dry seasons, when the November and December rains, on which Palestine depended, either failed or were scanty.
The occurrence of this famine just at the time of Abram's entering the land was an additional trial to his faith. And Abram went down to Egypt. Mizraim (vide Genesis 10:6) was lower than Palestine, and celebrated then, as later, as a rich and fruitful country, though sometimes even Egypt suffered from a scarcity of corn, owing to a failure in the annual inundation of the Nile.
Eichhorn notes it as an authentication of this portion of the Abrahamic history that the patriarch proposed to take himself and his household to Egypt, since at that time no corn trade existed between the two countries such as prevailed in the days of Jacob (vide Havernick's Introduction, § 18).
The writer to the Hebrews remarks it as an instance of the patriarch's faith that he did not return to either Haran or Ur (Hebrews 11:15, Hebrews 11:16). To sojourn there. To tarry as a stranger, but not to dwell.
Whether this journey was undertaken with the Divine sanction and ought to be regarded as an act of faith, or in obedience to his own fears and should be reckoned as a sign of unbelief, does not appear.
Whichever way the patriarch elected to act in his perplexity, to leave Canaan or reside in it, there was clearly a strain intended to be put upon his faith. For the famine was grievous (literally, heavy) in the land.