1 Kings 17

1. AND Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, 2 but according to my word. And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, 3 Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before 4 Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the 5 ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for 6 he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought 7 him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the 8 brook. And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. 8, 9 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which 9 belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to 10 sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the 11 city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks: and he called to her, and said, 12 Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going 13 to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. 14 And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in the 15 barrel, and a little oil in the cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go 16 in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, 17 Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it 18 forth unto me, and afterward make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the LORD, the 19 God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the 20 day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the say- 21 ing of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. The barrel of meal 22 wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he 23 spake by Elijah. And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the 24 mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in 25 him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? thou art 26 come unto me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son! And he said unto her, 27 Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the chamber, 28 where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O 29 LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying 30 her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and 31 said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again. And the LORD 32 hearkened unto the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he 33 revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the 34 house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the 35 woman said to Elijah, Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the 36 LORD in thy mouth is truth.

THE picture which the historian has just drawn of the shameless idolatry and the gross degeneracy of the earlier part of Ahab’s reign forms a fit prelude to an account of the ministry of the great prophet Elijah, which occupies this and several succeeding chapters; for the two stand together in the closest connection.

It was only the unprecedented corruption of that age which necessitated such a mission, and a mission armed with such credentials as his. It will be obvious to the most cursory reader that the narratives comprised in the remaining portion of this book and the earlier part of 2 Kings are of a very different character from those which have so far been before us. The ministry of Elijah and Elisha alike is little more than a series of miracles. Of their words comparatively few are recorded; we hear of little but the signs and wonders that they wrought. Neither Elijah nor Elisha, as Ewald has observed, “originated anything essentially new,” but the task assigned them was one which needed supernatural support and attestation, no less than the promulgation of a new law or gospel. It was their work, at the very darkest hour in the spiritual history of Israel, when a determined effort was being made to stamp out the faith of God’s elect, when the nation chosen of God to be the depositary of His truth was fast lapsing into heathenism and into unutterable abominations, it was their work to witness for God and truth and purity. If God’s purposes of grace to our world which had been ripening from age to age were not now to be frustrated; if the one lamp which cast a ray on the world’s thick darkness was not to be utterly extinguished, then, as far as we can see, God must send special messengers, and arm them, in token of their mission and authority, with superhuman powers. The age demanded the messenger; the messenger must have credentials; the credentials could only be miraculous. Hammond.

This darkest night of Israel’s spiritual declension was broken by the appearance of the greatest of all the prophets since Moses, and the type of that great preacher of repentance who was the forerunner of the Christ. Elijah the Tishbite has been well called “the grandest and the most romantic character that Israel ever produced. He meets us with a suddenness as startling as the first appearance of John the Baptist preaching repentance in the wilderness of Judea. There is not a word of his parentage; and of his birthplace we only know that it was in the land of Gilead east of Jordan. But this one fact accounts for the prophet’s outward peculiarities. Like Jephthah among the judges, he came of a wild, uncultured, pastoral race, whose mode of life had become more and more assimilated to that of the Bedouins of the neighboring desert, and who retained great force of character and power of physical endurance. His only clothing was a girdle of skin round his loins, and the “mantle,” or cape, of sheepskin, the descent of which upon Elisha has passed into a proverb. Sheltered from Jezebel’s persecution in the solitudes of Mount Gilead, he had been prepared by Jehovah for his mission to the apostate king and people. P. S.

Like the Baptist in a subsequent age, Elijah was a prophet of the wilderness. The conditions of his work necessitated his frequent seclusion in the desert, in some near exile, or in some secure hiding-place, whence he issued forth, whenever occasion demanded it, to deliver his lofty protest, and to offer his single-handed defiance to Ahab. Like the Baptist, too, he wore the primitive garb of a man of the desert—a mantle of skin thrown loosely over him, and secured round his waist by a leathern girdle. He was of little account in an estimate of physical forces, but among the moral forces of the world he was one of the greatest. His temperament corresponded. A man of quick, fiery impulses, extreme in his emotional fluctuations; bold as a lion in the hour of duty and conflict, and capable of intense excitement, and then giving way to corresponding depression. Allon.

Ahab far outdistanced even his father’s wickedness, first by entering into a matrimonial alliance with the vile dynasty of Ethbaal, and then by formally making the worship of Baal the established religion of Israel, with all of vileness and of persecution which this implied. In these circumstances, surely, we may look for extraordinary interposition on the part of Jehovah. For, with such a king and queen, and with a people, not only deprived of the Temple services and the Levitical priesthood, but among whom the infamous rites of Baal and Astarte had become the established worship, ordinary means would manifestly have been in vain. Again and again had messengers sent from God spoken His Word and announced His judgments, without producing even a passing effect. It needed more than this, if the worship of Baal was to be effectually checked. Accordingly, this period of Israel’s history is also marked by a great extension of the prophetic order and mission. It was theirs to keep alive the knowledge of Jehovah in the land; theirs also to meet the gross and daring idolatry of king and people by a display of power which could neither be resisted nor gainsaid. Hence the unparalleled frequency of miracles, mostly intended to prove the vainness of idols as against the power of the living God, the reality of the prophets’ mission, and of the authority which the Lord had delegated to His messengers. Only thus could any effect be produced. It was an extraordinary period—and God raised up in it an extraordinary agency. Hence the unusual accumulation of the miraculous—and that chiefly in its aspect of power—as displayed by an Elijah and an Elisha, so far from seeming strange or unaccountable, appears eminently called for. A. E.

At this period the prophets act their most prominent and important part in Jewish history, particularly in that of Israel, where the Levites having been expelled, and the priesthood degraded, they remained the only defenders of the law and religion of the land. Prophecy, in its more extensive meaning, comprehended the whole course of religious education; and as the Levitical class were the sole authorized conservators and interpreters of the law, the prophets were usually of that tribe, or at least persons educated under their care. Now, however, they assume a higher character, and appear as a separate and influential class in the State. They are no longer the musicians, poets, and historians of the country, but men full of a high and solemn enthusiasm, the moral and religious teachers of the people. The most eminent are described as directly, and sometimes suddenly, designated for their office by divine inspiration, endowed with the power of working miracles, and of foretelling future events. But, setting aside their divine commission, the prophets were the great constitutional patriots of the Jewish State, the champions of virtue, liberty, justice, and the strict observance of the civil and religious law, against the iniquities of the kings and of the people. In no instance do they fall beneath, often they rise above, the lofty and humane morals of the Mosaic Institutes. They are always on the side of the oppressed; they boldly rebuke but never factiously insult their kings; they defend, but never flatter the passions of the people. In no instance does one of the acknowledged seers, like the turbulent demagogues of the Grecian or Roman republics, abuse his popular influence for his own personal aggrandizement or authority. Milman.

1. Elijah’s first startling appearance and message to Ahab. In Israel, irreligion had reached the height of shameless impiety. Baalworship, or idolatry of the vilest and most blasphemous character, had been enforced upon the people by fierce and murderous persecution—the first on record for a pure faith in God. Under the sacrilegious inspiration of Ahab and Jezebel, these kindred royal rulers, the altars of Jehovah had been overthrown, His prophets and servants slain. The great mass of the people, too, were utterly given up to corrupt and horrible abominations. At this point it was, when the iniquity of king, queen and nation was at its highest, that God once more interposes, by raising up and qualifying one man for a signal mission of merciful warning. As needful, He confronts these strong-willed royal spirits with one of even greater might and sternness of soul; one whose faith and courage never once yielded to extreme personal peril; one whose name—meaning Jehovah my God—indicated the object of his trust, and the source of his dauntless courage.

The story of Elijah is one of the grandest personal histories of the Old Testament. Confessedly at the head of the prophets and reformers in the sublimer aspects of character, especially in strength of faith and of endurance, he can be matched with no other than Moses, the great lawgiver and leader. As these twain mighty spirits were most eminent in work wrought for God, so they impressed themselves most deeply and abidingly upon the entire Jewish people. Most remarkable was this in the case of Elijah, for his direct work was confined to the ten tribes of Israel who soon became extinct. Yet so strong and vivid continued the memory of his character and deeds, that when the Lord of glory appeared on earth the Jews said, “It is Elias!” With Moses, too, Elijah shared the transfiguration of Jehovah Jesus on the holy mount.

Of Elijah’s origin nothing is told save that he came from the wild hill country of Gilead east of Jordan, lying between Moab on the south and Bashan on the north. His birth, parentage, training and history up to full age, are unrecorded. With sudden startling words he first announces his presence to Ahab, as though he were an angel from heaven instantaneously appearing and sharply uttering the rebuke of Jehovah.

With the most solemn and sublime asseveration of human speech, the prophet affirms the living Jehovah still to be the only God of Israel, though Ahab had rejected him for false and impotent idol-gods. Then he proclaims to the impious monarch God’s interdict upon the land of Israel. “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand [thus likening himself to an angel of the Divine presence], there shall not be rain nor dew these years, but according to my word,” or through my intercession, as his meaning is interpreted by James 5:17. Upon the early and latter rains, and during the long intervals upon the regularity and abundance of the heavy dews, the productiveness of the land depended. The withdrawal of both rain and dew was one of the punishments threatened in case of apostasy (De. 28:23, 24). And the effect of such withdrawal, even for a short period, involved the extreme of suffering from famine. No reason does Elijah assign for his coming or message. None was needed, for Ahab knew it to be the message of an offended God. Therefore with the utterance of this fearful warning, awaiting no reply, the prophet as suddenly disappears from the monarch’s presence. B.

He stood before the Lord God of Israel; and in the consciousness of that presence to stand before Ahab was as nothing. His word is abrupt, pithy, terrible—a bolt suddenly and unerringly shot—and it was the manner of speech of his entire ministry. And it is characteristic of Elijah that he neither fears nor falters. His word is as bold as it is momentous. His well-chosen word affirms the very heart of the theocratic faith. He stood before the Lord God the prophet of repentance, the restorer of the Covenant; he knows no reserves, he admits no compromise. It is surely one of the most audacious words ever spoken. No word of Moses to Pharaoh is bolder. With one stroke he breaks down the bridge behind him. It is one of those conjunctions of king and prophet, physical force and moral, armed power and dauntless faith, of which the religious history of the world records so many instances—Moses before Pharaoh, Christ before Pilate, the apostles before the Sanhedrim, Paul before Felix, Luther at Worms. There is no reason to doubt that this was the absolute beginning of Elijah’s public career. It is in harmony with all the dramatic movements of his history, and is incompatible with any supposition of quiet preparation. It was a bold challenge to Ahab, as of an ambassador sent, not to debate a treaty, but to deliver an ultimatum. Allon.

With the suddenness of a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder out of an Eastern sky Elijah the prophet bursts upon us in the narrative of the Old Testament. As he was taken away when his work was done, in a chariot of fire with horses of fire going up by a whirlwind into heaven, so it may be said he came. Everything was going on in Israel in its ordinary way. The people were at peace; and nothing seems to have disturbed their king as he pursued the evil courses on which he had embarked. All at once Elijah appears upon the scene. With the very first mention made of him he is before us in all the fulness of his mission and in all the strength of that bold, uncompromising character which he ever afterward displayed. . . . Elijah’s work was very different from that of Moses, and no less different from that of Samuel. At his hands no new polity was needed. He had to frame no new laws. His work, it may be almost said, was to be summarized in one great act; in so far as it was done in the sight of men, it was to be begun and completed in a day. We do not, therefore, need to be informed as to his early training. Enough, if we know that, in communion with God and his own heart, he learned what no schools and no mere intercourse with men can teach—the greatness of the one Creator and Ruler of all; that faith in the Divine power which makes him feel, along with the deepest sense of his own weakness, that he can say to the mountain before him, “Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;” and that superiority to the shows and fashions of a fleeting world which communion with the everlasting hills, and with Him who planted them or shakes them at His pleasure, is so well fitted to impart. W. M.

Faith is the great word to be written in the forefront of Elijah’s history. He was “a man of like passions as we are”—tempted as we are, open as we are to joy and pain—yet of him, of all men that had lived since “the father of the faithful,” it was of him most eminently true that “he staggered not at the promises” or commands “of God through unbelief.” The chapter before us is full of faith—nothing but faith. Kitto.

The Lord liveth, before whom I stand. How distinct and abiding must the vision of God have been which burned before the inward eye of the man that struck out that phrase! Wherever I am, whatever I do, I am before Him. To my purged eye there is the Apocalypse of heaven, and I behold the great throne, and the solemn ranks of ministering spirits, my fellow-servants, hearkening to the voice of His word. No excitement of work, no strain of effort, no distraction of circumstances, no glitter of gold, or dazzle of earthly brightness, dimmed that vision for this prophet. A. M.—To be an instrument for the accomplishment of the Divine will, and for the glorifying of His name, was his ardent desire; he could say, with Isaiah’s watchman, “Lord, I stand continually upon the watch-tower in the day-time, and I am set in my ward whole nights” (Isa. 21: 8). His life was a hearkening to God’s voice; he passed his days in the presence of his Eternal King, and, “Lord, speak! for Thy servant heareth,” was his watchword. Such was Elijah, by the grace of God, and thus did he stand before the Lord God of Israel. Krummacher.

An habitual attitude of the soul is pointed at in Elijah’s language. To hold constant intercourse with God, to become familiar with Him, to have always an open ear for His words, to be always ready to listen to and proclaim His pleasure was the spirit of the prophet’s life. Hence his authority; hence his strength. Before one who could and did so live, earthly distinctions faded. W. M.

There shall not be dew nor rain.

Elijah here boldly predicted a long drought to Ahab, not to be removed “but according to his word”—that is, by his intercession. He apprehended that the idolatries of the nation would draw down destruction from God, and therefore prayed for a lesser chastisement to work its reformation. And when that end was accomplished, he prayed again for its remission. So it is understood by the son of Sirach, Ecelus, 48 : 10, and also in the New Testament, “Elias prayed earnestly that it might not rain: he prayed again and the heaven gave rain.” Hales.

It was all most startling: the sudden, strange, wild apparition; the bold confronting of king and people there in Samaria; the announcement apparently so incredible in itself, and in such contrast to the scene of wealth and fruitfulness all around; the unexpected pronunciation of the name Jehovah in such a place; the authority which he pleaded and the power which he claimed—in general, even the terms of his message: “Lives Jehovah, the God of Israel, which I stand before His face! If there be these years dew or rain, except by the mouth [the spoken means] of my word!” What answer Ahab made, what impression it produced on him or his people, Holy Scripture, in its Divine self-consciousness and sublime indifference to what may be called “effect,” does not condescend even to notice. Nay, here also silence is best—and the prophet himself must withdraw as suddenly as he had come, hide himself from human ken, not be within reach of question or answer, and let God work, alone and unseen. An absolute pause with that thunder-cloud overhead—unremoved and apparently unremovable—in presence of which man and Baal shall be absolutely powerless: such was the fitting sequence to Elijah’s announcement. A. E.

2-7. By God’s command Elijah dwells for a year by the brook Cherith, and is fed by ravens. Eastward from Samaria, as bidden by the Lord, he goes, and conceals himself from the king’s search by the brook Cherith, near the Jordan. Without question or hesitancy “he went and did according to the word of the Lord.” The hiding was not of Elijah’s seeking through lack of courage. It was at God’s own bidding. During the long interval (three years) of drought, the prophet was to abide in seclusion. This concealment was for his personal protection from Ahab’s vengeance, and for his relief from importunity by the suffering people. It was also that Elijah might have opportunity to put God’s pledges of deliverance and help to actual test, and so be himself assured of His power and faithfulness; and that Jehovah might test and prove and confirm Elijah’s faith during the three years’ process of teaching and training him for the grand mission of his prolonged life. The prophet’s first home was in one of the many caverns beneath the steep mountain-cliff, and beside the yet flowing brook. Here in solitary thought, and holding communion only with God, he waits further Divine direction. And God not only protects His servant in this hiding-place, but by means the most improbable, supernaturally provides him with bread and flesh. Morning and night, a whole year round, carrion birds, whose instinct is to snatch away meat from others, who even abandon their own young to God’s care (Job 38 : 41), whose rapacity and greed are notably excessive, are constrained to deny their own natures, and bring the best of their getting for the prophet’s sustenance. And this surpassing marvel, whatever else its design for those that read the story, brought sustenance to Elijah’s spirit as well; for the daily visits of the ravens assured his faith of God’s abiding presence, and confirmed his conviction that present inaction was his duty. So, too, in this quiet, solitary retreat God carried on a needful training process in the prophet’s soul, preparing him for great achievement. B.

God prepares men for great deeds by great trial, and tests His weapons severely before using. But these long years among the wild scenery of the desert were all building up character. Solitude is the mother country of the strong; and, in some form or other, every man who has done much for God and his fellows has had to be “in the deserts till the day of his shewing.” A. M.—It is remarkable how God’s elect messengers, each in his turn, have been sent “apart into a desert place to rest awhile.” Moses must spend forty years in the great and terrible wilderness; must spend forty days and forty nights in Horeb, the Mount of God. Elijah himself only emerges from the Cherith to go to another hiding-place at Zarephath, and again he passes to the same wilderness and the same mount where Moses was. The Baptist’s life was almost divided between the desert and the prison. Paul must learn his gospel in Arabia. Hammond.

The desert was, from the time of Moses to the days of John the Baptist, the great school of the prophets. These men of God were trained for their work: 1. By being brought face to face with their sacred mission in all its greatness, and free from the prejudices and petty influences of human society. There they could steadfastly contemplate the Divine ideal, undistracted by the rude realities of man’s fallen condition. 2. There they were also cut off from human aid, left to test their own strength, or rather to prove their own utter weakness, and, overwhelmed with the sense of it, to cast themselves wholly on Divine strength. Thus they received directly from God, as did Elijah, the supplies by which they lived, and realized the conditions of absolute and immediate trust in Him. 3. This loving converse of the prophets with their God brought them into closer fellowship, more intimate union, with Him. Thus they came forth from the desert, like Moses from the Mount of Sinai, bearing unconsciously upon them the reflection of His glory. As Paul says, “We, beholding as with open face the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). Considerations like these have a fit application to the pastor, who ought to be much in solitary communion with God in order to be raised above the compromises of principle so common in society, and to get his whole nature permeated with Divine strength. Every Christian soul has in like manner a prophet’s mission, and ought therefore often to seek the desert solitude in which the Invisible is brought near, and to frequent those sacred mountain-tops of prayer where the disciple, like the Master, renews his strength. E. de P.

To Elijah it may have been of the utmost consequence to see that, in the very moment of his severest trial, nature and the God of nature were on his side; and nothing could more effectually convey that lesson to him than the service of these unclean and ravenous birds. Morning after morning, evening after evening, bread and flesh were there. Could he fail to remember the manna and the quails with which God had of old fed His people in their wanderings, or the streams of water with which in the desert He had quenched their thirst? His position was precisely analogous to theirs. In such circumstances the old histories of his nation would unquestionably come back upon him with renewed freshness and power. In like manner would the living God now deal with him. There was strength, comfort, joy, hope, in the thought. W. M.

8-16. By another Divine command, Elijah abides for two years and a half with the widow of Zarephath. His prediction to Ahab had come to pass. Moisture had ceased to fall from heaven. The earth was scorched, and its herbage withered. The flow of the rivulets was checked, and the streams were dried. And God will not open an unfailing spring to give the prophet’s brook miraculous supply; for this would cross His purpose toward the people, and attract unwelcome visitors to the place of Elijah’s concealment. So the word of the Lord bade him take the long journey (forty miles) to Zarephath or Sarepta, a town on the seacoast between Tyre and Sidon. There in Jezebel’s heathen land he could dwell, safe alike from Ahab’s violence or importunity; while the horror of the famine was deepening, and the anguish of the people becoming more intense. As before God had said of the ravens, so here He assures the prophet, “I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” In either case He secured the fulfilment of His word by methods and influences suited to the instrument or the agent employed. So He ever chooses fitting agents, instruments, and opportunities for the bringing of His will to pass.

True to His purpose, fulfilling only His will, are all conjunctions of events. Therefore at the moment of Elijah’s arrival at the gate of Sarepta, behold the widow woman was there, gathering sticks for the cooking of her last meal. Weary and famished with his long foot travel, he is yet alert to discover if this be his appointed helper. The woman’s instant movement in response to his simple request for water, was indication enough to induce his further request for bread. The solemn asseveration of the woman at the outset of her answer, “As the Lord thy God liveth,” shows that she recognized Elijah as an Israelite, and a servant of the God of Israel; and in her whole touching reply the inspired prophet saw that this was the woman to whom he had been sent.

A special inspiration directed his response—a response which sharply tested, while it stimulated and encouraged, the woman’s faith. “Supply my hunger first out of the little thou hast, and afterward prepare for thyself and for thy son. For the Lord God of Israel hath said that thy meal shall not waste, nor thy cruse of oil fail, until the Lord send rain upon the earth.” Taking the word of Elijah as the word of the living God, without a moment’s doubt or demur, with a faith of kindred simplicity and sublimity to the faith of that other Phoenician mother who victoriously wrestled in pleading with Christ, “she went and did according to the saying of Elijah.” In the utterly self-consecrating spirit of the poor widow who in Christ’s presence gave her little all for the Temple service, this widowed mother willingly denied herself and her son their little remnant of food, that she might give to the man of God, in the assured trust that the Lord would make full return. And in thus doing, “she bore as nobly as Elijah all tests brought to bear on her faith. He could truly have said, ‘I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.’ Consequently, to none of the many widows of Israel was Elijah sent save to her.”

Thus signally anticipating the New Testament spirit, and proving the New Testament truth that “there is that scattereth and yet increaseth,” “she and he and her house” for two and a half years were fed from the unwasting barrel of meal and the unfailing cruse of oil. So God commanded a blessing upon her ready trust and willing obedience to His word, as spoken by the mouth of His servant. And so He prepared a restful home for the lonely prophet. Through undisturbed communion with God, and long study of His ways with His people, and of the course that people had pursued and were pursuing, the prophet’s training in faith and fortitude, in consecration and courage, was advanced. Thus was he girded with needful inward might for his sublime mission as the sole champion of Jehovah against the rebellious court and people of Israel. B.

It is difficult to know which most to wonder at: Elijah’s calmness, consistency, and readiness of faith, or the widow’s almost incredible simplicity of trustfulness. Elijah did not hesitate to go on with the trial of his hostess to the end; least of all, was he afraid of the possible consequences. As in every real trial of our trust, there was first a general promise, and, on the ground of it, a specific demand, followed by an assurance to conquering faith (“the cad of meal shall not come to an end, nor the cruse of oil fail”). But, if it was as he told her, why this demand in its sharply trying severity: first, to use for Elijah part of the very little she had, and to bring it to him, and only after that to go back and prepare for herself and her son? Needless, indeed, the trial would seem, except as a test of her faith; yet not a mere test, since if she stood it and inherited the promise, it would be such confirmation of it, such help and blessing to her—alike spiritually and temporally

—as to constitute the beginning of a new life. And so it ever is; and therefore does every specific demand upon our faith stand between a general promise and a special assurance, that, resting upon the one, we may climb the other; and thus every specific trial—and every trial is also one of our faith—may become a fresh starting-point in the spiritual life.

And the widow of Sarepta obeyed. It requires no exercise of imagination to realize what her difficulties in so doing must have been. One thing at least is clear: that this heathen woman, whose knowledge of Jehovah could only have been rudimentary and incipient, and who yet, at the word of a stranger, could give up her own and her son’s last meal, because a prophet had bidden it, and promised her miraculous supply for the future, must have had the most simple childlike trustfulness in the God of Israel. What a lesson this, and how full of comfort, to Elijah! There was faith not only in Israel, but wherever He had planted its seed. Elijah had spread the wings of the God of Israel’s promise (1 K. 17:14), and this poor heathen had sought shelter under them. There, almost hourly these many “days,” the promise proved true, and, day by day, as when Israel gathered the manna in the wilderness, did an unseen Hand provide—and that not only for herself and her son, but for all “her household.” It was a constant miracle; but then we need, and we have a God who doeth wonders—not one of the idols of the heathen nor yet a mere abstraction, but the Living and the True God. And we need in our Bible such a history as this, to give us the pledge of personal assurance, when our hearts well-nigh sink within us in the bitter trials of life—something which to all time may serve as evidence that Jehovah reigneth, and that we can venture our all upon it. And yet as great as this miracle of daily providing seems that other of the faith of the widow of Sarepta! A. E.

Elijah must learn that the God of Israel had a wider plan, and was animated by a larger and more universal love than he supposed. Such is the point of view under which we are to regard the narrative occupying the remainder of this chapter. Our Lord has Himself given us its key. When, at the close of His first sermon in Nazareth, His hearers would have demanded of Him that, whatsoever they had heard of as done at Capernaum, He should do also in His own country, He replied, “Of a truth I say unto you, There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.” These words disclose the light in which we are to look at the incident as recorded here. Not the sustenance afforded by the widow to the prophet, but that afforded through the prophet to her and to her child, is intended to occupy our thoughts. Not the lesson of dependence upon God is that now taught him whom the Almighty was preparing for His coming work, but the further lesson that, however he may have thought of judgment only as his work, he had a mission of mercy to perform and one too of the widest and most comprehensive kind. W. M.

The purpose of God in sending Elijah to the poor widow was to show him, before he entered on the great conflict with idolatry, that he had at his disposal a Divine power which nothing would be able to resist. Elijah was, so to speak, to prove his arms, far from human observation, BY A PASSAGE OF DEEP PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Hence the double miracle of the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil always full. Hence, yet more distinctly, that glorious miracle of the raising of the widow’s son by the prophet. This miracle had no witnesses; nor must we marvel at this. God does not perform miracles to fascinate onlookers; He does not make a spectacle of His marvellous working. His glory is sufficiently magnified in the deliverance of a humble believer, like the widow of Sarepta, and in the qualification of the prophet for his mission. Jesus Christ refused to work any miracles for show, and the sublimest manifestations of His power were reserved for humble hearts and lowly dwellings. Elijah has learned to know the strength of God which is in him; he has proved it in the secrecy of his soul. This intimate personal experience of the grace of God is of incomparable value to His servants. If we would have Divine strength to use in the great conflict with sin around us, we must prove its miraculous energy in our private life. And let us remember also that our homes may be the scene of the mightiest manifestations of the grace of God, and of the most signal providential deliverances, if only our hearts be open to Him in humility and love, like the heart of the widow of Sarepta. E. de P.

17-24. Most touching and instructive is this incident of the restoration to life of the widow’s dead son. Her sore grief, wakening her conscience to a sense of past sin, leads her to expostulate earnestly with the prophet, as the one who had brought this great calamity upon her. Elijah makes her no reply, but takes that very expostulation to God and pleads in her behalf. Here is the same boldness with God that he showed with king and people. But, in both cases, it is a holy boldness that came of an invincible faith in the promise and power of God. His pleading is like that of Moses, as personal and bold. He asked for a miracle directly involving creative power; one that had never before been wrought—a life to be given back from death. He asked it without condition or limitation. And God heard and answered the prayer. He restored life to the dead child. What a basis of unsurpassed faith had this bold entreaty! How grandly it illustrates the marvellous promise of Christ concerning the uprooting of mountains in response to such full living faith! The result not only rejoiced the mother’s heart, but won a fuller confession of faith, and wrought a deeper experience of trust in this Divine restorer. The true end of miracles, which is the confirmation of truth, was attained in the case of this half-taught but God-fearing woman. B.

17. Not from the thought of any particular transgression of which she had been guilty, but because the tokens of something Divine were immediately before her eyes, did the widow of Zarephath turn to Elijah with the cry, “Thou art come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son.” W. M.

In the agony of prayer he cast this burden upon his God. Three times—as when the name of Jehovah is laid in blessing on His people (Num. 6:24), and as when the Seraphim raise their voice of praise (Isa. 6:3)—he stretched himself in symbolic action upon the child, calling upon Jehovah as his God; laying the living upon the dead, pouring his life, as it were, into the child, with the agony of believing prayer. But it was Jehovah who restored the child to life, hearkening to the voice of His servant. A. E.

Instead of chiding the Sareptan, out of the fervency of his soul he humbly expostulates with his God. His only remedy is in his prayer: that which shut heaven for rain must open it for life. Every word enforceth; first he pleads his interest in God, “O Lord my God;” then the quality of the patient, a “widow,” and therefore both most distressed with the loss and most peculiar to the charge of the Almighty; then his interest, as in God, so in this patient, “With whom I sojourn,” as if the stroke were given to himself; and lastly, the quality of the punishment, “By slaying her son,” the only comfort of her life.

Neither doth his tongue move thus only. Thrice doth he stretch himself upon the dead body, as if he could wish to infuse of his own life into the child; and so often calls to his God for the restitution of that soul. What can Elijah ask, to be denied? “The Lord heard the voice of the prophet; the soul of the child came into him again and he revived.” What miracle is impossible to faithful prayers? There cannot be more difference betwixt Elijah’s devotion and ours than betwixt supernatural and ordinary acts; if he therefore obtained miraculous favors by his prayers, do we doubt of those which are within the sphere of nature and use? What could we want if we did not slack to ply heaven with our prayers? Bp. H.

Remember that the most marked characteristic of Elijah was the indomitable character of his faith. Our Lord says, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE.” Now Elijah was one of those who take the kingdom of heaven by force—who storm its crystal walls in unconquerable faith, and batter them with prayers that will not be denied. To use fitly the compulsive prayers of Elijah, it is needful to have Elijah’s faith—just as only one who wrestles till break of day as Jacob did, could dare to say, “I WILL NOT let thee go, except thou bless me.” Kitto.

The effect was what might have been anticipated; whatever may have been the widow’s doubts before, she could resist no longer. Surely the presence and power of a far greater God than any she had ever known were there. She recognized Him of whom she had often heard, the Lord God of Elijah; and, in the spirit of the Galilean nobleman whose son Jesus restored to life, she exclaimed to the prophet, “Now I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.” W. M.—Doubtless, what her meal and oil had assured her of, the death of her son made her to doubt; and now, reviving, did reascertain. Even the strongest faith sometimes staggereth, and needeth new acts of heavenly supportation. The end of miracles is confirmation of truth. It seems had this widow’s son continued dead her belief had been buried in his grave; notwithstanding her meal and her oil, her soul had languished. The mercy of God is fain to provide new helps for our infirmities, and graciously condescends to our own terms, that we may work out our faith and salvation. Bp. H.

The incident is valuable as exhibiting the element of deep tenderness which there was in this stern prophet of the Restoration, and which is so often found blended with great severity. It is the principal instance in which this obverse of Elijah’s character is presented. Obedience, tender sympathy, terrible severity, heroic courage, deep despondency—what wonderful elements were blended into this magnificent character! Allon.

The chapter is specially fruitful in distinctive suggestions.

Elijah’s whole story, in keeping with its beginning here, is a succession of marvels requiring a faith and courage as marvellous. The secret, alike of his boldness and fortitude, is told by James (5:17). He was only a man, but a man whose faith in God’s promise was habitually exercised in the largest petitions. He literally obeyed the command, Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. B.—Is it any wonder that Elijah was strong in the faith? He did as he was told. He found it as it was promised. And his faith grew in its exercise, as it always does. The flower in growing turns every atom of its nourishment into its own substance; bringing it forth again in its healthful growth, its fragrance and its beauty. So is it with faith in God. It must “grow by what it feeds on.” It must turn the teachings of the Word and the little incidents of daily life into the elements of its growth, its strength, its fragrance and its beauty. W. Newton.

God sends prophets and revelations; He disposes the events of Providence; He discloses the philosophy of history; He puts men under every sort of probation, that they may learn simply and steadfastly to confide in Him. Ahab and Jezebel, with the wealth of the world at their feet, made utter shipwreck of life for want of this faith alone. Elijah became an immortal hero because he possessed this one overwhelming power. Nor is the reason far to seek. Faith unites men to God, makes them will His will, and eventually opens to them all His infinite resources. All things belong to believers—all, because they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. McPherson.

A life of activity needs, as a preparation or as a counterpoise and restorative, its times of retirement and prayerful thought. So was it with Elijah and other ancient leaders of God’s people. So was it even with Christ, for His comfort and support. The still hour of quiet thought and devout communion with our heavenly Father fills the soul with light, girds it with strength, and cheers it with hope and serene, glad trust.

In emergencies of duty and peril God adequately protects and delivers His servants.

Yet He requires their endeavors to concur with His plans, even in their deliverances. Elijah must seek and keep his hiding-place; and change it too, when God wills.

God provides for the obedient and trustful in all circumstances and under every vicissitude of experience. When He suffers the brook to fail, from other and ample resources He continues needful supplies. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

God’s ordinary methods of provision, under the force of what we call laws of nature, are intrinsically far more wonderful than the peculiar and occasional method of miracle. In the daily production of meal and oil just sufficient for the household needs of the day, even though continued for two years, there was far less of exertion and of actual product than in the manifold complicated processes through which their supply had been wontedly provided. So that if the miraculous method reminded this little household, as it did the Israelites for forty years, of God’s daily bounty, much more forcibly should His varied, wide-extended and vastly complicated natural processes recall His abundant goodness, impress the sense of our dependence, and prompt the assured expectation of full answer to our habitual petition, “Give us day by day our daily bread.”

Trial and suffering, whether visited upon a nation or an individual, are mercifully designed to recall a forgotten God, to impress a sense of guilt, to awaken the desire and prompt the purpose of return to an unforgetting, loving Father. B.—If we were never afflicted on account of sin, we should soon cease to feel its evil nature. God has, therefore, connected misery with sin, and the children of God, when afflicted, are reminded of sin as the cause; while they are also led to search out their own sin in particular, and to inquire why their affliction came upon them. Thus the widow asked Elijah, “Why hast thou brought my sin to remembrance?” R. Hall.

Two unsurpassed illustrations are here recorded of the prevalent might of believing importunate prayer. It “turns the key of the clouds,” first to close and afterward to open their treasures, and it brings back the dead to life.

It is instructive to note that Christ endorses the truth of this history. He refers to the shutting of the heavens for three years and six months, and the consequent famine. He also affirms that Elijah was “sent to a woman of Sarepta, that was a widow” (Luke 4: 25, 26).

B.—The reference of our Lord to this history shows these three things: that the entertainment of Elijah was a distinguishing honor conferred on the widow of Sarepta, that it proved of real spiritual benefit to her, and that it implied that God had purposes of grace beyond the narrow bounds of Israel, unbelieving as it was—in the language of St. Paul, that He was not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles (Rom. 3: 29). May we not go a step farther and see in this mission of Elijah to and entertainment by a heathen widow an anticipation at least of the announcement of that “Kingdom of God,” in its world-wide bearing, which formed part of the message of his antitype, John the Baptist? A. E.

The mission of God is wider than we think. Children of God are to be found scattered where, left to ourselves, we should hardly seek for them. There is a covenant beyond the covenant. There are those who are “of God,” who are “of the truth,” in scenes where we imagine that those only are to be met with who are the children of idolatry and falsehood. No one can rightly do the work of God, even in any limited sphere in which he may have been placed, until he has learned that there is something wider than that sphere, and that to the establishment of the wider, not the narrower, all the plans of God ultimately tend. We cannot worship truly in the temple built with hands unless we recognize the fact that there is a temple built without hands. We cannot really love our neighbor unless we own a neighbor in every child of Adam. And we cannot successfully serve the Israel of God unless we feel that those as yet beyond that Israel are also the objects of our heavenly Father’s love, and that He would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The lesson thus impressed upon Elijah by his being sent to Zarephath was one of infinite importance, and it is a part of the great truth everywhere imbedded in the Old Testament, though not clearly seen in every age, that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was also the God of the whole earth, and that His salvation was from the beginning designed to be universal. W. M.

Admitting the historic occurrence of miracles, those recorded in the history of Elijah are in singular harmony with the general plan and purpose of miracles as the outward material sign and signal of prophetic character and mission; as also with the peculiar character of the crisis with which Elijah’s mission was connected. The Old Testament history has naturally and necessarily its crises of miracle, as in the two great distinctive missions of Moses and Elijah. That these should be signalized by special miracle is only in harmony with the entire conception. All the miracles wrought by Elijah have a significant religious purpose. They are in harmony with their occasions, and they are incorporated in a history of remarkable simplicity, directness, and elevation. If the historic character of the miraculous be admitted at all, the miracles wrought by Elijah carry the presumption of singular congruity. Allon.

In the Bible even the supernatural—we may say it without a paradox—is most natural. It is in such true keeping with the times, with the events and doctrines it attests, with all the surrounding historical circumstances as they are narrated, that we almost lose the feeling of the supernatural in the admirable harmony and consistency of the ideas and scenes presented. It seems to be just what might have been exexpected; it would be strange that it should be otherwise; the marvellous here is the presumptive, the extraordinary becomes the easy of belief. The supernatural assumes the familiar appearance of the natural, and God’s coming down to us and speaking to us seem less incredible than that far-off silence which, though so unbroken for our sense, is so perplexing and unaccountable to our reason. T. L.

In comparing the raisings of the dead on the part of the Saviour with those of the prophets on the one hand and those of the apostles on the other, there comes into view a remarkable distinction as well as a beautiful agreement. The Saviour’s raisings of the dead are attended with an exalted composure and majesty, and an acting from His own completeness of might, before which there wholly vanishes that tension and strain of all the powers of the soul which we observe, more or less, in the prophets and apostles. What to us appears supernatural, for Him appears the highest nature. Van O