1 Kings 17

Elijah the Tishbite suddenly appears on the scene and then leaves as quickly as he came, only to reappear three years later to challenge the priests of Baal. His name means “The Lord (Jehovah) is my God,” an apt name for a man who called the people back to the worship of Jehovah (18:21, 39). Wicked King Ahab had permitted his wife Jezebel to bring the worship of Baal into Israel (16:31–33) and she was determined to wipe out the worship of Jehovah (18:4). Baal was the Phoenician fertility god who sent rain and bountiful crops, and the rites connected with his worship were unspeakably immoral. Like Solomon who catered to the idolatrous practices of his heathen wives (11:1–8), Ahab yielded to Jezebel’s desires and even built her a private temple where she could worship Baal (16:32–33). Her plan was to exterminate the worshippers of Jehovah and have all the people of Israel serving Baal.

The prophet Elijah is an important figure in the New Testament. John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17), and some of the people even thought he was the promised Elijah (John 1:21; Mal. 4:5–6; Matt. 17:10–13). Elijah was with Moses and Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3), and some students believe that Moses and Elijah are the two witnesses described in Rev. 11:1–14. Elijah wasn’t a polished preacher like Isaiah and Jeremiah, but was more of a rough-hewn reformer who challenged the people to abandon their idols and return to the Lord. He was a courageous man who confronted Ahab personally and rebuked his sin, and he also challenged the priests of Baal to a public contest. He was not only a worker of miracles, but he also experienced miracles in his own life. These two chapters record seven different miracles that Elijah either performed or experienced.

The Jewish people depended on the seasonal rains for the success of their crops. If the Lord didn’t send the early rain in October and November and the latter rain in March and April, there would soon be a famine in the land. But the blessing of the semiannual rains depended on the people obeying the covenant of the Lord (Deut. 11). God warned the people that their disobedience would turn the heavens into bronze and the earth into iron (Deut. 28:23–24; see Lev. 26:3–4, 18–19). The land belonged to the Lord, and if the people defiled the land with their sinful idols, the Lord wouldn’t bless them.

It’s likely that Elijah appeared before King Ahab in October, about the time the early rains should have begun. There had been no rain for six months, from April to October, and the prophet announced that there would be no rain for the next three years! The people were following Baal, not Jehovah, and the Lord could not send the promised rain and still be faithful to His covenant. God always keeps His covenant, whether to bless the people for their obedience or to discipline them for their sins.

God had held back the rain because of the fervent prayers of Elijah, and He would send the rain again in response to His servant’s intercession (James 5:17–18). For the next three years, the word of Elijah would control the weather in Israel! The three and a half years of drought would prepare the people for the dramatic contest on Mount Carmel between the priests of Baal and the prophet of the Lord. Like a faithful servant, attentive to his master’s commands, Elijah stood before the Lord and served him. (Later, his successor, Elisha, would use this same terminology. See 2 Kings 3: and 5:16.) An extended drought, announced and controlled by a prophet of Jehovah, would make it clear to everybody that Baal the storm god was not a true god at all.

After Elijah left the king’s presence, Jezebel must have instigated her campaign to wipe out the prophets of the Lord (18:4). As the drought continued and famine hit the land, Ahab began his search for Elijah, the man he thought caused all the trouble (18:17). In one sense, Elijah did cause the drought, but it was the sins of Ahab and Jezebel that led the nation into disobeying God’s covenant and inviting His chastening. The Lord had a special hiding place for His servant by a brook east of the Jordan, and He also had some unusual “servants” prepared to feed him. The Lord usually leads His faithful people a step at a time as they tune their hearts to His Word. God didn’t give Elijah a three-year schedule to follow. Instead, He directed his servant at each critical juncture in his journey, and Elijah obeyed by faith.

“Go, hide yourself!” was God’s command, and three years later the command would be, “Go, show yourself!” By leaving his public ministry, Elijah created a second “drought” in the land—an absence of the word of the Lord. God’s word was to the Jewish people like the rain from heaven (Deut. 32:2; Isa. 55:10): it was essential to their spiritual lives, it was refreshing, and only the Lord could give it. The silence of God’s servant was a judgment from God (Ps. 74:9), for not to hear God’s living word is to forfeit life itself (Ps. 28:1).

At the brook Cherith (“Kerith Ravine” niv), Elijah had safety and sustenance. Until it dried up, the brook provided water, and each morning and evening the ravens brought him bread and meat. The raven was considered “unclean” and “de-testable” on the Mosaic list of forbidden foods (Lev. 11:13–15; Deut. 14:14), yet God used these birds to help sustain the life of his servant. The ravens didn’t bring Elijah the carrion that they were accustomed to eat, because such food would be unclean for a dedicated Jew. The Lord provided the food and the birds provided the transportation! Just as God dropped the manna into the camp of Israel during their wilderness journey, so He sent the necessary food to Elijah as he waited for the signal to relocate. God feeds the beasts and the ravens (Ps. 147:9; Luke 12:24), and He can use the ravens to carry food to His servant.

As the drought grew worse, the brook dried up, leaving the prophet without water, but he never made a move until the word of the Lord came to tell him what to do. It has well been said that the will of God will never lead us where the grace of God cannot keep us and care for us, and Elijah knew this from experience. (See Isa. 33:15–16.)

Elijah lived at Cherith probably a year, and then God told him to leave. God’s instructions may have shocked the prophet, for the Lord commanded him to travel northeast about a hundred miles to the Phoenician city of Zarephath. God was sending Elijah into Gentile territory, and since Zarephath was not too far from Jezebel’s home city of Sidon, he would be living in enemy territory! Even more, he was instructed to live with a widow whom God had selected to care for him, and widows were usually among the neediest people in the land. Since Phoenicia depended on Israel for much of its food supply (1 Kings 5:9; Acts 12:20), food wouldn’t be too plentiful there. But when God sends us, we must obey and leave the rest to Him, for we don’t live on man’s explanations—we live on God’s promises.

“Because of our proneness to look at the bucket and forget the fountain,” wrote Watchman Nee, “God has frequently to change His means of supply to keep our eyes fixed on the source.” After the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land, the manna ceased to fall into the camp and God changed His way of feeding the people (Josh. 5:10–12). During the early days of the church in Jerusalem, the believers had all that they needed (Acts 4:34–35), but a few years later, the saints in Jerusalem had to receive help from the Gentile believers in Antioch (Acts 11:27–30). Elijah was about to learn what God could do with empty vessels!

The fact that the woman had been instructed by the Lord (v. 9) isn’t proof that she was a believer in the God of Israel, for the Lord gave orders to a pagan king like Cyrus (2 Chron. 36:22) and even called him his “shepherd” (Isa. 44:28). The widow spoke of Jehovah as “the Lord your God” (v. 12, italics mine), for she could easily discern that the stranger speaking to her was a Jew, but even this isn’t evidence she was a believer. It’s probable that Elijah remained with her for two years (18:1), and during that time, the widow and her son surely turned from the worship of idols and put their faith in the true and living God.

The woman’s assets were few: a little oil in a flask, a handful of barley in a large grain jar (“barrel” kjv), and a few sticks to provide fuel for a fire. But Elijah’s assets were great, for God Almighty had promised to take care of him, his hostess, and her son. Elijah gave her God’s promise that neither the jar of grain nor the flask of oil would be used up before the end of the drought and famine. God would one day send the rain, but until then, He would continue to provide bread for them—and He did.

In our modern society, with its credit cards and convenient shopping, we need to remember that each meal we eat is a miracle from the hand of God. We may live far from the farmers who grow our food, but we can’t live without them. “Give us this day our daily bread” is more than a line in a prayer that we may too casually recite. It’s the expression of a great truth, that the Lord cares for us and uses many hands to feed us.

Back of the loaf is the snowy flour, And back of the flour is the mill, And back of the mill is the wheat, sun, and shower, The farmer—and the Father’s will.

This is the first recorded instance in Scripture of the resurrection of a dead person. The evidence seems clear that the widow’s son actually died and didn’t just faint or go into a temporary swoon. He stopped breathing (v. 17), and his spirit left the body (vv. 21–22). According to James 2:26, when the spirit leaves a body, the person is dead. The great distress of both the mother and the prophet would suggest that the boy was dead, and both of them used the word “slay” with reference to the event (vv. 18 and 20 kjv).

The mother’s response was to feel guilty because of her past sins. She believed that her son’s death was God’s way of punishing her for her misdeeds. It isn’t unusual for people to feel guilty in connection with bereavement, but why would she point her finger at her guest? She recognized Elijah as a man of God, and perhaps she thought his presence in the home would protect her and her son from trouble. Or maybe she felt that God had informed her guest about her past life, something she should have confessed to him. Her words remind us of the question of the disciples in John 9:2, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Elijah’s response was to carry the lad to his upstairs room, perhaps on the roof, and to cry out to the Lord for the life of the child. He couldn’t believe that the Lord would miraculously provide food for the three of them and then allow the son to die. It just didn’t make sense. Elijah didn’t stretch himself out on the boy’s dead body in hopes he could transfer his life to the lad, for he knew that only God can impart life to the dead. Certainly his posture indicated total identification with the boy and his need, and this is an important factor when we intercede for others. It was after Elijah stretched himself on the child for the third time that the Lord raised him from the dead, a reminder that our own Savior arose from the dead on the third day. Because He lives, we can share His life by putting our faith in Him. (See 2 Kings 4: and Acts 20:10.)

The result of this miracle was the woman’s public confession of her faith in the God of Israel. She now knew for sure that Elijah was a true servant of God and not just another religious teacher looking for some support. She also knew that the Word he had taught her was indeed the Word of the true and living God. During the time he lived with the widow and her son, Elijah had shown them that God sustains life (the meal and oil didn’t run out) and that God imparts life (the boy was raised from the dead).

Elijah hadn’t been in public ministry for a long time, yet his private ministry to the woman and her son was just as important both to the Lord and to them. The servant who won’t “hide himself” and minister to a few people isn’t really ready to stand on Mount Carmel and call down fire and rain from heaven. People who have proved themselves faithful with a few things in small places can be trusted by the Lord with many things before many people in the bigger places (Matt. 25:21). Elijah had proved the power of God in Baal’s own home territory, so he was now ready to challenge and defeat Baal in the kingdom of Israel.

During these three years as an exile and a hunted man (18:10), Elijah has learned a great deal about the Lord, about himself and about the needs of people. He has learned to live a day at a time, trusting God for his daily bread. For three years, people have been asking, “Where is the prophet Elijah? Is he able to do anything to ease the burdens we carry because of this drought?” But the Lord is more concerned about the worker than the work, and He has been preparing Elijah for the greatest challenge of faith in his entire ministry.

Before we leave the account of Elijah’s sojourn with the widow of Zarephath, we must consider how our Lord used this story in the sermon He preached in the synagogue in Nazereth (Luke 4:16–30). During the first part of the sermon, the listeners approved of what Jesus said and complimented Him on His “gracious words.” But then He reminded them of the sovereign grace of God that reached other nations besides the covenant people of Israel. The great Jewish prophet Elijah actually ministered to a Gentile widow and her son and had even lived with them, and yet he could have ministered to any of the many widows in the nation of Israel. His second illustration was from the ministry of Elisha, Elijah’s successor, who actually healed a Gentile general of leprosy (2 Kings 5:1–15). Certainly there were plenty of Jewish lepers he might have cured!

Our Lord’s emphasis was on the grace of God. He wanted the proud Jewish congregation in the synagogue to realize that the God of Israel was also the God of the Gentiles (see Rom. 3:29) and that both Jews and Gentiles were saved by putting their faith in Him. Of course, the Jews wouldn’t accept the idea that they were sinners like the Gentiles and had to be saved, so they rejected both the messenger and the message and took Jesus out of the synagogue to cast Him down from the hill. Elijah’s ministry to the widow and her son was proof that God is no respecter of persons and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Whether a person is a religious Jew or a pagan Gentile, the only way of salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ.