The word of the Lord should be, and is unto the Soule what food is to the body, for refreshing and strengthen∣ing thereof, for keeping it in life, and enabling to acti∣on and work; Therefore is the want thereof called famine in the land. See Job 23.12. 2. When the word is despised, and men be weary of it, God is justly pro∣voked to take it from them; for, whereas the false priest expresseth, their general temper, chap. 7.12, 13. now the dayes come, Saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, of hearing the words of the Lord. 3. As mens Souls are better then their bodies, and their eternal welfare to be preferred to a natural life; So a famine of the word is a sadder stroak, and speaks more wrath, then if the Lord should let a Nation starve for want of meat and drink: Therfore is it expressed so as not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water (which were a small matter in comparison of this) but of hearing the words of the Lord; And therefore also is a Behold prefixed to it. 4. Greatest despisers of the word, and they who would think it their great mer∣cy to be rid of the trouble thereof, may yet come into extremities wherein they shall misse the word, and would be glad of it, and take much pains to enjoy it; for, they shall wander, and run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord. 5. It is righteous with God, that they who contemne the word, when it is offered, and do misse and seek it in trouble, onely out of the sense of calamities, to get ease of them, and not out of any sense of sin, or desire of true spi∣ritual comfort; It is righteous, I say, with God, that such should come no speed in seeking after the word, though they take never so much pains to run through all the corners of the land: for, they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not finde it. Where in assigning, the borders of the land, the onely difficulty is, that as the great sea was on the west, so the other is placed south, which elsewhere is said to lie eastward. But it sufficeth us, that however the dead sea lay east∣ward to Judah, yet it lay south or southeast to Israel; or, it may be conceived, that the sea on the south is the red sea, which sometime is put for the border of the land, Exod. 23.31. It is further to be considered, that how∣ever he speak of their wandering with relation to the