Amos 4:8

wandered&c. would totter … but would not be satisfied: the frequentative tenses are continued. Eastern cities are dependent largely for their water upon underground cisterns in which the rain is collected and stored; but the quantity thus supplied in the more fortunate city would not suffice for the wants of so many more than its normal inhabitants. The word rendered wandermeans properly to move with an unsteady, uncertain gait, to totter;it is thus used of one drunken (Isaiah 24:20; Isaiah 29:9; Psalms 107:27 [R.V. stagger), or blind (Lamentations 4:14), or, as Psalms 59:15 and here, of one exhausted for want of food (cf. of beggars, Psalms 109:10). Cf. ch. Amos 8:12. For droughts in Palestine, cf. Deuteronomy 11:17; Deu 28:22; 1 Kings 8:35; 1 Kings 17:1 ff.; Jeremiah 3:3; Jeremiah 14:2-6; Haggai 1:10 f.