Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
Then Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “Go away from here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to Yahweh’s word; for he went and lived by the brook Cherith that is before the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 But as I shall declare it by God’s revelation.
But as I shall declare it by God’s revelation.
That is, whom I serve.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–7 1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, [who was] of…
1Ki 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, [who was] of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, [As] the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
Ver. 1. And Elijah the Tishbite.] So he is called of his country. The Hebrews tell us {a} of another name that he had before that acclamation drawn by him from the people, "The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God." {1Ki 18:39} Elijah signifieth, "My God, he is the Lord." This wonder working prophet - who comes to our knowledge as, another Melchizedek, "without father or mother, or descent" {Heb 7:3 Gen 14:18} - observing Ahab’s and Hiel’s height of wickedness, and desperate obdurateness, denounceth with great boldness the ensuing judgment upon the whole land of drought and famine.
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Said unto Ahab.] Who might sit in his ivory palace, having gold, and silver, and jewels in every place; but is here given to know that he was not out of the reach of God’s rod; and that since he had done what he ought not, done evil as he could, he should now hear what he would not, and share deeply in the common calamity.
Before whom I stand.] As a servant; as a suppliant; as one who will stand to and for the Lord, though I stand alone.
There shall not be dew nor rain.] The drought, it seems, was begun already, but lengthened out by Elijah’s prayer, as St James first telleth us. {Jas 5:17}
But according to my word,] i.e., According to my prediction, and my prayer; which seems to have been the same in effect with that of Luther, Fiat voluntas mea; mea, inquam, Domine, quia tua voluntas: Let my will herein be done; mine, I say, Lord, because the same with thy holy will.
{a} In Genesi, magn. cap. 37.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 Elijah was the most eminent of the prophets, Mat…
Elijah was the most eminent of the prophets, Mat 17:3, who is here brought in, like Melchisedek, Gen 14:18; Heb 7:3, without any mention of his father, or mother, or beginning of his days; like a man dropped out of the clouds, and raised by God’s special providence as a witness for himself in this most degenerate time and state of things; that by his zeal, and courage, and power of miracles, he might give some check to their various and abominable idolatries, and some reviving to that small number of the Lord’s prophets and people who yet remained in Israel, as we shall see.
The Tishbite; so called, either from the place of his birth or habitation, or for some other reason not now known.
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Of the inhabitants of Gilead; which was the land beyond Jordan. See Gen 31:21.
Said unto Ahab; having doubtless admonished him of his sin and danger before this; and now, upon his obstinacy in his wicked courses, he proceeds to declare and execute the judgment of God upon him.
As the Lord God of Israel liveth: I swear by the God of Israel, who, is the only true and living God; when the gods whom thou hast joined with him, or preferred before him, are dead and senseless idols.
Before whom I stand; either,
1. Whose minister I am, (as this phrase is oft used, as Num 3:6; Deu 10:8; 17:12; 18:5) not only in general, but especially in this threatening, which I now deliver in his name and authority, and not from my own imagination or passion. Or,
2. Who is now present with me, and a witness of what I say; and let him punish me severely, if I speak not the truth. There shall not be dew nor rain: this was a prediction, but was seconded with his prayer, that God would verify it, as it is recorded, Jam 5:17. And this prayer of his was not voluntary and malicious, but necessary, and (all things considered) truly charitable; that by this sharp and long affliction God’s honour, and the truth of his word and threatenings, (which was now so horribly and universally contemned,) might be vindicated, and the Israelites (whom their present impunity and prosperity had hardened in their idolatry) might hereby be awakened to see their own wickedness, and the vanity of their calves and other idols, and their dependence upon God, and the necessity of returning to the true religion. These years, i.e. these following years, which were three and a half, Luk 4:25; Jam 5:17. But according to my word, i.e. until I shall declare that this judgment shall cease, and shall pray to God for the removal of it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The history of Elijah begins somewhat abruptly. Usually, when…
The history of Elijah begins somewhat abruptly. Usually, when a prophet enters, we have some account of his parentage, are told whose son he was and of what tribe; but Elijah drops (so to speak) out of the clouds, as if, like Melchisedek, he were without father, without mother, and without descent, which made some of the Jews fancy that he was an angel sent from heaven; but the apostle has assured us that he was a man subject to like passions as we are (Jam 5:17), which perhaps intimates, not only that he was liable to the common infirmities of human nature, but that, by his natural temper, he was a man of strong passions, more hot and eager than most men, and therefore the more fit to deal with the daring sinners of the age he lived in: so wonderfully does God suit men to the work he designs them for. Rough spirits are called to rough services. The reformation needed such a man as Luther to break the ice. Observe, 1. The prophet's name: Elijahu - "My God Jehovah is he" (so it signifies), "is he who sends me and will own me and bear me out, is he to whom I would bring Israel back and who alone can effect that great work." 2. His country: He was of the inhabitants of Gilead, on the other side Jordan, either of the tribe of Gad or the half of Manasseh, for Gilead was divided between them; but whether a native of either of those tribes is uncertain. The obscurity of his parentage was no prejudice to his eminency afterwards. We need not enquire whence men are, but what they are: if it be a good thing, no matter though it come out of Nazareth. Israel was sorely wounded when God sent them this balm from Gilead and this physician thence. He is called a Tishbite from Thisbe, a town in that country. Two things we have an account of here in the beginning of his story: -
I. How he foretold a famine, a long and grievous famine, with which Israel should be punished for their sins. That fruitful land, for want of rain, should be turned into barrenness, for the iniquity of those that dwelt therein. He went and told Ahab this; did not whisper it to the people, to make them disaffected to the government, but proclaimed it to the king, in whose power it was to reform the land, and so to prevent the judgment. It is probable that he reproved Ahab for his idolatry and other wickedness, and told him that unless he repented and reformed this judgment would be brought upon his land. There should be neither dew nor rain for some years, none but according to my word, that is, "Expect none till you hear from me again." The apostle teaches us to understand this, not only of the word of prophecy, but the word of prayer, which turned the key of the clouds, Jam 5:17, Jam 5:18. He prayed earnestly (in a holy indignation at Israel's apostasy, and a holy zeal for the glory of God, whose judgments were defied) that it might not rain; and, according to his prayers, the heavens became as brass, till he prayed again that it might rain. In allusion to this story it is said of God's witnesses (Rev 11:6), These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy. Elijah lets Ahab know, 1. That the Lord Jehovah is the God of Israel, whom he had forsaken. 2. That he is a living God, and not like the gods he worshipped, which were dead dumb idols. 3. That he himself was God's servant in office, and a messenger sent from him: "It is he before whom I stand, to minister to him," or "whom IO now represent, in whose stead I stand, and in whose name I speak, in defiance of the prophets of Baal and the groves." 4. That, notwithstanding the present peace and prosperity of the kingdom of Israel, God was displeased with them for their idolatry and would chastise them for it by the want of rain (which, when he withheld it, it was not in the power of the gods they served to bestow; for are there any of the vanities of the heathen that can give rain? Jer 14:22), which would effectually prove their impotency, and the folly of those who left the living God, to make their court to such as could do neither good nor evil; and this he confirms with a solemn oath - As the Lord God of Israel liveth, that Ahab might stand the more in awe of the threatening, the divine life being engaged for the accomplishment of it. 5. He lets Ahab know what interest he had in heaven: It shall be according to my word. With what dignity does he speak when he speaks in God's name, as one who well understood that commission of a prophet (Jer 1:10), I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms. See the power of prayer and the truth of God's word; for he performeth the counsel of his messengers.
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II. How he was himself taken care of in that famine. 1. How he was hidden. God bade him go and hide himself by the brook Cherith, Kg1 17:3. This was intended, not so much for his preservation, for it does not appear that Ahab immediately sought his life, but as a judgment to the people, to whom, if he had publicly appeared, he might have been a blessing both by his instructions and his intercession, and so have shortened the days of their calamity; but God had determined it should last three years and a half, and therefore, so long, appointed Elijah to abscond, that he might not be solicited to revoke the sentence, the execution of which he had said should be according to his word. When God speaks concerning a nation, to pluck up and destroy, he finds some way or other to remove those that would stand in the gap to turn away his wrath. It bodes ill to a people when good men and good ministers are ordered to hide themselves. When God intended to send rain upon the earth then he bade Elijah go and show himself to Ahab, Kg1 18:1. For the present, in obedience to the divine command, he went and dwelt all alone in some obscure unfrequented place, where he was not discovered, probably among the reeds of the brook. If Providence calls us to solitude and retirement, it becomes us to acquiesce; when we cannot be useful we must be patient, and when we cannot work for God we must sit still quietly for him. 2. How he was fed. Though he could not work there, having nothing to do but to meditate and pray (which would help to prepare him for his usefulness afterwards), yet he shall eat, for he is in the way of his duty, and verily he shall be fed, in the day of famine he shall be satisfied. When the woman, the church, is driven into the wilderness, care it taken that she be fed and nourished there, time, times, and half a time, that is, three years and a half, which was just the time of Elijah's concealment. See Rev 12:6, Rev 12:14. Elijah must drink of the brook, and the ravens were appointed to bring him meat (Kg1 17:4) and did so, Kg1 17:6. Here, (1.) The provision was plentiful, and good, and constant, bread and flesh twice a day, daily bread and food convenient. We may suppose that he fared not so sumptuously as the prophets of the groves, who did eat at Jezebel's table (Kg1 18:19), and yet better than the rest of the Lord's prophets, whom Obadiah fed with bread and water, Kg1 18:4. It ill becomes God's servants, especially his servants the prophets, to be nice and curious about their food and to affect dainties and varieties; if nature be sustained, no matter though the palate be not pleased; instead of envying those who have daintier fare, we should think how many there are, better than we, who live comfortably upon coarser fare and would be glad of our leavings. Elijah had but one meal brought him at a time, every morning and every evening, to teach him not to take thought for the morrow. Let those who have but from hand to mouth learn to live upon Providence, and trust it for the bread of the day in the day; thank God for bread this day, and let tomorrow bring bread with it. (2.) The caterers were very unlikely; the ravens brought it to him. Obadiah, and others in Israel that had not bowed the knee to Baal, would gladly have entertained Elijah; but he was a man by himself, and must be red in an extraordinary way. He was a figure of John the baptist, whose meat was locusts and wild honey. God could have sent angels to minister to him, as he did afterwards (Oba 1:19 :5) and as he did to our Saviour (Mat 4:11), but he chose to send by winged messengers of another nature, to show that when he pleases he can serve his own purposes by the meanest creatures as effectually as by the mightiest. If it be asked whence the ravens had this provision, how and where it was cooked, and whether they came honestly by it, we must answer, as Jacob did (Gen 27:20), The Lord our God brought it to them, whose the earth is and the fulness thereof, the world and those that dwell therein. But why ravens? [1.] They are birds of prey, ravenous devouring creatures, more likely to have taken his meat from him, or to have picked out his eyes (Pro 30:17); but thus Samson's riddle is again unriddled, Out of the eater comes forth meat. [2.] They are unclean creatures.Every raven after his kind was, by the law, forbidden to be eaten (Lev 11:15), yet Elijah did not think the meat they brought ever the worse for that, but ate and gave thanks, asking no question for conscience' sake. Noah's dove was to him a more faithful messenger than his raven; yet here the ravens are faithful and constant to Elijah. [3.] Ravens feed on insects and carrion themselves, yet they brought the prophet man's meat and wholesome food. It is a pity that those who bring the bread of life to others should themselves take up with that which is not bread. [4.] Ravens could bring but a little, and broken meat, yet Elijah was content with such things as he had, and thankful that the was fed, though not feasted. [5.] Ravens neglect their own young ones, and do not feed them; yet when God pleases they shall feed his prophet. Young lions and young ravens may lack, and suffer hunger, but not those that fear the Lord, Psa 34:10. [6.] Ravens are themselves fed by special providence (Job 38:41; Psa 147:9), and now they fed the prophet. Have we experienced God's special goodness to us and ours? Let us reckon ourselves obliged thereby to be kind to those that are his, for his sake. Let us learn hence, First, To acknowledge the sovereignty and power of God over all the creatures; he can make what use he pleases of them, either for judgment or mercy. Secondly, To encourage ourselves in God in the greatest straits, and never to distrust him. He that could furnish a table in the wilderness, and make ravens purveyors, cooks, and servitors to his prophet, is able to supply all our need according to his riches in glory.
Thus does Elijah, for a great while, eat his morsels alone, and his provision of water, which he has in an ordinary way from the brook, fails him before that which he has by miracle. The powers of nature are limited, but not the powers of the God of nature. Elijah's brook dried up (Kg1 17:7) because there was no rain. If the heavens fail, earth fails of course; such are all our creature-comforts; we lose them when we most need them, like the brooks in summer, Job 6:15. But there is a river which makes glad the city of God and which never runs dry (Psa 46:4), a well of water that springs up to eternal life. Lord, give us that living water!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–7 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants…
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead,.... Which belonged partly to the Reubenites and Gadites, and partly to the half-tribe of Manasseh on the other side Jordan, where this prophet dwelt; but why he is called the Tishbite is not easy to say; what Kimchi observes seems right, that he was at first of a city called Toshab, and afterward's dwelt at Gilead; which city perhaps is the same with Thisbe, in the tribe of Naphtali, the native place of Tobit,
"Who in the time of Enemessar king of the Assyrians was led captive out of Thisbe, which is at the right hand of that city, which is called properly Nephthali in Galilee above Aser.'' (Tobit 1:2)
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and, if so, is an instance of a prophet, even the prince of prophets, as Abarbinel calls him, coming out of Galilee, contrary to the suggestions of the Jews, Joh 7:52. R. Elias Levita (l) observes, that after the affair of Gibeah an order was given to smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead, Jdg 21:8, and that as it is reasonable to suppose some might escape, he thinks Elijah was one of them; and that when this began to be inhabited again, they that returned were called the inhabitants of Gilead, of whom Elijah was, who lived in those times, being, as the Jews suppose, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, see Jdg 20:28, but that he should be Elijah, and live to the times of Ahab, is beyond belief. By Origen (m) he is said to be in Thesbon of Gilead; and by Epiphanius (n) to be of Thesbis, of the land of the Arabians, Gilead bordering upon it: the same
said unto Ahab; who perhaps had been with him before, and reproved him for idolatry, warned him of the evil consequences of it, but to no purpose, and therefore now threatened in a very solemn manner:
as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand; he swears by the living God, in whose presence he was, and to whom he appeals as the omniscient God, whose minister and prophet he was, and in whose name he came and spoke, and to whom he prayed; for standing was a prayer gesture, and sometimes put for it; see Gill on Mat 6:5 and it was at the prayer of Elijah that rain was withheld, as follows, see Jam 5:17.
there shall not be dew nor rain these years; for some years to come, even three years and a half:
but according to my word; in prayer, or as he should predict, in the name of the Lord.
(l) In Tishbi, p. 275. Vid. Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 11. 1. & David de Pomis Lexic. fol. 235. 4. (m) Comment. in Matth. p. 224. Ed. Huet. (n) De Prophet. Vit. c. 6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 Elijah foretells the drought, ver. 1. Is fed by…
Elijah foretells the drought, ver. 1. Is fed by ravens, ver. 2-7. By a widow, whose meal and oil are multiplied, ver. 8-16. He raises her dead son, ver. 17-24
Elijah - The most eminent of the prophets, who is here brought in, like Melchisedek, without any mention of his father, or mother, or beginning of his days; like a man dropt out of the clouds, and raised by God's special providence as a witness for himself in this most degenerate time that by his zeal, and courage and miracles, he might give some check, to their various and abominable idolatries, and some reviving to that small number of the Lord's prophets, and people, who yet remained in Israel. He seems to have been naturally of a rough spirit. And rough spirits are called to rough services. His name signifies, my God Jehovah is he: he that sends me, and will own me, and bear me out. Said to Ahab - Having doubtless admonished him of his sin and danger before; now upon his obstinacy in his wicked courses, he proceeds to declare, and execute the judgment of God upon him. As the Lord, &c. - I Swear by the God of Israel, who is the only true and living God; whereas the gods whom thou hast joined with him, or preferred before him, are dead and senseless idols. Before whom - Whose minister I am, not only in general, but especially in this threatening, which I now deliver in his name and authority. There shall not, &c. - This was a prediction, but was seconded with his prayer, that God would verify it, James v, 17, And this prayer was truly charitable; that by this sharp affliction, God's honour, and the truth of his word (which was now so horribly and universally contemned) might be vindicated; and the Israelites (whom impunity had hardened in their idolatry) might be awakened to see their own wickedness, and the necessity of returning to the true religion. Those years - That is, These following years, which were three and an half, Luke iv, 25 James v, 17. My word - Until I shall declare, that this judgment shall cease, and shall pray to God for the removal of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 Elijah's message to Ahab concerning the three years' drought,…
CHAPTER XVII
Elijah's message to Ahab concerning the three years' drought, 1.
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He is commanded to go to the brook Cherith; where he is fed by
ravens, 2-7.
He afterwards goes to a widow's house at Zarephath, and
miraculously multiplies her meal and oil, 8-16.
Her son dies, and Elijah restores him to life, 17-24.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVII
Verse 1. Elijah the Tishbite] The history of this great man is introduced very abruptly; his origin is enveloped in perfect obscurity. He is here said to be a Tishbite. Tishbeh, says Calmet, is a city beyond Jordan, in the tribe of Gad, and in the land of Gilead. Who was his father, or from what tribe he sprang, is not intimated; he seems to have been the prophet of Israel peculiarly, as we never find him prophesying in Judah. A number of apocryphal writers have trifled at large about his parentage, miraculous birth, of his continual celibacy, his academy of the prophets, c., c., all equally worthy of credit. One opinion, which at first view appears strange, bears more resemblance to truth than any of the above, viz., that he had no earthly parentage known to any man that he was an angel of God, united for a time to a human body, in order to call men back to perfect purity, both in doctrine and manners, from which they had totally swerved. His Hebrew name, which we have corrupted into Elijah and Elias, is אליהו Alihu, or, according to the vowel points, Eliyahu and signifies he is my God. Does this give countenance to the supposition that this great personage was a manifestation in the flesh of the Supreme Being? He could not be the Messiah; for we find him with Moses on the mount of transfiguration with Christ. The conjecture that he was an angel seems countenanced by the manner of his departure from this world; yet, in Jas 5:17, he is said to be a man ομοιοπαθης, of like passions, or rather with real human propensities: this, however, is irreconcilable with the conjecture.
There shall not be dew nor rain these years] In order to remove the abruptness of this address, R. S. Jarchi dreams thus: - "Elijah and Ahab went to comfort Hiel in his grief, concerning his sons. And Ahab said to Elijah, Is it possible that the curse of Joshua, the son of Nun, who was only the servant of Moses, should be fulfilled; and the curse of Moses, our teacher, not be fulfilled; who said, De 11:16-17: If ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them, then the Lord's wrath shall be kindled against you; and he will shut up the heaven that there be no rain? Now all the Israelites serve other gods, and yet the rain is not withheld. Then Elijah said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." This same mode of connecting this and the preceding chapter, is followed by the Jerusalem and Babylonish Talmuds, Sedar Olam, Abarbanel, &c.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7 1Ki 17:1. And Elijah the Tishbite, &c. — So…
1Ki 17:1. And Elijah the Tishbite, &c. — So bad was the character, both of the Israelites and their princes, as represented in the foregoing chapter, that one would have expected God should have cast off a people that had so cast him off; but as an evidence to the contrary, never was Israel so blessed with a good prophet as when it was so plagued with a bad king. Never was a king so bold to sin as Ahab, never was a prophet so bold to reprove and threaten as Elijah, whose story begins in this chapter, and is full of wonders. Scarce any part of the Old Testament history shines brighter than this, concerning the spirit and power of Elias; he only, of all the prophets, had the honour of Enoch, the first prophet, to be translated that he should not see death; and the honour of Moses, the great prophet, to attend our Saviour in his transfiguration. Other prophets prophesied and wrote, he prophesied and acted, but wrote nothing; and his actings cast more lustre on his name than their writings on theirs.
Now this most eminent of the prophets under the Old Testament dispensation, is here brought in like Melchisedec, the most eminent of the priests, without any mention of his father or mother, or the beginning of his days, like a man dropped down from the clouds. All that we learn concerning his origin or country is that he was a Tishbite, and of the inhabitants of Gilead. Probably he had dwelt at Thishbe or Thesbeh, a town or region on the other side Jordan, either of the tribe of Gad, or that half tribe of Manasseh which inhabited Gilead, but whether he was a native of either of those tribes is uncertain. He was doubtless raised up by God’s special providence, to be a witness for him in this most degenerate time and state of things, that by his zeal, and courage, and miracles, he might give some check to their various and abominable idolatries, and some encouragement and reviving to that small number of the Lord’s prophets and people who yet remained in Israel. And the obscurity of his parentage and birth was no prejudice to his eminent usefulness. “We need not inquire,” says Henry, “whence men are, but what they are: if it be a good thing, no matter though it come out of Nazareth.” Elijah seems to have been naturally of a rough spirit, and certainly he was called to rough services. But, as his name signifies, My God Jehovah is he; he that sends me, and will own me, and bear me out; so his faith and confidence in God supported and carried him through all his arduous labours, and the violent persecutions to which he was exposed.
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He said unto Ahab — Having doubtless admonished him of his sin and danger before, he now, upon his obstinacy in his wicked courses, proceeds to declare and execute the judgment of God upon him; As the Lord God of Israel liveth, &c. — I swear by the God of Israel, who is the only true and living God; whereas the gods whom thou hast joined with him, or preferred before him, are dead and senseless idols; before whom I stand — Whose minister I am, not only in general, but especially in this threatening, which I now deliver in his name and authority; There shall not be dew nor rain — This was a prediction, but was seconded with his prayer that God would verily it, Jas 5:17. And this prayer was truly charitable; that by this sharp affliction, God’s honour, and the truth of his word, (which was now so horribly and universally contemned,) might be vindicated; and the Israelites (whom impunity had hardened in their idolatry) might be awakened to see their own wickedness, and the necessity of returning to the true religion. These years — That is, these following years, which were three and a half; Luk 4:25; Jas 5:17. My word — Until I shall declare that this judgment shall cease, and shall pray to God for the removal of it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 The name Elijah means “Yahweh is my God.” It…
The name Elijah means “Yahweh is my God.” It is expressive of the truth which his whole life preached.
The two words rendered “Tishbite” and “inhabitant” are in the original (setting aside the vowel points) “exactly alike.” The meaning consequently must either be “Elijah the stranger, of the strangers of Gilead,” or (more probably) “Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbi of Gilead.” Of Tishbi in Gilead there is no further trace in Scripture; it is to be distinguished from another Tishbi in Galilee. In forming to ourselves a conception of the great Israelite prophet, we must always bear in mind that the wild and mountainous Gilead, which bordered on Arabia, and was half Arab in customs, was the country wherein he grew up.
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His abrupt appearance may be compared with the similar appearances of Ahijah 1Ki 11:29, Jehu 1Ki 16:1, Shemaiah 2Ch 11:2, Azariah 2Ch 15:1, and others. It is clear that a succession of prophets was raised up by God, both in faithful Judah and in idolatrous Israel, to witness of Him before the people of both countries, and leave them without excuse if they forsook His worship. At this time, when a grosser and more deadly idolatry than had been practiced before was introduced into Israel by the authority of Ahab, and the total apostasy of the ten tribes was consequently imminent, two prophets of unusual vigour and force of character, endowed with miraculous powers of an extraordinary kind, were successively raised up, that the wickedness of the kings might be boldly met and combated, and, if possible, a remnant of faithful men preserved in the land. The unusual efflux of miraculous energy at this time, is suitable to the unusual emergency, and in very evident proportion to the spiritual necessities of the people.
As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand - This solemn formula, here first used, was well adapted to impress the king with the sacred character of the messenger, and the certain truth of his message. Elisha adopted the phrase with very slight modifications 2Ki 3:14; 2Ki 5:16.
Drought was one of the punishments threatened by the Law, if Israel forsook Yahweh and turned after other gods (Deu 11:17; Deu 28:23; Lev 26:19, etc.).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 Elias means, "the strong God." Some Greeks derive the…
Elias means, "the strong God." Some Greeks derive the name of the prophet from Greek: elios, "the sun," improperly. His parentage is not known, nor even his tribe. Thesbe was situated in the tribe of Gad. The Fathers agree that Elias never was married. He seems to have had no fixed abode; but was sent to the house of Israel, to maintain the cause of the true God, with the most active and generous zeal. He may have presided over the colleges of the prophets, (Calmet) which were then numerous in Israel, particularly at Mount Carmel, (Tirinus) notwithstanding the general corruption, chap. xviii. 13., and xix. 10. (Haydock) --- I stand, to serve (Numbers iii. 6.) and pray, James v. 17., and Luke iv. 25. He calls God to witness, like St. Paul, Galatians i. 20. --- Mouth. Stupendous power and assurance of the prophet, with which the pagans have nothing to compare. (Calmet) --- God had threatened his people with drought, if they proved faithless, Deuteronomy xxviii. 24. Elias begs that this punishment may now serve to open their eyes. (Tirinus)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1
SECOND EPOCH
FROM AHAB TO JEHU
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FIRST SECTION
The Prophet Elijah During Ahab’s Reign
1 Kings 17, 18, 19
A.—Elijah before Ahab, at the brook Cherith, and in Zarephath
1Ki_17:1-24
1And Elijah1 the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants2 of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.3
2And the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, 3and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before4 Jordan. 4And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens5 to feed thee there. 5So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord [Jehovah]: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. 6And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening6; and he drank of the brook.
7And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there hadbeen no rain7 in the land. 8And the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came unto him saying, 9Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. 10So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said,Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. 11And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morselof bread in thine hand. 12And she said, As the Lord [Jehovah] thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and,behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my Song of Solomon , 8 that we may eat it, and die. 13And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. 14For thus saith the Lord [Jehovah] God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord [Jehovah] sendeth9 rain upon the earth. 15And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and Hebrews , 10 and her 16house, did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord [Jehovah], which he spake by Elijah.
17And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. 18And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son? 19And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft11, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. 20And he cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], and said, O Lord [Jehovah] my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? 21And he stretched himself12 upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord [Jehovah], and said, O Lord [Jehovah] my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again. 22And the Lord [Jehovah] heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.23And Elijah took the child,13 and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.24And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord [Jehovah] in thy mouth is truth.
Preliminary
The history of the prophet Elijah, which begins with the chapter now before us, is continued in chapters 18, 19, 21, 2 Kings 1, and is brought to a conclusion in 2 Kings 2, belongs, as is known, not only to the weightiest portions of our own, but of the Old Testament historical books generally. Hence it has been the object frequently, both of special theological inquiry and also of devotional consideration. In this respect we name here: Eichhorn: Ueber die Prophetensagen aus dem Reiche Israel (in der allgem. Bibliothek der bibl. Literatur iv. 2 s. 193 sq.). Niemeyer: Charakteristik der Bibel V. s. 257 sq. Knobel: Der Prophetismus der Hebräer ii. s. 73 sq. Rödiger: In der Hall. Encyclopädie Bd. 33 s. 320. Köster: Die Propheten des Alten und Neuen Testaments, s. 70 sq. Winer: R.- W.-B. I. s. 317 sq. Ewald: Geschichte Israels iii. s. 485 sq. und 533 sq. Kurtz, in Herzog’s R.-E. iii. s. 754 sq. Sartorius: Elias und Elisa, 3. Heft der Vorträge über die Propheten, Basel, 1862. Menken: Christliche Homilien über die Geschichte des Propheten Elias, 2 Bd. der gesammelten Schriften, Bremen, 1858. (These 1798 homilies are, as the preface rightly remarks, “a complete ascetic commentary.” They are to this day unsurpassed, and belong to what is best that has ever been said and written upon Elijah.) Fr. W. Krummacher: Elias der Thisbiter, 4. Ausg. Elberf., 1851. K. M. Wirth: Das Leben des Propheten Elias, Predigten, Bern, 1863. F. Bender: Alttestamentliche Lebensbilder in Predigten, 3. Bändchen: Die Propheten Elias und Elisa, Stuttgart, 1858. [See also Dean Stanley: Jewish Church, Lecture 30. F. D. Maurice: Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Sermon viii. Bp. Hall: Contemplations, &c., Book 1Kings 17:6, 7, 8. F. W. Robertson: Sermons, Second Series, vi.—E. H.]
Besides the sections in our books just referred to, we have no further accounts of the history of Elijah. As his activity was limited to the kingdom of Israel, the Chronicles, which are occupied specially with the kingdom of Judah, furnish no parallel accounts. They make no mention of Elijah, except that he wrote a letter to king Joram (2Ch_21:12 sq.), of which, however, we find nothing in our books. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Elijah is mentioned but once (Mal_4:5). How high he stood in the estimation of the later Jews may be learned from the praise of him in the Wisdom of Solomon (1Kings 48:1–12). In the New Testament no prophet is mentioned and extolled so frequently as Elijah: whence certainly it follows that in the time of Christ and of the Apostles generally, a high significance was attached to him in the sphere of the history of redemption. Rabbinical tradition supplements indeed the history of the prophets, but its statements are so marvellous, and in part so absurd (Cf. Schöttgen, Hor. heb. II., p. 533; Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum II. s. 401 sq.), that not the slightest historical value can be conceded to them. They certainly show, however, the extraordinary estimation in which then and always Elijah stood amongst the Jews. Origen, Jerome, and Eusebius mention apocryphal accounts of Elijah, and even the Mohammedans have their fables about him (See Winer s. 320 and Ewald s. 548).
In respect now of the narrations in our books, as to form and contents, they are so unmistakably distinguishable from the chapters which precede, and which are inserted amongst them (15, 16, 20, and 22), as to place it beyond doubt that they belong to another documentary source, the work assuredly of some prophet, and probably incorporated into the great historical collection in the hands of our author (see Introd. § 2). Lately, distinctions between the different accounts have been made; and it has been maintained that they are the product of different periods. According to Ewald, chap. 21. is the most ancient, and 2 Kings 1Ki_1:2-17 the latest section (so Thenius also in respect of the latter); but that the main portion, (chaps, 17, 18, 19, 2Ki_2:1-18) was written by one person, who lived at the close of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century, i.e., some two hundred years after Elijah. This view rests, however, upon a completely unjustifiable perversion of the history, by virtue of which the punishment of Naboth (chap, 21) decided the whole turn of affairs in Israel. When the author of the main portion of the narrative lived cannot be determined. That “he cannot have lived before the end of the eighth or the first half of the seventh century,” is an assumption which rests only upon the undemonstrated opinion of the unhistorical character of the story of Elijah in general, but which does not necessarily follow from this. Who in that period, far from being an insignificant one, could have been the author?
Recent criticism, on account of the “accumulation of the miraculous” in the expositions of the life and work of Elijah contained in our books, pronounces it more or less unhistorical. At first the attempt was made to explain this miraculous element away by giving to the events concerned a merely natural coloring (cf. Exeget. Handbuch des Alt. Testaments, 8 and 9; St. Bauer, Hebr. Mythologie II. s. 156 sq. and Gesch. der hebr. Nation II. s. 406 sq.; Ausführliche Erklärung der Wunder II. s. 148), but, as Winer mildly expresses it, “not with a very felicitous result,” examples of which shall be cited below. Subsequently this was entirely abandoned. The view now current takes this form: we have before us here, “not history strictly speaking, but a tradition-sketch;” the entire delineation wears often “a wholly fabulous character” (Thenius), and is hence full of “the marvellous” (Winer), and yet “the fabulous is so closely connected with the historical that it is scarcely possible to separate the one from the other in all particulars” (Rödiger, Knobel). The latest way of looking at the matter goes still farther, claiming that the documentary source employed by our author “is a poetico-prophetic work of a later age, in which the image of such an extraordinary phenomenon as Elijah had gradually become stronger and more colossal,” that in this work, still further, “older narratives and treatises were manifestly made use of,” only “the author, conceiving of everything with poetic loftiness, lifted up the reader even to a height often dizzy, has formed anew the whole history of Elijah and of his time.” It is “a wonderful, creative representation of the sublimest prophetic truths,” and “is freed besides of every fetter of prosaic historical material” (Ewald, l.c., s. 534 sq., whose words Eisenlohr, as usual, repeats). Bunsen has expressed this view in the sharpest way (Bibelwerk für die Gemeinde V. 2, s. 540. sq.): “The whole narration of the life of Elijah is a firmly welded popular epic in its execution, from the beginning to end … for the wonderful power of this spirit and for his astonishing manifestations our poem serves better than a dry narration of the actual occurrences. It is the fruit of an inspiration which he, like some superhuman being as it were, awakened in his disciples. Nothing but boundless ignorance, or, where historical criticism has not died out, only an hierarchical-dilettanti reaction, foolhardy hypocrisy or weak-headed fanaticism, would wish to demand the faith of the Christian community in the historic truth of these miracles as if they had actually taken place.” Reserving details for the particular statements, we remark as follows, in a general way, upon these various modes of view of the new criticism.
(a) In respect of “the accumulation of the miraculous,” from which the new criticism generally, in disputing the historical character of the account about Elijah, proceeds, Kurtz says—”It must be confessed that these miracles, partly at least, are surprising through their outwardness, and that, were we justified in supposing that mythical embellishments entered into the biblical history at all, here (and in Elisha’s story) more than anywhere else would they be found.” If indeed it be presupposed that a miracle is an impossibility, and is to be relegated, consequently, to the sphere of legend or of fiction, the history of Elijah must appear certainly as legendary and unhistorical. But if this be not presupposed, the frequent manifestation of the miraculous in this history cannot surprise us. The entire history (Heilsgeschichte) of the Old and New Testament, as the actual revelation of the living, holy God, who is infinitely above all natural, finite being, is a great continuous miracle, and is likewise the soil in which all miracles, in particular, are rooted. But as it has, like every other history, its main epochs, which form the gathering-points of its development, so it is agreeable to its nature, that just at these very points the miraculous should appear stronger, more distinctly and more frequently, and the appearance of any person who stands at the apex of a new epoch should be accompanied by miracles. The concentration of revelation leads, in the nature of the case, to a concentration of the miraculous, and moreover, in a way which corresponds with the steps in the development of the people, and the position of the person who leads them. Such was the case with Moses, the founder of the Covenant, and with Christ its finisher, and it would be surprising if in the case of Elijah, the restorer of the Covenant (see below, Historical and Ethical), miracle should not be present. Ewald confesses this when (s. 510) he says: “The sphere of religion is always that of wonder, while that of strong faith in the being and agency of heavenly powers is in action as well as experience; where also there is the strongest intensity of true religion, there will such wonders in part actually take place through the activity of the believing spirit, and in part will be experienced, at least, by believing hearts … In so far were the days of Elijah and of Elisha, then, when the true religion was compelled to maintain itself most stringently against its internal foes, as rich in wonders as of old the days of Moses and of Joshua had been.” Sartorius also justly remarks: “The activity of these prophets of an older time did not consist in testimonies simply by word of mouth, in long speeches and extended discourses, like those of the later prophets, but in deeds laid upon them by God, wrought by them in the strength of God, which they taught people rightly to understand only, in brief statement, as a sign from the Lord.…Especially was the falling away at that time at such a pass that the conversion of souls could not be accomplished by words simply, but by demonstrations of the power of the living God, and these we see now in the miracles of Elijah.” What Christ says in Joh_5:36 of His works, is true, mutatis mutandis, of Elijah. They were signs and witnesses, and there can be no discussion here of a surprising “outwardness” in any particular. They have all a spiritual kernel, and often speak deeper and louder than words. The proof of this devolves upon the exegesis. If the legendary be so cemented with the historical, as the new criticism confesses, that it is “impossible” to separate them, the accounts generally can have no historic worth, and it would be more consistent, critically, to explain them as fiction. For the rest, supposing that tradition has added this or that, it by no means follows, as has been assumed, that all the miraculous belongs to the legendary only, and is unhistorical. The miraculous which the Jewish tradition has grafted upon the biblical accounts is of the sort which can be readily distinguished from that which in the Bible itself is explained away as legendary. But never would a tradition, running out into what is irregular and extraordinary, have been formed, had Elijah’s appearing been without any miracle.
(b) The notion that the accounts of Elijah are portions of a larger poetical work, in fact a national epic, does away readily with many difficulties, but at the same time is involved in irreconcilable contradictions. No one can deny that the author of our books wished to write an historical work. Had he regarded the history of Elijah, as contained in his documentary sources, not as history but as “fiction,” he would not have incorporated it into his work, and have placed it side by side with the other documents to which he appealed. Least of all would he have done this in a main portion, in the history of the prophet who makes an epoch in the history of the monarchy, yea, of the theocracy of the Old Covenant. Of course, if he held that to be history which he incorporated into his own work he would have claimed in its behalf acceptance upon the part of his readers. If, finally, it were “fiction,” that objection of “unlimited ignorance,” absence of “historic sense,” “foolhardy hypocrisy,” or “weak-headed fanaticism” would before all strike him, and he would, at the same time, disclaim for his whole history all trustworthiness and credibility. If the documentary source belonged to the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century, then for the space of two hundred years, down to the days of our author, no one remarked that it did not contain history, but was only a fiction. The history of Israel was likewise the history of the divine revelation, and consequently a matter not for the poets but for the prophets (see Introd. § 2), and nothing can be more certain than that the prophet who composed the documentary source, did not mean to write a popular epic, but history. But apart from every other consideration, the narratives about Elijah, notwithstanding their peculiar coloring, are not related to the remaining portions of our books as poetry to prose. The extreme simplicity and directness of the narratives (cf. Thenius, Comment. s. 218), the pregnancy of expression, the frequent designation of places, the many individual characteristico-psychological traits impart to the whole an historical impress so unmistakable, that the events narrated cannot possibly be regarded as a poetic costume and “representation of the sublimest prophetic truths” and general religious ideas. Ewald’s view, that the author of the documentary source had gathered together everything with poetic elevation, and has lifted his readers up to a height which is often giddy, contradicts flatly his own previous assertion: “How grand everything said of him (Elijah) may be, still all accounts can be but a feeble image of the original grandeur, and the all-conquering might of this great prophetic hero of the ten tribes.” If the appearing of Elijah were originally so grand—and “there can be no doubt actually of the marvellousness of his prophetic activity”—if he achieved the “incredible miracle of a complete alteration in the condition of the ten tribes at that time,” we see no reason why the author of the documentary source could or would have been moved “to form anew the whole history of Elijah and of his time,” “to make an entire new thing,” and to “get rid of every fetter in the way of a lower historical material.” When Bunsen says, “we have legends, not myths,” but adds, “the historical character of the life and of the personality is not at all imperilled thereby,” this is simply a contradiction. For legends are no history, and in the way of history all that remains is that once an Elijah lived and did great things; all besides is insecure and uncertain, is in fact legend presented in a poetic garment.
Exegetical and Critical
1Ki_17:1. And Elijah the Tishhite. When under Ahab the falling away from Jehovah in Israel reached a degree never hitherto known (1Ki_16:30-34), then the prophet Elijah appeared and announced to the king, &c. Thenius is of the opinion that the proper opening of the history of Elijah here is missing, and that the manner of his appearance presupposes an activity in the past. Von Gerlach also says, “the history has a great gap here, at its beginning,” for Elijah appears as one in connection with whom extraordinary occurrences were known for a long time. But this view is not necessary. It is in the highest degree probable that Elijah lived, up to that moment, in retirement, that his prophetic activity first began with his encounter with Ahab, and that then his history, strictly speaking, began, like that of Mark and Matthew, and of John the Baptist his copy. This sudden coming forth corresponds well with the peculiarity of his appearing, hence also Jesus Sirach (Sir_48:1-12) begins his eulogy upon Elijah with the words: “Then stood up Elias the prophet as fire, and his word burned like a lamp. He brought a sore famine upon them,” &c. The name אֵלִיָּהוּ or אֵלִיָּה (2Ki_1:3 sq.), i.e., not, according to the old interpreters: My strength is Jehovah, but: My God is Jehovah, refers to the life’s calling of the prophet, which was to bear witness against Jehovah as the one true God over against Baal. It is not at all likely that he gave this significant name to himself (Thenius). In 1Ki_21:17 he is called the Tishbite without any addition. In Tob_1:2 only, is θίσβη, a place, mentioned, “which is at the right hand of that city which is called properly Naphtali, in Galilee above Aser.” As there is no mention anywhere of a place of that name, this must be the Thisbe. The addition מִתּשָׁבֵי גִלְעָד says that Elijah of Thisbe was born in Galilee, but was living in Gilead, in the land lying over against Ephraim, on the other side of Jordan. Instead of מִתּשָׁבֵי Ewald, Thenius, and Kurtz wish, after the Sept. (ὁ θεσβίτης ὁ ἐκ θεσσεβῶν τῆς Γαλαάδ), to read מִתִּשְׁבִּי, so that the sense would be, the Tishbite, namely, of the Thisbe which is in Gilead, but which is not the Thisbe in Galilee, mentioned in Tob_1:2. But there is no proof that there was a Thisbe in Gilead. Even תּוֹשָׁב does not force us to this reading: for it does not designate a stranger, i.e., a non-Israelite, but one who had wandered off into another tribe, and was dwelling there, like the still stronger גַּר in Jdg_17:7 of the Levite who was of Bethlehem in Judah, and had settled himself in Ephraim. That the generally plene written תּוֹשָׁב stands here without ו makes nothing against the Masoretic punctuation (Keil on the place). Whether Elijah came from the unknown Thisbe in Galilee, or from the equally unknown Thisbe in Gilead, is a matter of no moment, but it is certain that he came over into Samaria from the country east of the Jordan.
Said unto Ahab, &c. It is often maintained that the words of Elijah are the conclusion of a longer conference with Ahab, and the Talmud (Sanhed. 1Kings 22:1) states the occasion and the contents of the same, but most arbitrarily. The prophet surely entered into no dispute with Ahab. According to his constantly observed plan, he appeared before the backslider with a short but incisive word, which he understood well enough without any extended reasoning. As the Lord God of Israel liveth is the usual form of an oath, which here at the same time places Jehovah, the only living God, in contrast with Baal, the dead idol. The addition also, the God of Israel, stands out in its full meaning: the true living God is He also who had chosen Israel and made a covenant with them, which was now shamefully broken by idolatry. With the words, before whom I stand (1Ki_1:2; 1Ki_10:5; 1Ki_10:8), Elijah designates himself to the king as the servant and ambassador of Jehovah, and that as such he stands before him and announces the impending punishment. This punishment, that there should be no dew nor rain, was not arbitrary and prejudiced, but was threatened in the law for the sin of falling away, and suited the especial circumstances. The fruitful land of Canaan was promised to the people, after their exodus from Egypt, on the condition that they would keep the covenant of Jehovah, and not serve other gods. But in the event of a falling away it was threatened that the heavens should become brass, and the earth iron, i.e., that it should become unfruitful; and this, for an agricultural people, was the direst evil (Lev_26:19 sq.;Deu_11:16 sq.;1Kings 28:23 sq.; cf.1 Kings 1Kings 8:35; Amo_4:7 sq.). Never hitherto had the covenant been broken, and idolatry been formally introduced, as under Ahab; if ever at all, now must the threatening be carried into execution. Such a punishment was at the same time an evidence against the Baal-worship; for since Baal was worshipped conspicuously as the generating Nature-power, so was the impending drought and barrenness a tangible proof of the impotence and nullity of this idol. It is not to be overlooked that Elijah, while he announces the coming of the punishment threatened by Moses, and in a certain degree executes it, places himself, at the outset, in the direct position of a mediator and founder of the covenant, as another Moses, i. e., as the restorer of the covenant. The prophet announces the continuance of the drought only in a general way, because it would depend upon the conduct of the king and of the people. He therefore adds, but according to my word, perhaps “in opposition to others, particularly the prophets of Baal” (Keil), certainly for the humiliation of the haughty king, who had set himself up above Jehovah and his commandment, and now must feel himself dependent upon the word of a man whom he despised, one of his subjects, but who, nevertheless, “was standing before Jehovah.”
1Ki_17:2-3. And the word of the Lord came unto him, &c. How Ahab received the announcement of the prophet, whether angrily or indifferently, is not stated. Certainly he did not lay hands upon him, who seems to have disappeared as unexpectedly as he came. From the more general direction eastward, which is followed by the more especial עַל־פְּנֵי of Jordan, Thenius justly concludes that the brook Cherith flowed easterly from Jordan (Gen_16:12; Gen_23:19; Jos_18:14), in opposition to the tradition which locates it this side the same river (see Keil). What recent writers deliver in respect of its situation are, after all, uncertain guesses, and nothing can be gathered concerning it from its name כְּרִית, i.e., separation. The assertion that the “brook” was called Cherith, i. e., drying up, because it used to dry up (Krummacher) much sooner than all others, is a sort of lucus a non lucendo. For it seems, on the other hand, to have belonged to the class of perennial fountains, and upon that account to have been pointed out to the prophet in the time of drought. Certainly the prophet was not concealed “in order to get out of the way of importunate prayers for the removal of the punishment” (Keil), for a man of such inflexible will would not find it necessary to get out of the way of such prayers. We surmise rather that his design was to be safe from the persecution of Ahab and Jezebel; for he would be able the more readily to fly into the neighboring kingdom of Judah. It was also requisite, after that great declaration, that he should again retire into the obscurity from which he had emerged, and not appear again “until men were convinced of the truth of his word by the results thereof, and would feel their need of him and of his God, and he could labor mightily and decisively against the idol-worship” (Menken). Since God had appointed him to an extraordinary task, it was necessary, after he had begun it with the announcement of the judicial punishment, to retire into obscurity, in order to prepare for all that his calling brought with it, both great and grievous. The sojourn in the desert was “the time when he grappled and wrestled in prayer for his people, and was himself purified and strengthened for his future deeds” (Von Gerlach). “Most of the saints and great men lived, before their entrance upon their public career, in profound obscurity: so Moses, so Jesus himself, so Paul, who spent three years in Arabia after his conversion. God receives His people first in silence in his school, until He can use them openly (Calwer Bib.). The second Elijah, John the Baptist (Mat_11:14; Mat_17:12), was in the wilderness when the command of God came to him to appear openly (Luk_1:80; Luk_3:2).
1Ki_17:4-6. I have commanded the ravens, &c. To command means “as much as to make use of them in the execution of his purposes” (Berleb. Bibel). As the God who hath made heaven and earth and all that therein is, hath “commanded” the serpents (Amo_9:3), and the clouds (Isa_5:6; Psa_78:23), the sea also (Job_38:11), so likewise the ravens. By means of these the supply of the prophet with food is promised, not “against their own voracity, because subject to the will of God” (Thenius), but because they have their habitat, and are found in wild and desolate places (Isa_34:11; Zep_2:14). As the raven, according to Lev_11:15; Deu_14:14, belongs to the unclean class of birds, Kimchi and other rabbins, referring to Eze_27:27, explain עֹרְבִים as merchants. But apart from the consideration that עֹרֵב by itself never means merchant, Elijah was not to eat the ravens, and the eating only of unclean creatures was forbidden. It is even still worse to read עַרְבִים, i.e., Arabians (1Ch_21:16), or to suppose that the inhabitants of the unknown city Orbo, or of the rock Oreb (Jdg_7:25), are meant (cf. on the other hand Bochart, Hieroz. II. i. 2). Gumpach is altogether out of the way when he translates 1Ki_17:6,—and the ravens coming to him were bread and meat; for then Elijah would have, been compelled to eat, in order to be nourished, unclean creatures forbidden by the law.
1Ki_17:7-12. And it came to pass after a while, &c. Not after the course of a year, but after some time; for יָמִים can only be understood of the space of a year when the connection necessarily requires it, as in Jdg_11:40; Jdg_17:10; Lev_25:29. Luther’s translation: after several days, is also incorrect. Zarephath lay between Tyre and Sidon, also in the native land of Jezebel. There is still extant a village named Surafend with remains of an ancient date (Robinson’s Palestine, vol. II. p. 474–475). The “commanding” here is the same as in 1Ki_17:4.—The widow woman, &c., 1Ki_17:10. From the fact that she was gathering sticks it is evident that the woman was poor and forsaken. To test whether she were the person who was to provide for him, wearied by his journey in the heat of the sun, he begs her first of all for a drink of water (by כְּלִי a drinking-cup which he had brought from the brook Cherith is to be understood). As she readily complied with his request he went further, and asked for a mouthful of bread, and observes from her reply, in which she speaks only of her son, and not of her husband, that she was a widow, and also that she knew Jehovah, the God of Israel. Then he was no longer in doubt that she was the person who was to care for him. בְּיָדֶךְ at the conclusion of 1Ki_17:11 is not to be connected with לִקְחִי but with פַּת־לֶחֶם: a bit of bread which thou hast (Sep. ψωμὸν ἄρτου τοῦ ἐν τῆ χειρί σου). From the oath by “Jehovah,” and the addition “thy God” it is obvious that the woman recognized in the man thus asking of her an Israelitish prophet, which, indeed, his dress proclaimed (2Ki_1:8), and likewise that she also knew of Jehovah the God of Israel. The supposition that she knew only the name of this God, and then, “so much the more to secure confidence” (Thenius), swore not by her own, but by the God of Elijah, makes her simply a hypocrite; for no one swears by a God whom he does not honor and recognize as a God. She indeed names Jehovah the God of the prophet, but while she swears by this God she gives it to be understood that the God of the prophet is also her God. In any event she was not a worshipper of the Phœnician Baal and Astarte, otherwise an Elijah would not have been directed to her. How and where she learned to know the God of Israel, we do not ascertain. But it is certain that she knew him. It is not impossible that she was an Israelite by birth, who had been married to a Phœnician. To dwell in a foreign land, with an Israelitish widow, seems entirely suitable to the prophet’s situation. The passage in Luk_4:25 does not suggest that she was a heathen and worshipper of idols, but that she was not in the native land of the prophet. By מָעוֹג “the smallest-sized bread in the form of cake is to be understood (Thenius). It is baked in hot ashes; the Sept. has ἐγκρυφίας (cf.Ps. 1Kings 35:16). כַּד is a little vessel for holding meal. Oil was used in baking. The woman was collecting the wood to have her last “baking,” for she saw before her death from starvation.
1Ki_17:13-16. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not, &c. The prophet attaches to his word of consolation a demand which was, for the woman, a severe test of her faith. Never would he have made the demand, and still less would she have paid any attention to it (1Ki_17:15), had she been a heathen and worshipped idols. That at the word of Jehovah, the God of Israel (1Ki_17:14), she did what the prophet bade her, certainly shows a faith which could scarcely be found in Israel. תתן is the infinitive תֵּת with the syllable תֵן repeated as in 1Ki_6:19. The addition, and her house, 1Ki_17:15, while in 1Ki_17:12-13 her son only is mentioned, means that there was so much meat and oil that even her poor relations came to partake thereof. The Sept. in 1Ki_17:12-13, without any authority, has τοῖς τέκνοις, and in 1Ki_17:15, τὰ τέκνα, and Thenius would like to make the text to conform to this. The same author, without reason, wishes, with the Vulgate (et ex illa die), to refer יָמִים to the following verse: and from that time the barrel wasted not. It means simply a long while, like Gen_40:4; Num_9:22.
1Ki_17:17-18. And it came to pass after these things, &c. It went so far with the sick son that “there was no breath left in him.” The same expression occurs also in Dan_10:17 (cf.1 Kings 1Kings 10:5), but where it does not, however, at all describe death (i.e., being in a state of death). It would be a mistake to maintain that these words can mean only that he died. We must rather conclude, that as the text does not say וַיָּמֹת it did not mean to say it. 1Ki_17:18; 1Ki_17:20 likewise do not compel us to think of a being in a state of death, and Josephus, who certainly was not afraid of the miraculous, gives our words thus—“ὡς καὶ τὴς ψυχὴν ἀφεῖναι καὶ δόξαι νεκρόν. The illness was certainly mortal, and the boy would have remained in a breathless and lifeless condition, had not Elijah rescued him from death. The action of the prophet is hence miraculous, which he did not perform by his own human power, but which the God who doeth wonders achieved through him. The formula מַה־לִּיוָלָךְ (cf.2 Sam. 1Kings 16:10; Jdg_11:12; 2Ki_3:13; Mat_8:29; Joh_2:4) has, according to the connection, a somewhat different sense. Here it expresses, as the respectful form of address, “Man of God,” shows, not strong dislike, or “the breaking up of outward fellowship and a demand for his departure” (Thenius), but distress and lamentation: Is this the result of my association with thee? Must such sorrow befall me because thou art with me? The words immediately following are to be connected therewith; בָּאתָ, &c., which do not convey a positive accusation or objection, but, with the Sept., Vulgate, Thenius, and others, are to be understood interrogatively: Was it necessary for thee to come to me, &c. As mothers, at the loss of a beloved child, often seek for the reason of it in some definite occasion, so here the troubled woman has the thought that the death of her son is a punishment for her sin, which first becomes known properly before God through the man of God, who, as such, is in a special intercourse with God. We can scarcely find “the presumption” in this thought, that “the appearance of a higher being brings undoubtedly death to the person to whom it happens” (Menken after Hess), but rather the erroneous supposition that by intercourse with the holy man of God, and in contrast with him, her sinful nature first becomes clear and known to the holy God. As in contrast with the holy will of God revealed in the law, man in his sinfulness knows himself, the same is true also in contrast with such men as walk before the holy God, and within whom His holy will lives and works (Luk_5:8). The error lay in this—that the woman supposed that in the degree in which she had come to the knowledge and the feeling of her sin, God also was then taking cognizance of it, and punishing her. “Folly indeed in the thought, but in this folly what truth of feeling and humility” (Krummacher). This error the prophet sets aside, not by means of a long didactic reply, but by a rescuing action which must have convinced her that the distress did not overtake her on account of her special sin, but ὑπὲρ τὴς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ, and that “the works of God might be manifest thereby” (Joh_9:3; Joh_11:4).
1Ki_17:19-23. And he took him out of her bosom, &c. He goes “into his lonely chamber in order to be alone with his God, and to be able to pray all the more freely. Here he pours out his heart, inwardly moved by sympathy at the grief of the mother, and much distressed at the incomprehensibleness and unexpectedness of this divine providence, in humble trustfulness before his God” (Menken). Cf.Acts 1Kings 9:40; 2Ki_4:33. In the question to God (1Ki_17:20) there is no cavil; it is rather the expression of a man wrestling in prayer with God, who does not doubt that God will hear him (Jam_1:6).—And he laid him, &c. How this was done is more fully stated in 2Ki_4:34. Like Christ, the prophet of all prophets, when he healed the dumb, and the blind, and the blind from his birth (Mar_7:33; Mar_8:23; Joh_9:6-7), so Elijah proceeded in this case. He employs rational means for warming and re-vivifying, not with the hope that of themselves they would prove effectual, but in the sure confidence that God, in answer to his weeping supplication, would impart supernatural, divine, i.e., life-giving, force to the natural human instruments, and this happened.—Three times Elijah stretched himself upon the child, calling upon God, not so much because everything to be thoroughly and completely done must be done thrice (three are the true unit), as rather because the calling upon the name of Jehovah in the old covenant was a threefold act (Psa_55:18; Dan_6:10); thrice in the high-priestly benediction was the name of Jehovah laid upon Israel (Num_6:22); thrice did the seraphim before the throne of Jehovah cry out holy (Isa_6:3).
1Ki_17:24. And the woman said, &c. The sense of her words is not that she had doubted hitherto whether Elijah were actually a man of God, but that now she knew it; for she names him such in 1Ki_17:18, and as such regards him as the cause of her grievous visitation. Rather she explains, now (עַתּה זֶהRth_2:7; 2Ki_5:22), she is convinced anew and most assuredly about it. אֱמֶת at the end is not to be taken adverbially: that thou art truly a prophet and speakest the word of Jehovah, but as a substantive: that which thou, in the name of Jehovah, speakest as His word is truth, upon which one can entirely repose. The experience in 1Ki_17:14 is confirmed here to its fullest extent. Menken is incorrect here in understanding by דְּבַר־יְהוָֹה “the whole announcement of the truth, all taken together, which Elijah had said and taught during his stay in her house, concerning truth and error, the worship of idols and the worship of God,” &c. The expression never means this, but always simply the word of Jehovah which He Himself speaks or has spoken.
Historical and Ethical
1. The first coming forth of Elijah is in the highest degree characteristic, and, as it were, the superscription, in the way of action, to his entire appearing; for it throws light, at the outset, upon the peculiarity both of his personality and of his public activity. Living until then in the greatest obscurity and entirely unknown, he stands suddenly there “like one fallen from the clouds, to be compared with the lightning of God, like a lighted fire-brand hurled by the hand of Jehovah” (Krummacher), and after he had spoken his word, which “burned like a torch” (Ecclesiast. 1Kings 48:1), he again disappears, and no one knew whither he had gone (1Ki_18:10; cf. 2Ki_2:16-18; 1Ki_9:3; 1Ki_9:8). Wholly alone, without any power or influence behind him, he encountered the mighty king fearlessly and courageously, not like a suppliant, but threatening and punishing (cf. chap, 1Kings 18:15; 1Kings 21:20; 2Ki_2:15 sq.). His speech is brief and pithy, firm and definite. He delivers no elaborated address; the word he speaks is like a deed. “There is something great, majestic, divine, in the coming forth of this prophet” (Menken). No less striking is the substance of his first utterance. He announces to the chief of the kingdom of the ten tribes, carried over into formal idolatry by the sin of Jeroboam, and now completely cut loose from the covenant (1Ki_19:10), the punishment which was threatened in the covenant (=law), that he may forsake his evil ways and turn unto the God of his fathers. But in this he does not bring to light merely one side of his prophetic calling, but the core and heart thereof. The peculiar, specific place which he occupied in the economy of grace was to raise up and restore the covenant which had been communicated and established by Moses, but had become violated. As restorer and reformer he stands in immediate relation to Moses, the founder of this covenant. Hence we shall see, not only in the course of his history is there much that is analogous with the history of Moses, but he appears also together with Moses at the transfiguration of the Lord (Luk_9:28-35), and both speak “of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” They both represent the Old-Testament economy in contrast with Him who, by his “decease,” carries it to its end and fulfilment. As another, second Moses, Elijah’s entire personality and work in his calling bears also supremely an historical character. And as the restoring and rehabilitation of the covenant demanded, necessarily, an overthrowing and removal of the idol-worship, already deeply rooted and powerful, not only must glowing zeal and impartial strictness be combined in this character so devoted to the law, but also a judicial activity itself. Hence his acts often have the appearance of hardness and violence. The period of his appearing was, for the covenant-breaking, idolatrous generation, a day of divine judgment, a time of visitation and chastening. But in so far as the restoration of the covenant did not concern outward, political relations, but the ethico-religious relation to Jehovah, the Holy One, and aimed to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Mal_4:6), Elijah was properly the prophet of repentance. This, indeed, he announced by his dress (2Ki_1:8), which thereafter was the official dress of the prophets and preachers of repentance (1Ki_19:19; 2Ki_2:13; Zec_13:4), and in which he appeared, of whom the Lord said, “and if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come” (Mat_3:4; Mat_11:14; Mat_17:11). And what was his first word but a call to repentance? Kurtz is somewhat one-sided in his judgment on Elijah’s position in the divine economy. He says: “In his official position the absolute one-sidedness of the exhibition of law, and the limit of his vision and of his activity to the present, which is therewith connected, characterizes him.…for the understanding of this, his one-sided position as prophet, having to deal neither with hopes nor with promises, we should not lose sight of the fact that he wrought and lived in the kingdom of Israel, not in the kingdom of Judah. Only there, not here, is the coming of a prophet like Elijah comprehensible. In the kingdom of Judah a prophet like Elijah would certainly have taken a different course.… there, all would have worked upon him and would have made something else out of him.” If this were so, it is not easy to explain why he, in preference to all other prophets, should have appeared, along with Moses, at the transfiguration of Christ, and why the Lord, in the passages already cited, should attribute to him such high significance for the Messianic age, just as the prophet Malachi had already done (1Kings 4:5, 6). It was not Elijah’s calling to refer to the Messiah in words and discourses, he had to do only with the rehabilitation of the broken covenant, and Messianic predictions could follow only upon this. Under existing circumstances, this could be brought about only by great, mighty actions. Elijah, hence, was, as we have already remarked, a prophet of action, “the great hero-prophet of the kingdom of the ten tribes” (Ewald). His whole career was active. His person was a living prophecy of him who appeared before the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, so also of grace (cf. Hengstenberg, Christologie III. s. 441 sq.)
2. The three wonderful occurrences which follow upon the first coming forth of Elijah are in immediate relation to the time in which they took place, and which was a period of general distress in consequence of the drought, and it was also a time of preparation for the coming activity of the prophet. And the transactions here brought together lose in this way the appearance of being only accidental and arbitrary, which might have happened just as suitably at any other time. Far from being mere “miracles,” and from calling up and favoring an unworthy representation of the nature (being) of God, they are signs and witnesses of the living, personal God over against the apotheosis of Nature, and the dead idols which have mouths and speak not, eyes and see not, ears and hear not, hands and handle not (Psa_115:4-7). All that is grand and glorious about this God, which the Scripture teaches, stands here before us in deeds. The God who has made heaven and earth and all that therein is, and given to the world its laws, does not stand beneath but above it, so that “leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, wealth and poverty, and all things, do not come to us hap-hazard, but from His fatherly hand” (Heidel. Katech.). He does not lack the means to deliver out of all distress and even death itself (Psa_68:21): He is near unto all who call upon Him. He does for all who call upon Him earnestly what they who fear God desire. He hears their cry and helps them (Psa_145:18 sq.). He often leads them by dark paths, but “they are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies” (Psa_25:10). For Elijah, indeed, the necessary experiences of this period of preparation for his great career, were both a trial and a strengthening of his faith. When in the most fruitful district itself, where there was scarcity, he is remanded first to a desert in which there is an absence of all food, and only a brook which at any moment might dry up, and then in a foreign land to a widow almost at death’s door from starvation. But here a calamity befell, out of which no deliverance seemed possible. He acts, nevertheless, in firm faith and asks no question, like the people in the wilderness (Psa_78:19 sq.), and the more his faith is proved and exercised, so much the more is it strengthened, so much the more gloriously is the power and fidelity of the living God verified unto him. Thus disciplined and strengthened, he first properly becomes an instrument to destroy the heathen abominations and to bear the name of his God before the Gentiles and before the kings and before the children of Israel (chap. 18).
3. Elijah’s subsistence in the desert is and remains, according to the simple, clear sense of the narrative, miraculous. “It is almost laughable,” as Winer rightly says, when many ancient and recent expositors, even Rabbins, make the ravens to be Arabs or merchants; but it is not much better when J. D. Michaelis supposes that Elijah had a hunting-ground for ravens, as well also as young hares, rats, and mice, which they would carry to their nests, or had trained them as hawks for the hunt. Others, like Knobel, perceiving the preposterousness of such explanations, have referred to “the like cases amongst profane writers:” “Semiramis, exposed as a newly-born infant, was nourished by doves; a bitch gave suck to Cyrus, a shewolf to Romulus and Remus; the same is narrated by Ælian, v. 12, 42, of hinds, mares, bears, goats” (Prophet. der Hebr. II. s. 84; cf. Rödiger, Allg. Encyklop. Bd. 33, s. 322). All these myths of children-nursing animals have grown up upon the soil of nature-religion, and are consequently specifically heathen. Their sense is that the power of nature, revealing itself in the suckling animals, is transferred to the child, or they explain how this or that person, remarkable by a special power, has obtained it by the same being the distinguishing trait of some animal (ζῶον). What has this remote resemblance to do with the fact that the God who holds in His hand all creatures, provided the necessary nourishment for his prophet in the wilderness by the occupants of this wilderness, the ravens. Quite apart from their sense and meaning, not even in their outward form do these myths allow of a comparison with our narrative. That which has been adduced in the way of parallel is equally inappropriate. When Jerome (Opp. i. p. 239) states that the hermit Paul was fed daily by a raven provided with a half loaf for the period of sixty years, this obviously is but an exaggerated imitation of our story. Hess (Gesch. der Kön. Isr. I. s. 99) refers to the “credible accounts that exposed children, exiles, fugitives have been sustained for a long time by animals,” and remarks thereupon: “Such narrations are rarely questioned, except when they are adduced by the writers of the Bible, as proofs of a special divine providence;” but he adds, that in the case before us much remains that is “inexplicable.”
4. The sojourn of Elijah with the widow of Sarepta, considered quite apart from the fact that it served as a preparation for his public activity, constitutes a weighty moment in his history, because it shows us one side of the prophet which is thrown into the back-ground in his public career, but which, nevertheless, belongs essentially to a complete portraiture of the great man of God. While over against the fallen, covenant-breaking, idol-serving generation he was inexorable and uncomprising, denouncing and judging, threatening and punishing, to the poor widow he was sympathizing and friendly only, full of fellow-feeling and compassion, comforting, blessing, and helping. He there, for the first time, appears great and wonderful, for it is manifest that that harshness and severity was not characteristic, not inborn, but was founded in the special place which he was destined to occupy in the economy of grace. Never would he have; fulfilled his calling to put an end to the crime of a ruinous idolatry, and to be a second Moses, if he had shown the same traits to Ahab and Jezebel which he did to the widow of Sarepta. Elijah had to make good, first of all, obedience and resignation to the will of God at the brook Cherith, compassion and love at Sarepta, then it was that he appeared in the sight of God furnished with iron-severity to judge and to punish. “Now since thou hast learned sympathy, go hence and preach, and speak to the people:” these are the words to him which Chrysostom puts into the mouth of God (Opp. vi. p. 109).
5. The narrative represents the fact, that the meal in the barrel and the oil in the cruse did not fail, to have been quite as much an extraordinary act of God as the previous support by means of the ravens. The grossest prejudice alone can say: “Here there is not a syllable that this was done by miracle: God gave his blessing so, that by the labor of her hands, assisted perhaps by the prophet, she secured for herself the necessaries of life” (Dinter, Schull. Bib. on the place). In that case Elijah’s promise, 1Ki_17:14, was nothing more than an exhortation to industry, but no prophet was needed for this. Knobel is equally unsatisfactory (as above s. 81), when in the whole narrative he finds nothing more than “the view that the blessing of God rests where men of God are.” The words of the Lord, in Luk_4:25, do not at all authorize us to think that this was simply an ordinary act of divine providence. Hess (as above s. 104) says: “As for myself, I find the narrative so beautiful and as suitable to God as anything, and place confidence in the old author, when, without fear of any wisdom, whether of that time or of to-day, he continues, She went and did as Elijah bade her, &c.” Menken: This whole history glorifies God, whom the Scripture teaches us to know in His unapproachable greatness and in His affable mercy and condescension. A God such as the human heart in the needs of this present life needs always and desires; the all-governing Ruler, the alone-independent, the free master over all nature, who gives dew and rain, and punishing lands and peoples, withholds and takes away bread and water. But the individual man is not forgotten of Him; no, not even the beggar on the highways. He beholds not only the whole, but the single parts: He looks not only into the palace of kings, but into the huts of poverty. The need and misery of a poor widow are not too insignificant for Him; he observes her sighs and tears, and her silent desolate cabin is for Him a place worthy of the revelation of His glory and goodness (Isa_57:15; Isa_66:1 sq.).
6. The revivifying of the child, on account of the prophet’s mode of procedure, has been explained as a physician’s act. The narrative has, so Knobel supposes, its foundation “in the circumstance that the prophets exercised also the function of physicians.” The boy, in consequence of frequent convulsions, suffered a severe fainting-fit, and was brought back again to life by pressure, animal warmth, and applied restoratives (Meyer in Berthold’s Theol. Journal iv. 230). According to Ennemoser (Magnetism. s. 422) this was a case of animal magnetism (Winer, R.- W.- B. I. s. 319). But nothing is more certain than that the text adduces no proof of the medical skill of the prophet, nor says anything of a human medical act of healing: it sets forth an act of God done by means of the prophet. Before he stretches himself upon the boy the prophet calls once and again imploringly upon Him who can both kill and make alive (Deu_32:29; 1Sa_2:6; 2Ki_5:7): Let the soul of this child come to it again! “and Jehovah hearkened to the voice of Elijah.” The revivifying is like an answer to prayer. It is not the prophet, as a “thaumaturgist” or as a physician employing natural means, but Jehovah who hears the prayer of His servant and delivers from death. If in addition to praying he stretches himself upon the child, he did this after the genuine prophetic way; the visible human deed served as substratum for the divine, and this divine deed is affirmed and attested in the prophet’s. The deeds of the prophets are signs (אוֹת) which represent what God does or will do by means of them, and are more or less symbolical actions (see above). The outward action was, in the case, the sign of that which God alone could do; it is not the delivering, quickening might and power, but only the medium denoting it.
Homiletical and Practical
1Ki_17:1. The first appearing of the prophet Elijah. (a) The time when; (b) the message with which he appeared. The prophet Elijah, (a) his name—my God is Jehovah; (b) his origin: Thisbe, an insignificant, unknown place, like Bethlehem and Nazareth; (c) his condition and calling: he stands before the Lord, the God of Israel. General distresses, like hunger and famine, sicknesses and epidemics, are not mere natural events, but they are the judgments of God upon the godless and the God-forgetting; they are the trials of the pious, and to all they cry: repent and be converted!—Menken: Men in general have never been willing to recognize, and are still unwilling to recognize, the fact that need and misery upon earth stand in the closest relation to their conduct towards God; that through their need they may be called back to Him whom they have forsaken, and feel what it is when God withdraws His hand, when they are left to themselves, when the Almighty withholds His gifts and blessings, and sends His punishments and plagues. The God of Israel is the living God because He has spoken to Israel and has, through His word, revealed Himself to them (Psa_147:19-20). God has spoken to us by His Son, the image of His Being (Heb_1:2), and has revealed Himself in Him much more gloriously to us; therefore Christendom knows no other living God than the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who can venture to say that he stands before God? He who, like Elijah, has firm faith, is unconditionally obedient to the word of God, and fearlessly and courageously pursues the path God has prescribed for him (Isa_41:10).—Krummacher: It is the way of our God from of old that he takes people, by whom He will accomplish something great, from the dust rather than from thrones, so that it may be manifest how all things happen according to His purpose, how that flesh and blood have not done this and that, but that to him alone belongs the glory.
1Ki_17:2-9. Bender: Elijah at the brook in the wilderness. (a) How his faith was tried, and (b) how it was crowned.—Wirth: Elijah at the brook Cherith. How the Lord protects and conceals him; how He leads him into the wilderness; and how He cares for him. Elijah in the wilderness. (a) Why the Lord sends him thither; (b) what he suffered him to experience there.
1Ki_17:3. Go away and hide thyself. (a) Go away. A hard word for a heroic man like Elijah, who has threatened the king and the whole people, and must now flee and expose himself to scorn and contempt. Going away often requires more self-denial than remaining. For the testimony to the truth, the command at one time is, remain and fear not (Act_18:9 sq.), at another, go from that city, &c. (Mat_10:14; Mat_10:23 sq.); they “must, like their Lord, often appear in the form of a servant, and can wear upon earth no other crown than a crown of thorns, and if at any time their power is so great that they can give or take away dew and rain upon earth, and can punish kings and peoples, at another time they must bow and bend, suffer and be silent, and in the eye of the world appear weak and powerless, so that they and others may thereby know all the more profoundly, that the superabundant might is of God, and not of themselves” (Menken). But to every true Christian also the command often comes, go hence, remain not where men are serving the world and Baal, where the word of the Lord is despised, and the fear of the holy and righteous Lord has disappeared. [See The Hermits of the Rev. Charles Kingsley.—E. H.] (b) Hide thyself. In order to be able to achieve his great, severe, and holy task and to be fitted for it, Elijah had to go into retirement, where he was alone with his God and learned to say, Lord whom have I, &c. (Psa_73:25 sq.). Every man who has done anything great in the kingdom of God has passed a long time in retirement and solitude. But to every faithful Christian also the command has come, hide thyself, go into the stillness and solitude. The hidden man of the heart, with soft, still spirit (1Pe_3:4), does not thrive in the perpetual tumult and babbling noise of the world. There is no man who has not felt the need of some time and place to collect his thoughts and to be alone with his God; they who avoid such are not fit for the kingdom of God.
1Ki_17:4. Krummacher: Every way appointed for us by the Lord has His promise, and we need not fear when once we are assured that God has directed our way.
1Ki_17:5. Might it be said of us all, in every situation of life and under all relations, he went thither and did according to the word of the Lord.—Menken: He went in faith along the hard, dark path into the wilderness, as a genuine son of Abraham the father of all the faithful, who knew that without faith it is impossible to please God, and that man can offer to God no higher and nobler homage than to believe in his promises. Who so chooses the dear God, and always hopes in Him, him will He sustain wonderfully in all need and affliction (Psa_4:4; Psa_147:5). Go whithersoever thou wilt, means shall not fail thee, thy deed is pure blessing, thy course pure light. To Elijah the promise was, I have commanded the ravens to care for thee; but we all have a still more glorious promise: He hath given his angels charge concerning thee, that they shall watch over thee in all thy ways, &c. (Psa_91:10-12).—Menken: Just under these circumstances in which most men forsake the word of God, it shows itself most gloriously to the few who hold to it. When the world despises it, and ridicules the observance of it as weakness of mind, then is it mightiest, and it justifies the keeping of it by means of the richest experiences, which are the assurance, to those who honor it, of its truth and of the power of God. The ravens, which are not accustomed to care for their own young, must, at the command of God, nourish the prophet, as an evidence that even the unreasoning creature cannot move without His will, and that even the most insignificant must contribute to the glory of the Creator, who has promised, I will not leave nor forsake thee (Heb_13:5).—Starke: In the case of His servants and children, God sometimes makes use of the ravens, i. e., of abandoned and godless men.
1Ki_17:7-16. Wirth: Elijah with the widow at Sarepta. (a) The dried up brook; (b) The new place of refuge; (c) The meal in the barrel and the oil in the cruse.—Krummacher: The departure for Zarephath. Elijah’s need, Elijah’s departure, his grand deliverance.—Bender (1Ki_17:10-24): Elijah with the widow at Sarepta. Our history confirms the Psalm-word (Psa_68:21); (1) we have a God who helps, and (2) a Lord of lords who delivers from death. The widow at Zarephath. (a) Her lot (widowed, poor, without influence before the world, but chosen by God, Luk_4:26). (b) Her self-denial and her faith (although on the verge of death from starvation, she will share what she can, and believe the word of the prophet as a word from God). (c) Her reward, Mat_10:41 sq. (she is not only delivered from death by hunger, Psa_33:19; but she receives continuously what she and her whole household needed, Psa_37:19; Psa_112:3).
1Ki_17:7-9. Elijah’s second trial of faith. (a) Depart (one trial follows another, so that the gold of his faith may become more free from all dross). (b) To Zarephath in Sidon (from thy fatherland into a spiritual waste and desert, in the land of idolatry, where Jezebel’s father ruled, and where the danger seemed greater than at the brook Cherith; but, courage, it will not be so serious, &c.). (c) To a widow (who herself needed protection, and not to a rich, powerful man. The Lord will care for thee, rest assured of that, and do not ask how it shall come to pass. Despise no instrumentality which He points out to thee, no condition and no man He makes use of, for it is not difficult to the Lord to send help by means either of little or of much, 1Sa_14:6. Things are small before God, and to the Highest all things are alike [‘There is no great and no small, to the Lord that maketh all.’] … He is the true wonder-worker, who can now exalt and now overturn).
1Ki_17:7. When without thy fault the brook, from which thou dost quench thy thirst, is dried, and the spring whence thy life was supported has failed, let the word spoken come to thee: Wait upon the Lord, who will help thee (Pro_20:22); for they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, &c. (Isa_40:31). The words of Elijah to the widow. (a) The request (1Ki_17:10-11); (b) The consolation (1Ki_17:13); (c) The promise (1Ki_17:14). Requests made to a man are often the key which opens to us his most hidden being. They who have but little usually give more than they who have much (Luk_21:1 sq.). To the weeping widows and orphans the Lord always calls, Fear not! 1Pe_5:7; Mat_6:25 sq.; Psa_37:25.
1Ki_17:12. In a heathen, idolatrous land Elijah finds in a poor widow what he had sought in vain in Israel: faith in the living God of Israel.—Krummacher: He who has experienced it knows how precious it is, when one is far away in a strange country, where the roads toward Zion lie waste, and sees one’s self thrown into the circle of the children of this world, and by the streams of Babylon, to meet unexpectedly in the wilderness somebody from Galilee, or a brother or sister in the Lord.
1Ki_17:13. Berleb. Bib.: Fear not! Ah! How often has a child of God bemoaned, Now all is lost! I have nothing more and know nothing more. The operations of the Spirit of God have ceased for me: the meal and oil are gone! And yet, where there is nothing more amid the night and the darkness, the morning brings something, upon which one can live and find nourishment for the soul, although the time be miserable.
1Ki_17:14-15. When the need is greatest, then is God nearest. On the very day when the poor widow, with her son, will eat the last supplies, her distress comes to an end, and she has thenceforth her daily bread. He helps us before we expect, and permits us to enjoy much good.
1Ki_17:16. The same God who spoke by means of Elijah: The meal in the barrel shall not be wasted, and the oil in the cruse shall not fail, has also promised, as the earth lasts, seed-time and harvest, frost and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease (Gen_8:22). We are astonished at the little miracle in the cabin at Sarepta, but we pass over with indifference, and without attention, the large miracle.
1Ki_17:17-24. Wirth: The great deed of God in the case of the son of the widow of Sarepta. (a) The lamentation of the mother over the dead body of the son; (b) the praying prophet and the answering God; (c) the joyous message, Behold, thy son liveth!—Krummacher: The resuscitation at Zarephath. (a) The divine stroke; (b) the victorious battle; (c) the rest after the storm. The school of suffering at Zarephath. (a) The suffering with which the widow and the prophet were visited; (b) how each behaved under it; (c) what both experienced.
1Ki_17:17. Great manifestations of divine grace follow also great trials, so that our faith may be made more precious (1Pe_1:7).—Menken: God willed that the good work begun in her should not be unfinished, and without suffering this could not be, any more than it is in our case and in that of all men.… It is pure goodness and fatherly fidelity when the infinitely good, heavenly Father sends to His children sorrow upon sorrow, lays upon them burden upon burden, and leads them from one distress and trouble into others. In eternity, He will be heartily thanked for nothing more than for this paternal goodness and fidelity.
1Ki_17:18. The first thing which the cross and suffering must do in a man, is to bring about an humble sense of his sin; it is the beginning of all true knowledge of God, the foundation of all true piety. Much that is erroneous respecting God and divine things may adhere to a man, but if he have a living knowledge of his sin, and a living feeling of his unworthiness before the holy God, he is on the pathway to a deepening and higher knowledge of God.—Menken: She does not complain of unrighteousness upon the part of God, she does not accuse God: she acquits God and condemns herself. That was the true bearing in her trouble, and so sorrow wrought good within this soul: it led her within herself, and humbled her in the deeper knowledge of herself. And God giveth grace to the humble. A man does not so readily humble himself too much.… The more strictly a man judges and condemns himself, so much the which is repeated year by year for the whole world.—Starke: The way to wealth is cheerful giving (Luk_6:38), and God crowns beneficence with a blest store (Pro_19:17). God can bless even a little store so that it will suffice for a longwhile. more readily is he acquitted, justified, and pardoned before the divine tribunal (Luk_18:13 sq.). Intercourse and association with a true man of God become a blessing to us when we are thereby led more deeply into ourselves, and are made genuinely conscious of our sinfulness before God (Luk_5:8; Mat_8:8).
1Ki_17:19-22. The prayer of Elijah, (a) The contents; (b) the answer to it. Those are genuine and true friends who do not show sympathy and commiseration simply when we are in distress and trouble, but who give us a helping hand, and from their heart call upon Him who can help us. Wrestling with God in prayer is a matter which belongs to the lonely chamber (Mat_6:6). He who prays only in public, in the church, has never yet prayed truly.
1Ki_17:20. In our prayer we may express indeed how dark and incomprehensible the providences of God are to us, only when we do so with submission to His will without complaint or murmur, and humbly committing entirely to His will how and when He will save us, in our hour of need.
1Ki_17:21. In sickness, we must leave no natural means towards recovery untried, however much we may long for a miracle of God, whilst at the same time we implore God to grant power to these means and bless their application.
1Ki_17:22. Menken: Even if the Lord do no miracle, there are still a thousand ways and means by which he sends comfort and strength, or help and salvation, in answer to the believing prayer of His faithful servants. Each granting of prayer is indeed a miracle, and never is one humble, believing prayer of a righteous soul uttered in vain—no, not even when it is refused.
1Ki_17:23. For the father and mother heart, which moan and lament over a lost son, what could be a gladder message than this: “This, thy son, was dead and is alive again.” (Luk_15:24.) The miracles in the kingdom of grace are as worthy of adoration as those in the kingdom of nature.
1Ki_17:24. We must pass through much grief and humiliation before with joyful assurance we can say to Him, who is greater than Elijah: Now know I that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. Only by means of individual experience does each man come to the blessed confession, that the word of the Lord is truth. He only is a servant of God in whose mouth the word of the Lord is truth, not mere appearance and sham (phrase).
Footnotes:
[1]1Ki_17:1.—[The Sept. adds his office, “Elijah the prophet, the Tishbite.”
[2]1Ki_17:1.—[The Sept. has mistaken the Heb. participle מִתּשָׁבֵי, and by a slight change of the pointing has read מִתִּשְׁבִי ὁ ἐκ Θεσβῶν, “who was of Thesbe.” The Alex. Sept. also omits the word Θεσβίτες. It has been much questioned whether Elijah was of the Thesbe in Galilee mentioned Tob_1:2 (see Exeg. Com.). Against this supposition is the fact that the Jews of our Lord’s time believed that “out of Galilee ariseth no prophet” (Joh_7:52).
[3]1Ki_17:1.—[כִּי אִס־לְפִי דְבָרִי is strongly emphatic: nisi ego et non alius vir, etiamsi propheta sit vel prophetam mentiatur, dixero, Seb. Schm.
[4]1Ki_17:3.—[The phrase עַל־פְּנֵי, the ambiguity of which is exactly rendered in the English “before,” allows either the opinion that the brook was on the east of the Jordan (Euseb., Jerome, v. Raumer, &c., with whom our author), or that it was on the west (Reland, Robinson, &c.)
[5]1Ki_17:4.—[עֹרְבִים is translated ravens in all the VV. except the Arab.; yet so important a commentator as S. Jerome says: Orbim accolœ villœ in finibus Arabum, Eliœ dederunt alimenta. But see Exeg. Com.
[6]1Ki_17:6.—[The Vat. Sept. says the ravens brought bread in the morning and flesh in the evening.
[7]1Ki_17:7.—[The Heb. word here used for rain, גֶּשֶׁם, is the same as in 1Ki_17:14 and in 1Kings 18:41, but different from מָטָר coupled with dew, in 1Ki_17:1. It denotes heavy rain.
[8]1Ki_17:12.—[The Sept. curiously has here and in 1Ki_17:13 τέκνοις in the plural.
[9]1Ki_17:14.—[The form in the text תתן is pointed by the Masorets and marked in the k’ri as to be understood תֵּת. It may, however, he considered as the infin. תֵּת with reduplicated syllable תֵּן and read תִּתֵּן. See Ewald Krit. Gramm. § 238 c.—F. G.]
[10]1Ki_17:15.—The k’ri היא־והוא in Place of the k’tib הוא־והיא is unnecessary. Maurer: Accentus major voci ותאכל adponendus, post ותאכל vero cogitatione repetendum est edebat s. edebant. According to Keil, the feminine form ותאכל is to be taken as an indefinite neuter: and it, he and she, ate. [The reading of the k’ri, however, is sustained by many MSS.
[11]1Ki_17:19.—[עַלִיָּה = ὑπερῷον, the upper chamber which is often built upon the roof of Oriental houses, and to which there was access without passing through the house.
[12]1Ki_17:21.—[וַיִּתְמֹדֵד lit. “he measured himself,” i.e. stretched himself.
[13]1Ki_17:23.—[The Vat. Sept. omits the greater part of 1Ki_17:22 and the first clause of 1Ki_17:23. —F. G.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 6 the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,…
the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, &c.--At first the king may have spurned the prediction as the utterance of a vain enthusiast; but when he found the drought did last and increase in severity, he sought Elijah, who, as it was necessary that he should be far removed from either the violence or the importunities of the king, was divinely directed to repair to a place of retreat, perhaps a cave on "the brook Cherith, that is, before [east of] Jordan." Tradition points it out in a small winter torrent, a little below the ford at Beth-shan.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 ELIJAH THE TISHBITE, 1Ki_17:1-24.
ELIJAH THE TISHBITE, 1Ki_17:1-24.
1. Elijah the Tishbite — “This wonder-working prophet,” says Doran, (in Kitto’s Cyclopaedia,) “is introduced to our notice like another Melchizedek, (Gen_14:18; Heb_7:3,) without any mention of his father or mother, or of the beginning of his days — as if he had dropped out of that cloudy chariot which, after his work was done on earth, conveyed him back to heaven.” Or, as Krummacher says, his sudden appearance is like lightning falling from the clouds, or a firebrand hurled by the hand of Jehovah. In the weird grandeur of his desert life, in the fiery spirit of his words, and the power of his public acts, he stands alone among the old prophets, and finds a compeer only as his spirit and power are reproduced in that greatest of the prophets, the herald of Messiah, who came crying in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Mat_3:2. The miraculous element in the history of Elijah is noticeably large, and in this Rationalism can, of course, see nothing but the colored legends of a superstitious age. But there are obvious reasons why a prophet of Jehovah, appearing at that time, and having to oppose an almost triumphant idolatry that had usurped the kingdom of Israel, should be supported everywhere with extraordinary evidences of his divine mission. Whenever the powers of darkness appear incarnate in some such ruling personage as Jezebel, with her hosts of Baal and Asherah prophets, then our God provides an incarnation of his Divine Spirit and power, with suitable signs and wonders to confuse and confound the ministers of Satan. Such an incarnation was Elijah. Such, too, was Moses, in opposition to Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. Such, indeed, was Jesus the Christ, appearing in that “fulness of the time” (Gal_4:4) when such an incarnation as his alone could be was most opportune, inasmuch as legions of devils had actually taken possession of multitudes, and no power but that of his Divine voice and name could cast them out. And so it will be in the last times, when the good and the evil come to their final struggle, and that lawless one shall be revealed, “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” 2Th_2:8. Extraordinary manifestations of wickedness demand extraordinary manifestations of the power of God.
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Of the inhabitants of Gilead — By a slight change in the Masoretic punctuation we may read, Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbi of Gilead; and this is the reading of the Septuagint, Chaldee, and Josephus. Some have thought this place identical with the Thisbe mentioned in Tob_1:2; but that was a town in Naphtali, while this was in Gilead. The most natural supposition, therefore, is, that Elijah was called the Tishbite from being a native or resident of a place in Gilead called Tishbi or Tishbeh, of which no other trace or mention is now known. The wild, irregular, Bedouin-like character of much of Elijah’s life is in noticeable keeping with his Gileadite origin. The tribes on the east of the Jordan soon fell into the habits of the original Bedouin inhabitants, whose wandering tent life and almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses made them in ancient times what they are now — a people of wild, unsettled habits.
As the Lord God of Israel liveth — A suggestive and significant formula, and somewhat peculiar to Elijah himself. His mission was to proclaim the living God in opposition to Ahab’s dead, senseless idols.
Before whom I stand — Words expressive of a sacred ministry and office, and used of the Levites who bore the ark. Deu_10:8. Solemn and sublime is the position of him who stands to minister before Jehovah, the living God.
Not be dew nor rain — This was a punishment which Jehovah had threatened in case of idolatry. Deu_11:16-17. St. James says, that Elijah “prayed earnestly that it might not rain.” Jas_5:17. So Divine judgments may come in answer to prayer; and the spirit of such prayer is the Elijah-spirit, which also breathes in the vindictive Psalms. The manner of Elijah’s praying for rain to come again is told at 1Ki_18:42.
These years — No definite time is specified, but all is made dependent on the word of the Lord as uttered by the prophet. Ahab’s obstinacy continued the drought for three years and a half. See 1Ki_18:1.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Chap. 1Ki_17:1-7. Elijah the Tishbite. His prophecy of a…
Chap. 1Ki_17:1-7. Elijah the Tishbite. His prophecy of a drought and its fulfilment (Not in Chronicles)
1. And Elijah the Tishbite] Elijah comes suddenly upon the scene and throughout the history his appearances are rare, sudden and brief. His history is most probably drawn from some independent narrative of the work of the prophets, and introduced here abruptly as soon as it begins to touch upon the reign of Ahab. The schools of the prophets seem to have had their origin in Samuel’s day, and were founded in various parts of the land, and in connexion with them Elijah appears in Israel. He is called the Tishbite because he was born at Thisbe in the tribe of Naphtali, a place known afterwards as the birthplace of Tobit (Tob_1:2). Josephus (Ant. viii. 13, 2) says he was ἐκ πόλεως θεσβώνης τῆς Γαλααδίτιδος χώρας, as if his birthplace had been in Gilead. For the connected history of Elijah, the student would do well to consult Mr (now Sir Geo.) Grove’s Article, Elijah, in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible.
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who was of the inhabitants [R.V. sojourners] of Gilead] The Hebrew noun is found frequently in the phrase ‘a stranger and sojourner,’ cf. Gen_23:4; Lev_25:35; Lev_25:47; and does not imply that the person spoken of was a native of the place mentioned thus. Hence there is no difficulty in understanding that Elijah, a native of the tribe of Naphtali, was a dweller for a time in Gilead. Such a man was likely to retire from the world and dwell alone among the mountain fastnesses. The Fathers (Epiphanius, Dorotheus, Isidore) represent Elijah as of a priestly family, but there is no warrant for the statement.
As the Lord God of Israel liveth] Elijah prefaces his message with his authority. He does not come in his own name, nor will the drought be of his bringing. He is but sent as the bearer of Jehovah’s word, the word of Him whom Israel had forsaken, but who alone was worthy to be called the Living God.
but according to my word] i.e. As God shall proclaim through me; cf. 1Ki_18:41; 1Ki_18:44. Josephus, having in mind the disappearance of Elijah after this message and his reappearance to Ahab before the coming of the rain, makes the prophet say that there should be no rain ‘except on his appearance’ εἰ μὴ φανέντος αὐτοῦ. He also states that this drought is mentioned by Menander in his history of Ethbaal, the king of the Tyrians. It endured, he says, for a whole year, but after that time, on the king’s earnest prayer, there came down abundant thunder showers. In Luk_4:25 and Jas_5:17, the duration of the drought in Israel is said to have been three years and six months. By such long-continued want of rain there the neighbouring countries must also have been affected.
The LXX. rendering εἰ μὴ διὰ στόματος λόγου μου, is a literal translation of the Hebrew.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 (1) Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead.—The…
(1) Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead.—The most probable rendering of this disputed passage is that of the LXX., and virtually of Josephus, “Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead,” the last words being added to distinguish the place from a Tishbe (or Thisbe) in Naphtali, referred to, though the reading is rather doubtful, in Tob_1:2. The word here rendered “inhabitants” (properly “sojourners”) is evidently of the same derivation as the word rendered “Tishbite.” The only alternative would be to render “the stranger of the strangers of Gilead,” which has been adopted by some, as suggesting a startling and impressive origin of the great prophet. But it is doubtful whether the Hebrew will bear it.
Gilead—properly “the rocky region” that lay on the east of Jordan, between the Hieromax and the valley of Heshbon (although the name is often more widely used). Open to the desert on the east, and itself comparatively wild, with but few cities scattered through it, it suited well the recluse dweller in the wilderness.
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The Lord God of Israel before whom I stand.—This adjuration (repeated in 18:15, and with some alteration by Elisha in 2Ki_3:14; 2Ki_5:16) is characteristic. Elijah is the servant of God standing to be sent whither He wills.
This is evidently not the first appearance of Elijah. In Jas_5:17, the withholding of rain, foretold again and again as a penalty on apostasy (see Lev_26:19, Deu_11:17; and comp. 1Ki_8:35), is noted as an answer to the prophet’s prayer, calling down judgment on the land. Evidently there had been a struggle against the Baal-worship of the time, and, no doubt, previous warnings from Elijah or from some one of the murdered prophets. This chapter introduces us suddenly to the catastrophe.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–7 ELIJAH AND THE GREAT DROUGHT. The picture which the…
ELIJAH AND THE GREAT DROUGHT. 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 connexion. 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. And on this ground because it is miraculous this portion of our history is summarily discarded by many recent writers, not as wholly unhistorical, but as mythical; as containing, indeed, many germs of truth, and as having a basis of fact, which, however, has been distorted into its present legendary shape by the credulity and fancy of a later age, or by the half-unconscious exaggeration of some poetico-prephetic writer. But without entering upon the question of miracles generally, for which this is not the place, two remarks may be hazarded here. First, that the narrative is so sober, so circumstantial, so full of touches which have every appearance of having been painted from the life, that were it not for its supernatural element, the most destructive critic would never have thought of questioning its veracity. Secondly, that if miracles are ever allowable or conceivable, if there ever have been occasions in the history of our race when we might concede to the Necessary Being the liberty which we ourselves possess, of varying the so-called order of nature, or of impressing a visible purpose upon its forces, then assuredly the time at which we have now arrived, the beginning of Ahab"s reign, was such an occasion. It is quite true that no new revelation was then given to the world. 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 more, 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. If it is objected, therefore, against our history that it contains a mass of miracles, our answer is that the crisis necessitated them, and that only miracles would have availed to accomplish the moral and religious reformation which Elijah is allowed on all hands (see, e.g., Ewald, "Hist. Israel," 4:68) to have wrought; that only signs such as he was commissioned to show would have sufficed, in that age, to counteract the influences of such a princess as Jezebel and of such a propaganda as her eight hundred and fifty priests; to rescue the world from corruption, and to preserve to distant generations the treasury of truth and hope with which the Jewish people had been entrusted by the Most High. "The times," says Bishop Hall, were fit for Elijah, and Elijah for the times. The greatest prophet is reserved for the worst age. Israel had never such an impious king as Ahab, nor such a miraculous prophet as Elijah." "The profusion of God"s miraculous working in Elijah was due to the exorbitant wickedness of the rulers of Israel at that time, which required an extraordinary maul-festation of God"s Divine power, in order to recover His people from the ruin and misery into which they had fallen" (Bishop Wordsworth).
The grandeur of the character of Elijah, however, has been universally recognized, and not least by those who have disputed his miracles. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether the intellect and conceptions of that or a much later age were adequate to create such a character and personality as his, a character which has profoundly impressed men of all ages and of all creeds. The glowing panegyric of the son of Sirach (Ecclus. 48.) need only be hinted at here. The colossal proportions he assumes in the traditions and belief of the Mohammedans is well known. "Omnium suae aetatis prophetarum facile princeps; et si a Mose discesseris, nulii secundus," is the testimony of an illustrious Jew (Abravanel). "The grandest and most romantic character that Israel ever produced "is the verdict of a brilliant writer amongst ourselves (Stanley). His highest praise, however, is that "in the New Testament no prophet is mentioned and extolled so frequently as Elijah" (Bahr). Nor must it be forgotten here that he it was who was chosen to appear with Moses in glory at our Lord"s transfiguration, and to speak of the exodus He should accomplish in Jerusalem. (Luk_9:31)
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The chapter divides itself into four parts. In ver. I we see Elijah standing before Ahab and denouncing the drought; in vers. 2-7 we find him hiding in the Wady Cherith and fed by the "Orebim;" in vers. 8-19 he is resident at Zarephath, feeding the widow and her house; in vers. 17-24 he restores the widow"s son to life and health.
And Elijah This name, which appears both as WhY; liae, and, less frequently, hYliae, means my God is Jehovah. It is so singularly appropriate to the man who bore it, and so exactly expresses the idea of his life and the chapter of his work (see especially, 1Ki_18:39) that it is difficult to resist the belief that it was assumed by him. This is certainly more probable than that it was due to the prescience of his parents. It may, however, mark their piety and hopes, and may have influenced the life of their son. (Cf. 1Ch_4:10) the Tishbite So he is called without any further designation in 1Ki_21:17; 2Ki_1:8, 2Ki_1:8, etc. The presumption is altogether in favour of yb being the name of his birthplace. (Cf. 1Ki_11:29) who was of the inhabitants of Gilead. The interpretation of these words is much disputed. The Heb. stands ybevTmi yBivTih dlgi. It will be the first and second words have the same radicals, and it hits been inferred that they cannot mean "two entirely distinct things" (Rawlinson cf.) and that either the Masoretic pointing must be set aside, when the words would yield the meaning, "Elijah, the Tishbite of Tishbe of Gilead" or they must be interpreted "Elijah the stranger of the strangers of Gilead." But it is by no certain that the current interpretation not the best. Such a play upon words as it involves is not at all uncommon in Hebrew. The meaning would then be that Elijah, who was, if not by birth, by domicile, of Tishbe, was one of the strangers bviwOT is found in the sense of paroikov, inquilinus, in Gen_23:4; Exo_12:45; Lev_22:10 Lev_25:35, Lev_25:47, etc. or immigrants who had settled in Gilead. The only objection to this rendering apart from the identity of radicals just mentioned is that we should have expected to find ybevT written plene, as the word always is elsewhere. It is alleged by Keil, Bahr, al., however, that the stat. constr. plur. may well be an exception to the rule, and in support of this view it may be mentioned that the cognate word, bvewOy, is constantly found in the constr, plural as ybevy (see Gesen., Thessalonians 635). It is clear, then, that the usual interpretation is by no means to be lightly set aside. It is certainly preferable to the rendering, "Elijah the stranger," etc., for we have no proof that yBivTih can bear this meaning. In favour of the alternative rendering "the Tishbite of Tishbe," it may be said that it has the support of the LXX, oJ ejk Qesbwn, and of Josephus (Ant. 8:13. 2), ejk polewv Qesdwnhv thv Galaaditidov cwrav. Nor is it any weighty objection to this view that we now here read of a Tishbe in Gilead: as for the matter of that, we have no undoubted traces of any such place west of the Jordan; the passage in Tobit (ch. 1:2, LXX), which is often alleged as proving that there was a Tishbe in Galilee, and from which Gesenius, Bahr, Keil, etc., conclude that this must be the Tishbi here referred to, being too uncertain to permit us to build any positive conclusions thereupon. See Dict. Bib. 3. pp. 1489, 1516. In any case and it is perhaps impossible to decide positively between this and the rendering of the A.V it is clear that Elijah, even if born in Galilee (but see, Joh_7:52, for the belief of the Jews) was trained for his workin Gilead. It was, therefore, a rugged, unsettled, half-civilized, trans-Jordanic region gave to the world the greatest of its prophets. In this respect he was like Moses, (Exo_3:1) and his antitype the Baptist. (Luk_1:80) "The fact that this mission was entrusted not to a dweller in royal city or prophetic school, but to a genuine child of the deserts and forests of Gilead, is in exact accordance with the dispensations of Providence in other times" (Stanley) said unto Ahab The abrupt way in which Elijah appears upon the scene without a word of introduction or explanation is certainly remarkable. Ewald observes that "his first entry within the province of the history seems almost as unique and inexplicable as his final disappearance." "Elijah comes in with a tempest, and goes out with a whirlwind" (Hall). But there is no sufficient ground for believing (Thenius, al.) that a part of our history which described some of his antecedents has been lost to us, or that our text merely recites the issue of a long conference which Elijah had held with Ahab, for other prophets of this period, Ahijah, Shemaiah, Jehu, are introduced to us in a similar manner, though it must be allowed that their respective ministries were of very different proportions and importance from Elijah"s. This sudden appearance, however, is thoroughly characteristic of the man. He presently disappears just as suddenly (ver. 5. Cf. 19:3; 2Ki_1:8) It was thought by some in that age that he was borne hither and thither by the Spirit of God!, (1Ki_18:12) and men of a later time caught this as one of his prominent characteristics (Ecc 48:1-12). Hence, too, the traditions of a still later period, according to which he was "the fiery Phinehas returned to earth, or an angel hovering on the outskirts of the world," Stanley, As the Lord God of Israel liveth This formula here occurs for the first time, and it is full of meaning. It asserts first that Jehovah, not Baal, is the God of Israel, and it suggests, in the second place, that he is the living God, such as Baal was not, and that though ordinarily He keeps silence, He is one who can make His power felt, before whom I stand i.e., " Whose I am and whom I serve". (Act_27:23) Cf. 1Ki_18:15. The slaves of the East stood before their masters. See note on 1Ki_1:28, and cf. 1Sa_3:1; Luk_1:19. Elijah claims to speak in God"s name, and as His ambassador there shall not be dew nor rain Observe the order of the words. Dew is perhaps put first as more essential to vegetable life. Elijah only denounces a plague already threatened in the law as the punishment of idolatry (Deu_11:16, 17 28:23; Lev_26:19) He came forward as the vindicator and restorer of the law these years An indefinite period. Its duration depended on Elijah"s word, and that again on the penitence, etc., of the people. It was because of the obduracy of king and people that it lasted so long but according to my word. The idolatrous priests no doubt claimed for Baal the dominion over nature and absolute control over the clouds and rain a power which, it may be worth observing, the monks of the convent of St. Katherine at Sinai, where Elijah was, are thought to possess by the Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsula. Elijah directly challenges them to a trial of strength. It was as if he had said, "The God that answereth by rain, let him be God." On the fitness of this miracle, both as a sign and as a punishment, see "Homil. Quart." 5:100, 101. "To Eastern and Southern nations, where life and water go always together, where vegetation gathers round the slightest particle of moisture and dies the moment it is withdrawn the withholding of rain is the withholding of pleasure, of sustenance, of life itself" (Stanley). "My word" is somewhat emphatic, Nisi ego, et non alius vir dixero" (Seb. Schmidt). No doubt there is a special reference to the prophets of Baal. Their inability to remove the ban would prove the impotency of their god. Elijah had asked for the supernatural powers which he here claims. (Jam_5:17, Jam_5:18)
Ver. 1.
The Mission and Ministry of Elijah.
The appearance on the arena of Israel"s history of such a champion as Elijah, armed with such high credentials, wielding such supernatural powers, marks a crisis in the history of God"s ancient Church. We have but to see him, to hear him for one moment, to know that a great struggle is impending. God, like Nature, which is but a name for God, "does nothing in vain." Such high powers as his foreshadow great issues. Four points consequently may well engage our attention, viz., the man, his mission, his message, his ministry.
I THE MAN.
1. He was a wild man. (Gen_16:12; Heb. a wild ass man) Abraham has been called an "Arab sheykh." We have in Elijah a veritable Bedawy, if not by birth or tribe, by training and in character. The rough sheepskin, (1Ki_19:13) the shaggy hair, (2Ki_1:18) the marvellous bodily endurance, (1Ki_18:46) the careful avoidance of the city, the flight into the desert, (1Ki_19:4) the whole bearing of the man suggests to us the child of the wilderness. He, the greatest of the prophets, one of the "first three" of those born of women, has the exterior, the instincts, the heart of an Ishmaelite. He was thus a fit successor of Moses, the shepherd of Horeb, who in the very haunt and home of the Bedawin, was trained for his high vocation; he was meet to be the forerunner and pattern of the Baptist who was bred in the desert, clad in Arab dress, and fed with Arab food. (Mat_3:1, Mat_3:4) It is impossible to understand the man and his work unless this be borne in mind. The gaunt dervish who one day strode into the presence of the king and lifted up his sinewy arm and denounced the great drought; the shaggy, long haired sheykh, who single-handed faced the hierarchy of Baal, and knew no fear, his were the asperities, the privations, the scant fare, the primitive, semi-nomadic life of a Gileadite. The sweet uses of adversity had moulded this man for the crisis. Our great chancellors, it has been said, come to us from the garret: the desert has ever been the school of the greatest prophets. The rugged, unsettled pasturages of Bashan were a meet nurse for a prophetic child. This champion was cast "in the clay ground" (see p. 142).
2. He was a man of like passions with ourselves. (Jam_5:17) An "earthen vessel". (2Co_4:7) "In all points tempted like as we are," and not "without sin". (Heb_3:15) The Bible never pictures men as perfect. The phronema Sarkos remains even in the regenerate.
II HIS MISSION. Consider
1. Whence it was derived. He was not taught of men. (Gal_1:12, Gal_1:17) He was ijdiwthv kaimmatov. The God who separated him from his mother"s womb called him by His grace. (Gal_5:15) He was an extraordinary messenger for a great emergency. But observe; when God employs such messengers, men whose mission is derived directly from on high, the "signs of an apostle" are wrought by them. We are not to listen to an angel from heaven, unless he shows us his credentials. We have a right to ask of those who run without being sent to show us a sign. When the missionary Dr. Wolff told one of the Eastern bishops that the "Lord had sent him," the prelate not unreasonably asked him for a display of his powers. If God should send us an Elias again, He will give us at the same time a sign from heaven.
2. When it was conferred. It was
(1) When iniquity abounded. When Hiel had built Jericho; when Ahab had raised a temple for Baal; when Jezebel had gathered round her an army of false prophets; when the faith of God"s elect was in jeopardy. The darkest hour is ever before the dawn. Cum duplicantur lateres, venit Moses. "Man"s extremity is," etc. "Israel was sore wounded when God sent them this balm from Gilead" (Henry).
(2) When ordinary means were insufficient. There were "sons of the prophets," it is probable, in Bethel and Samaria; There were seven thousand faithful ones in Israel; but what were these against such a queen as Jezebel, against such a propaganda and such a system as hers? It was then no longer a question of heresy or schism, of calves or cherubim, of Jeroboam"s or Jehovah"s priests; the very existence of the Church was at stake. Elijah was summoned to the court; he was armed with "power to shut heaven that it rained not in the days of his prophecy", (Rev_11:6) with power to call down fire to devour his enemies, and the like, because only thus could the elect people be stayed from throwing themselves into the arms of an organized prostitution; from yielding themselves, body and soul, to the whoredoms and witchcrafts of "that woman Jezebel;" because only thus could the light of truth, the one lamp which illumined the world"s darkness, be preserved from utter extinction.
III HIS MESSAGE. It was a denunciation of immediate drought, one of the most terrible calamities that can befal an Eastern land. In Palestine, animal as well as vegetable life is directly dependent on the rain. Not only do the showers which irrigate the laud feed the springs, but they are carefully stored up in cisterns for daily use. It is only as compared with the arid wastes of Egypt that the Holy Land could be called "a land of brooks and waters, of fountains and depths," etc.. (Deu_8:7) And it is also described by the same writer as a land that "drinketh water of the rain of heaven". (Deu_9:11) Consequently rain, everywhere a prime necessity of existence, is doubly indispensable in Palestine. The rainfall of Jerusalem is on the average three times as great as that of London. It is clear, consequently, that this message threatened a terrible plague, that it portended long and protracted suffering. There are some who will not hear of the "terrors of the Lord," who would never have them mentioned in the pulpit. Yet pain and privation are among the first sanctions of God"s law, and we have the authority of many eminent divines for saying that more men are won to God and right by fear than by love. It sounds fine and philosophic to speak of fear as an unworthy motive, but men forget what an unworthy animal is man. Besides, this drought was a part of the punishment, and was admirably adapted to serve as a punishment for apostasy. It was meet that men who practically denied the living God should be practically reminded of their dependence on Him. It was well that those who held Baal to be lord of nature, should be left to discover his impotence (cf. Jud_1:10:14; Jer_14:22) "Are there any of the vanities of the heathen that can give rain?" And it was a punishment this, which penitence might avert. Moreover it was the penalty foretold in the law. (Deu_28:23) Elijah was not left to scatter plagues at his pleasure. Like an earlier prophet, he could not "go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more". (Num_22:18) Of himself, he could do nothing. (Nu 5) His message was, "As the Lord liveth." If the rain should only come "according to his word," it was because his word was God"s word. If his prayer for the drought had been answered, (Jam_5:17) it had first been inspired. He speaks here as the minister, not the master. He is the willing, patient slave of Jehovah. "Before whom I stand.
IV His MINISTRY. From this initial message let us turn to his ministry as whole. And it presents to our view these broad features
1. It was exercised in silence. How few are Elijah"s recorded words, and those few are the utterances of but five or six occasions. He was not "mighty in word." He had no sooner delivered his first brief message than he disappears, and for three years and a half Israel hears him no more. He speaks for a moment: he is dumb for a triennium. And when he reappears, it is but for a day. That one day"s ministry ended, he is again hidden from our view. Thrice more he reappears in the history, but each time it is but for a day, and then he goes into the silent heavens, and save on the night of transfiguration, speaks to men no more. How like to the revelations of God to man. He "keepeth silence. (Psa_1:3) He too hideth Himself. "He spake and it was done." How unlike the everlasting chatter of some of our later prophets. "Ministers," it is sometimes said, "are mere talkers." Elijah proclaims the dignity, if not "the eternal duty, of silence. "All real work," some one has said, "is quiet work." How many of our sermons, full of sound and fury, leave not a trace behind them. But the silent Elias accomplished the regeneration of his country.
2. It was a ministry of deed. There was no need for him to speak. The works that he did bore witness of him. Declamation, argument, remonstrance, would have been absurd. The time for that was past. And he had actions to speak for him. Surely there is a lesson for Christ"s ministers here. It is true they cannot work wonders like Elijah; and it is also true that they are sent to "preach the Word," to reprove, rebuke, exhort, etc.; but we are reminded here that a fruitful ministry must be one of action. Words, however eloquent, in the long turn count for less than a holy life. The age, however it may hanker after sensationalism, is nevertheless suspicious of all talk. Why is it that our holy religion has but such an indifferent hold on the masses of our countrymen? One reason is that while we "point to heaven," we do not always "lead the way." Cujus vita contemnitur, ejus praedicatio despicitur." The life of their parish priest is the only Bible many Englishmen ever read, and alas, what a smeared and blotted page that sometimes is. And those who do hear our sermons have learned to discount them. They know full well that words are cheap, and that emotion, and even unction, can be simulated. They often wonder how much of our discourse we really believe and practise ourselves, and they turn to our lives for an answer. That familiar paradox, consequently, is full of truth and meaning, that, "in preaching, the thing of least importance is the sermon." It was well said that actio action in the truest sense of the word, not gesture or manner, but conduct is the first, second, and third great essential of eloquence (see "Guesses at Truth." ii. pp. 146 seqq.) A French ecclesiastic, the Abbe Mullois, has laid it down, as one of the canons if preaching, that "to address men successfully, they must be loved much." "Nothing influences others so much as character. Few people are capable of reasoning, and fewer still like the trouble of it; and besides, men have hearts as well as heads. Hence, consistency, reality, everpresent principle, shining through the person in whom they dwell, and making themselves perceptible, have more weight than many arguments, than much preaching" (Heygate, "Ember Hours"). It is Baxter who speaks of clergymen who "cut the throats of their sermons by their lives;" but there are many who, without doing this, invalidate their words by their actions. It is well for us to remember that personal character is the best preparation for the pulpit. Facta, non verba;" this is, and will be increasingly, the demand of the age upon the prophetic order. Non magna eloquimur sed vivimus." This must be more and more the response of the ministry.
1. It was brave and fearless. On three occasions this court preacher took his life in his hand. (1Ki_17:1 1Ki_18:2 1Ki_21:19) On one occasion he seems to have quailed, (1Ki_19:3) but even then it does not appear that he fled from any present duty, or, like Jonah, declined any commission. His ministry as a whole was boldly discharged as in the presence of the Eternal, "Before whom I stand." He saw none other than his Master. Like another preacher before royalty, Massillon, he spoke as if he saw Death
2. standing at his elbow. Like Daniel, he knew that his God could deliver him. The fear of man is cast out when we realize the presence of God. (Isa_51:12, Isa_51:13)
3. It was seemingly a failure. If others did not think so, he did. We know that no work, really and truly done for God, can be wasted; (Isa_55:11) but we are often tempted to think it is. But it must be such work as will stand the trial by fire. (1Co_3:13) It has been strikingly said, "If any man"s work is a failure, the probability is that it is because he is a failure himself." Still, it is for our comfort to remember, in times of depression, that the greatest of the prophets saw little or no fruit of his labours. He was persuaded that even the unexampled miracles that he wrought were of little or no avail. (1Ki_19:10) We find that when there were seven thousand secret followers of the Lord God, Elijah thought himself left alone. And indeed the state of Israel, even after the ordeal of Carmel, might well lead him to take the gloomiest and most despairing view of the situation. Jezebel pursues her infamous way. The son of Ahab sends to consult a foreign oracle, and ignores the God of Israel. The fire must come down a second time and burn up the idolaters instead of the bullock and the altar. But all the same, we know that his work was not in vain. Nor can ours be, if done like his. We have nothing to do with immediate successes. "One man soweth, another reapeth." Nor is success in any shape mentioned in our instructions. That is God"s part, not ours. We have but to sow the seed, He must make it grow. The world worships success or what it calls success and the greatest of ministries Elijah"s, Jeremiah"s, Ezekiel"s, our blessed Lord"s were all failures from a worldly point of view.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD. Ver. 1.
Elijah.
In this sudden manner the Tishbite is introduced, upon which Bishop Hall remarks, "He comes in with a tempest who went out with a whirlwind." And Lamartine says, "Recalling his life and his terrible vengeance, it seems as if this man had the thunder of the Lord for a soul, and that the element in which he was borne to heaven was that in which he was brought forth." Let us consider
I HIS PRESENCE.
1. It is awful in its vagueness.
(1) It was of the inhabitants of Gilead hard, stony region," south of the river Jabbok. This was one of the wildest parts of the Holy Land. The awful scenery of that district harmonized well with the ruggedness of the spirit of this prophet. John the Baptist first appeared in a wilderness. Out of a wilderness Jesus came up when He entered upon His public ministry (Mat_3:1; Luk_4:1, Luk_4:14, Luk_4:15)
(2) He is distinguished as the Tishbite. Calmer says Tishbe was a city beyond Jordan in the tribe of Gad, and in the land of Gilead. Gesenius, from Relandi, mentions Tishbe as "a town of Napthali." Could there have been two Tishbes; and were the words "Of the inhabitants of Gilead" added to distinguish?
(3) "The Tishbite," we incline to think, was a name of office or commission. It designates Elijah as the Converter (yb from b to turn). In this he resembled John the Baptist, whose commission also was to preach repentance. (See Mat_11:13, 14 17:12; Luk_1:17) When Elijah comes again "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord," it will be in his character of Tishbite or Converter, viz., "to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." (See Mat_4:5, Mat_4:6)
2. It is awful also in its intensity,
(1) His name (whyla) some interpret to be, "My God Jehovah is he,
others, "God is my strength." In either case it reminds us of God, and God is the very centre of all reality.
(2) Elijah brings us into the very presence of God also by the manner in which he announces himself. "As Jehovah liveth, before whom I stand." In this way also the angel Gabriel announced himself to Zacharias, and that too when he revealed the coming of the Baptist. (See Luk_1:19) It is probable Elijah, like John the Baptist, also was a priest, and the expression under review may intimate this. (Compare Deu_10:8) About 940 years after this, Elijah, with Moses, in a remarkable manner stood, in the presence of Jehovah, in the mount of transfiguration. (Mat_17:1-3)
(3) This declaration of the living God was appropriately timed. For the calves or young bulls of Jeroboam, and the bulls and goats of Sidon established through the influence of Jezebel, had so occupied public attention that He was forgotten. Lamentable is the substitution of death for life!
HIS FAITH.
1. It is bold in its assertion.
(1) "There shall be neither dew nor rain." The material elements which mechanically produce dew and lain were worshipped by the Phoenicians, and now by the Israelites, while the God that made them was forgotten. Is not this the very error of modern atheistic physicists? They worship Baal, Ashtoreth, and Ashere under other names, and ridicule faith and prayer. But Elijah asserts the living God as superior to nature, who will restrain both dew and rain, and so make the gods to worship him. (See Deu_11:16, Deu_11:17; Jer_14:22)
(2) "There shall be neither dew nor rain these years." Dew and rain, according to the course of nature, may be withholden for days, for weeks, even, in rare cases, for months; but not for years. When therefore for "three years and six months" these meteors were awanting, the phenomenon was supernatural.
2. The qualification is no less remarkable "But according to my word.
(1) Unless divinely authorized to say this, such a declaration would be most presumptuous. And the inevitable failure of the prediction would cover the pseudo-prophet with ridicule and confusion.
(2) But Elijah was a genuine man. He spoke under the inspiration of Jehovah before whom he stood. Such inspiration makes all the difference between presumption and faith. This is just the distinction made by James, who describes Elijah"s faith as (ejnergoumen) inwrought persuasion of a righteous man. (Jam_5:16) Faith is the gift of God.
3. The directness is admirable.
(1) This address is to Ahab. It comes not to him as a hearsay, but with the highest authenticity. The inspired messenger of God is above kings. (See Jer_1:10)
(2) It is fearlessly delivered. When a man is conscious that he stands before Jehovah he may use great freedom of speech. The courage of the lion is in the heart of faith. Elijah was a man of faith because he was a man of prayer. It is an encouragement to our faith to know that "Elias was a man of like passions as we are". J.A.M. (Jam_5:17)
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND Ver. 1.
The Messenger of Jehovah.
Stanley is justified in describing Elijah as "the grandest and moss romantic character that Israel ever produced" (S. &. P., p. 828). He appears suddenly, and disappears miraculously. Hence imagination has had scope. Some Rabbins believed that he was Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, and others that he was an angel from heaven. The impression his ministry made upon the mind of the people reappeared again and again after the lapse of centuries. When, for example, the miracles of our Lord aroused the wonder of the people, many said, "It is Elias." Such a character and work as were his deserve careful study. Describe the social and religious condition of the kingdom of Israel after Ahab"s accession and marriage with the dauntless, fanatical, idolatrous Jezebel. Never was reformation more called for, and never were supernatural works more necessary as the credentials of a Heaven-sent ambassador. Our text presents for our consideration;
I A messenger from a forsaken God, and
II A message for an apostate people.
I A MESSENGER FROM A FORSAKEN GOD. Ahab was congratulating himself on the success of his policy. It had been greater than he could have expected. The old faith and fervour of the people had died out so completely that they were quiet under the bold introduction of Baal and Ashtoreth. The Sidonians were linked with the kingdom of Israel against Syria. Scarcely a protest had been heard against these political and religious movements. Suddenly there appeared before the king and queen, perhaps as they were enthroned in their ivory palace, Elijah the Tishbite; rough in appearance, as he was bold in utterance. Above the ordinary height, of great physical strength, a girdle round his loins, and a sheepskin cloak over his brawny shoulders, his long thick hair streaming down his back, he was even in appearance a memorable man; and there was something very startling in this his sudden dash into the royal presence, to thunder out his curse, and the rebuke which no doubt preceded it. His appearance may be compared to the flash of lightning that for a moment makes everything which was before in darkness vividly distinct. Some points are worthy of note.
1. The obscurity of his origin. The Tishbite means the "converter," and would fitly describe his work. The endeavour to discover a town of such name in Palestine appears to have failed. The phrase, "from the residents of Gilead," does not necessarily imply that he was an Israelite. He may have been an Ishmaelite or a heathen by birth. It was designed that obscurity should thus hang over his origin. To the people he would seem to come all the more directly from God. The human element was overshadowed by the Divine. Show the mightiness of secret forces in nature, in thought, and in the kingdom of God.
2. The signs of his fitness. A rough man was needed to do rough work. The settler in the backwoods wants the strong sharp are to effect a clearing, before more delicate implements are required. Elijah had his constitutional strength and courage fostered by his surroundings. Gilead was a wild, unsettled country compared with Ephraim and Judah. Instead of stately palaces and flourishing towns, it boasted tent villages and mountain castles; and desperate and frequent were the fights with surrounding freebooters. (See 1Ch_5:10, 1Ch_5:19-22. Compare with it "Rob Roy," chap. 19.) The Gileadites were to Israel what the Highlanders, a century back, were to the Lowlands. Amid scenes of conflict, of loneliness, probably of poverty, this strong character was moulded. Compare with Moses in Midian, with John the Baptist in the wilderness. God gives each servant the right training for the service appointed for him both on earth and in heaven.
3. The secret of his strength? His name, Elijah, and his formula, "as the Lord God of Israel liveth," indicate it. An overpowering conviction that Jehovah lived, that He was near, that He was the God of this people, and that He would assert His supremacy over all false gods is implied in the verse. This is the secret of spiritual strength in all ages. The disciples were weak when Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration, strong when He returned; they were despondent after the crucifixion, exultant at Pentecost. The revelation of God"s presence and power is what all Churches now need.
4. The completeness of his consecration. "Before whom I stand." This he said, not with a sense of God"s nearness only, nor of His favour, but to express that he was the Lord"s consecrated servant, through whom and by whom he might do what He willed. Standing is an attitude of attention, expectancy, readiness. So in ancient Scripture servants are represented as all standing looking towards the king, with loins girded, eyes intent, ready to do his will. Note: We cannot stand before the Lord until we have knelt before Him in penitence and humility and prayer. This Elijah had done in Gilead.
II A MESSAGE FOR AN APOSTATE PEOPLE, "There shall not be rain nor dew these years, but according to my word." We assume here the credibility of miracles and content ourselves with indicating the suitability of this to its purpose.
1. This was revealed in prayer. Elijah had "prayed earnestly that it might not rain" (Jas 5) He felt that such a chastisement would move the hearts of the people, and turn their thoughts towards God, as it ultimately did. The prayer was the offspring of God"s Spirit. The human utterance was the echo of the Divine will. The mystery of prayer is revealed. (1Jn_5:14, 1Jn_5:16)
2. This was a response to the challenge of Baal-worship. The productive powers of nature were adored under the idolatrous symbol. Here they were shown to be dependent on the unseen God. All natural laws are. They are the expressions of the Divine will. It was in vain to cry, "O Baal, hear us!
3. This man would affect all classes of the people. They had shared the sin, and therefore must share the penalty. The loftiest are not beyond God"s reach, the lowliest are not hidden from God"s notice. The tiny garden of the peasant was cursed, as well as the splendid park of the king. National sin brings national calamities. The message, not to some, but to all, is, "Repent, and be converted.
4. This was associated with estrangement from God. It was to be "according to the word" of His servant. The change would be foreseen and foretold, not by the false priests, but by the praying prophet. The curse came because of sin, as had been proclaimed by the law. (See Leviticus Deu_11:16 Deu_28:23) It was removed on repentance (1Ki 18) Listen to the message God still sends to men, bidding them root out idolatry from every nation and from every heart. May the God of Israel, before whom they stand, prosper all His messengers! A.R.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Vers. 1-6.
Elijah the Tishbite.
One of the noblest of the noble figures that cross the stage of Old Testament history appears before us here. Few names have such a halo of glorious associations surrounding them as that of Elijah. The mystery of his origin, the grandeur of his mission, his physical and moral characteristics, the peculiar nature of his miracles, his wonderful translation and reappearance with Moses at the time of our Lord"s transfiguration, together with the place that he occupies in the last utterances of inspired prophecy, and in the anticipations of the Jewish people all combine to invest the person of this great prophet with a peculiar and romantic interest. This opening chapter in the story of his prophetic ministry is full of instruction. Note
I HIS ABRUPT APPEARANCE. There is nothing actually unique in this. Other prophets of the age are introduced thus suddenly (Ahijah, Jehu, Shemaiah, etc.) But considering the circumstances of the time it is remarkable.
1. It proclaims God"s continued interest in, and sovereignty over Israel as well as Judah. The revolt of the ten tribes had not broken the bond between Him and them, or altered the fact of His supremacy, Nor had their religious defection nullified His purpose of mercy.
1. It is called forth by a dread moral crisis. The seed sown by Jeroboam was fast developing its most deadly fruits. The Baal worship brought in by Ahab and Jezebel was a far worse "abomination" than the worship of the calves. A cruel persecution was raging, the prophets of the Lord were being slain, and it seemed as if the true religion would perish out of the land.
2. It was a revelation of irresistible power. The worship of Baal was essentially the worship of power; probably the productive power of nature. Here is the messenger of Him "to whom all power belongeth," that great unseen Power that can arrest the order of nature, seal up the fountains of heaven, wither those resources of earth on which the life alike of man and beast depends. We are reminded of the various ways in which God may see fit to fulfil His sovereign purposes. All powers, human and material, are at His command. "All things serve his might." In the darkest hour in the history of church or nation, let us believe that still "the Lord reigneth." Let us trust Him to "plead his own cause," and vindicate the claims of truth and righteousness.
II HIS PERSONAL DIGNITY. It is the dignity of one who sustains a special relation towards "the living God." His name implies this: "Jehovah is my God." And this solemn asseveration, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand," is suggestive of the dignity
(1) of personal fellowship;
(2) face to face vision; and
(3) Divine proprietorship;
(4) consecrated servitude.
One would think the old Jewish tradition were true. It sounds like the voice of an angel. But lofty as this utterance is. majestic as is the relation towards the Divine Being which it indicates, it has its Christian counterpart. Think of St. Paul"s words: "There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve". (Act_27:23) This is not an exclusive, exceptional dignity. We may all in our measure share it. And as no earthly position sheds any real glory upon a man except so far as he recognizes a Divine element in it, fills it as before God with holy fear; so there is no work or office of common life which may not be ennobled by this feeling.
We stand there before God as His servants to do that very thing. "Such honour have all his saints.
III HIS COURAGE. It is the courage of one who knows that God is with him, that he is the messenger of the Divine will, the instrument of a Divine purpose, the channel of Divine strength. He boldly confronts Ahab, "not fearing the wrath of the king," bearding the lion in his den. Does not mingle with the people, antedating their sufferings by spreading among them the evil tidings, but goes straight to him who is the fountainhead of the mischief and can avert the calamity by his repentance. Such is the brave spirit with which God fills his heroes. Whether in the defiance of danger, or the endurance of suffering, it is the sense of God a Divine inspiration, Divine support that has ever been the spring of the noblest form of courage. "Greater is he that is in you," etc. "If God be for us," etc. "Be not afraid of their terror, but sanctify the Lord God in your heart," etc. This is the principle the solemn fear of God taking possession of a man casts out all other fear; in the sense of the sovereignty of a Divine claim, he fears nothing but the dread of being unfaithful to it. Now this brave spirit was not kindled in the breast of Elijah all at once. Such a moral phenomenon is not the birth of an hour or a day. We may believe that it was developed in him gradually among the mountains of Gilead a fitting scene for the nurture of such a moral constitution as his. The fire burned within him as he mused on the degradation of his country. St. James speaks of the fervency of Elijah"s prayer: "He prayed earnestly that it might not rain,". (Jam_5:17) No doubt the withholding of the rain was given as a"sign" in answer to his prayer; but after all, may we not regard his prayer most as the means of preparing him to be the prophet and minister of this great "sign"? Not that the order of nature was placed at the caprice of a poor, frail mortal; but that he, "a man of like passions with us," was able in the fervour of his faith and prayer to rise up and lay hold on the strength of God, to read the purpose of God, reckoned worthy to become the agent in the execution of that purpose. The historic incident is not so far removed as it may seem to be from the range and level of our common life. Heaven gives back its answer to suppliant faith. As regards the fellowship of the human soul with the mind and with the power of God, it must ever be true that "the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much.
IV HIS EXTRAORDINARY PRESERVATION. A type of the providential care that God will ever exercise over those who are faithful to Him in the path of duty and of trial. Whether "ravens" or "wandering Arabians were the instruments in his preservation, it little signifies, so that we recognize the positive Divine interposition. And what is the supply of our daily wants but the fruit of a perpetual Divine interposition? "Give us this day our daily bread." Walk uprightly before God, be true to Him in all the sacred responsibilities of life, and trust in Him to provide. W. (Mat_6:33)
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART Vers. 1-6.
Elijah"s Advent and Service.
I THE GREAT PROPHET.
1. His name: Elijah, my God (is) Jehovah. It was a symbol of his spirit. It expressed his judgment of Israel"s idolatry and the choice which with his soul"s whole strength he had made of God. Light and fidelity are the only foundations of any true work for God or man.
2. His origin. The words ("of the inhabitants," etc.) seemed to indicate that he belonged to none of the tribes of Israel
(1) His mission was prophetic of that of the Gentiles. Israel, forsaking God, were to feel that God was also forsaking them. (Gen_10:19) The very meanness of the origin of God"s faithful ones lends power to their testimony.
(2) It proved the infinitude of God"s resources. Ahab and Jezebel might slay His prophets; they could not arrest the progress of His work. From the most unthought-of quarter there arises a mightier than all whose lives had been taken. The power of a devoted life to make the world feel the impossibility of its prevailing in its contest with God.
3. His attitude toward God. "Before whom I stand." He was the Lord"s servant. He lived for Him. His eye rested on Him. The whole man stood girded for prompt, unquestioning obedience. This is the spirit of all true service. Is God as real to us? Do we thus stand before Him?
II HIS MESSAGE.
1. The judger. It was that predicted from of old as the chastisement of Israel"s idolatry. (Deu_11:17) The land was to be consumed by drought. The blessings which God withholds from the soul that forsakes Him are imaged in those withheld from the land. There is "neither dew nor rain." The refreshment, the rich consolation, once imparted by the word or found in prayer, are no longer known. The stimulating of loving zeal meter what is nobler and purer has ceased.
2. Through whom it fell: "According to my word." Those who reject God will be judged by man. God will still confront them in their fellows. God is magnified in His servants. The kingly power and priesthood of believers in their relation to the world.
III HIS RETIREMENT.
1. It served God. Ahab and Israel were left face to face with Him. Man disappeared that the eye might rest on God alone. There are times when He is best served by silence. Many words often undo the effect of the homethrust dealt by a few.
2. It was his safety. He was shielded from Ahab"s anger. We may be hid by affliction from the power of our great foe. Temptation and danger may have been darkening the path that lay before us when God led us aside and made us rest awhile with Him.
3. It prepared him for after service. He was taught God"s unfailing power and care. His wants were provided for though no man knew of his dwelling place; and that by the most unlikely instruments. He learned how fully he might trust God. He to whom God is thus revealed will not fear the face of man. U.
HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE
Vers. 1-7.
First Preparation of Elijah for his great Mission.
After Elijah"s first appearance before Ahab to announce to him the Divine visitation of sterility and dearth which was to come upon the land as the chastisement of his sin, the prophet was sent away into a solitary place to prepare himself for his great and solemn mission, which was to overthrow idolatry and vindicate the worship of the true God. This work of preparation was divided into two great periods.
1. The preparation of the desert.
2. The lonely life of the prophet in the house of the widow of Sarepta.
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 itsgreatness, 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 all human aid, left to test their ownstrength, or rather to prove their own utter wetness, 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. Coming forth from this discipline of the desert, they were enabled to say with Paul, "When I am weak, then am I strong". (2Co_12:10)
3. This loving converse of the prophets with their God brought them intocloser 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 St. 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". (2Co_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. (Luk_5:16)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6 As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom…
1Ki_17:1
As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand.
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The source of Elijahs strength
This chapter begins with the conjunction And: it is, therefore, an addition to what has gone before; and it is Gods addition. When we have read to the end of the previous chapter--which tells the melancholy story of the rapid spread, and universal prevalence, of idolatry, in the favoured land of the Ten Tribes--we might suppose that that was the end of all; and that the worship of Jehovah would never again acquire its lost prestige and power. And, no doubt, the principal actors in the story thought so too. But they had made an unfortunate omission in their calculations--they had left out Jehovah Himself. He must have something to say at such a crisis. When men have done their worst, and finished, it is the time for God to begin. The whole land seemed apostate. Of all the thousands of Israel, only seven thousand remained Who had not bowed the knee or kissed the hand to Baal. But they were paralysed with fear; and kept so still, that their very existence was unknown by Elijah in the hour of his greatest loneliness. Such times have often come, fraught with woe: false religions have gained the upper hand; iniquity has abounded; and the love of many has waxed cold. So was it when the Turk swept over the Christian communities of Asia Minor, and replaced the Cross by the crescent. So was it when, over Europe, Roman Catholicism spread as a pall of darkness that grew denser as the dawn of the Reformation was on the point of breaking. So was it in the last century, when Moderatism reigned in Scotland, and apathy in England. But God is never at a loss. The land may be overrun with sin; the lamps of witness may seem all extinguished; the whole force of the popular current may run counter to His truth; and the plot may threaten to be within a hair s breadth of entire success; but, all the time, He will be preparing a weak man in some obscure highland village; and in the moment of greatest need will send him forth, as His all-sufficient answer to the worst plottings of His foes. Elijah grew up like the other lads of his age. In his early years he would probably do the work of a shepherd on those wild hills. As he grew in years, he became characterised by an intense religious earnestness. He was very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. But the question was, How should he act? What could he do, a wild, untutored child of the desert? There was only one thing he could do--the resource of all much-tried souls--he could pray; and he did: he prayed earnestly (Jam_5:17). He prayed earnestly that it might not rain. A terrible prayer indeed! Granted; and yet, was it not more terrible for the people to forget and ignore the God of their fathers, and to give themselves up to the licentious orgies of Baal and Astarte? Physical suffering is a smaller calamity than moral delinquency. And the love of God does not shrink from inflicting such suffering, if, as a result, the plague of sin may be cut out as a cancer, and stayed. Elijah gives us three indications of the source of his strength.
1. As Jehovah liveth. To all beside, Jehovah might seem dead; but to him, He was the one supreme reality of life.
2. Before whom I stand. He was standing in the presence of Ahab; but he was conscious of the presence of a greater than any earthly monarch, even the presence of Jehovah, before whom angels bow in lowly worship, hearkening to the voice of His word. Gabriel himself could not employ a loftier designation (Luk_1:19). Let us cultivate this habitual recognition of the presence of God; it will lift us above all other fear.
3. The word Elijah may be rendered, Jehovah is my God; but there is another possible translation, Jehovah is my strength. This gives the key to his life. God was the strength of his life; of whom should he be afraid? (F. B. Meyer, M. A.)
Elijah before Ahab
Elijah the Tishbite said unto Ahab. All revelations seem to us to be sudden. Look at the suddenness of the appearance of Ahijah to Jeroboam, and look at the instance before us. No mild man would have been equal to the occasion. God adapts His ministry to circumstances. He sends a nurse to the sick-room; a soldier to the battlefield. The son of consolation and the son of thunder cannot change places. You are right when you say that the dew and the light and the soft breeze are Gods; but you must not therefore suppose that the thunder and the hurricane and the floods belong to a meaner lord. As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand. Imagine the two men standing face to face. This is not a combat between two men. Mark that very closely. It is Right against Wrong, Faithfulness against Treachery, Purity against Corruption. As we look at the scene, not wanting in the elements of the highest tragedy, we see
(1) The value of one noble witness in the midst of public corruption and decay, and
(2) The grandeur as well as necessity of a distinct personal profession of godliness. It is not enough to be godly, we must avow it in open conduct and articulate confession. Let us now observe how Elijah proceeds to deal with Ahab. There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Here is physical punishment for moral transgression. So it is; and that is exactly what a parent does when he uses the rod upon his child for falsehood. You can only punish people according to their nature. Physical punishment for moral transgression is the law of society. So the liar is thrown out of his situation; the ill-tempered child is whipped; the dishonourable man is expelled from social confidence. With regard to the particular punishment denounced against Ahab, it is to be remembered that drought is one of the punishments threatened by the law if Israel forsook Jehovah (Deu_11:17; Lev_26:18). (J. Parker, D. D.)
Elijah standing before the Lord
This solemn and remarkable adjuration seems to have been habitual upon Elijahs lips in the great crises of his life. We never find it used by any but himself, and his scholar and successor, Elisha.
I. Life a constant vision of Gods presence. 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. 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 these prophets. In some measure, it was with them as it shall be perfectly with all one day, His servants serve Him, and see His face,--action not interrupting the vision, nor the vision weakening action. It is hard to set the Lord always before us; but it is possible, and in the measure in which we do it we shall not be moved. How small Ahab and his court must have looked to eyes that were full of the undazzling brightness of the true King of Israel, and the ordered ranks of His attendants! How little the greatness! how tawdry the pomp! how impotent the power, and how toothless the threats!
II. Life was echoing with the voice of the Divine command. He stands before the Lord, not only feeling in his thrilling spirit that God is ever near him, but also that His word is ever coming forth to him, with imperative authority. That is the prophets conception of life. Wherever he is, he hears a voice saying, This is the way, walk ye in it. People talk about the consciousness of a mission. The important point, on the settling of which depends the whole character of our lives, is--Who do you suppose gave you your mission? Was it any person at all? or have you any consciousness that any will but your own has anything to say about your life? These prophets had found One whom it was worth while to obey, whatever came of it, and whosoever stood in the way.
III. Life full of conscious obedience. No man could say such a thing of himself who did not feel that he was rendering a real, earnest, though imperfect obedience to God. So, though in one view the words express a very lowly sense of absolute submission before God, in another view they make a lofty claim for the utterer. He professes that he stands before the Lord, girt for His service, watching to be guided by His eye, and ready to run when He bids. We may well shrink to make such a claim for ourselves when we think of the poor, perfunctory service and partial consecration which our lives show. But let us rejoice that even we may venture to say, Truly I am Thy servant. Such a life is necessarily a happy life. The one misery of man is self-will, the one secret of blessedness is the conquest over our own wills. To yield them up to God is rest and peace. And is there not a broad general truth involved there, namely, that such a life as we have been describing will find its sole reward where it finds its inspiration and its law? The Masters approval is the servants best wages. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Elijah before the king
Elijah was a mountaineer. He was a big man, with broad shoulders and a tall and striking appearance. He had a massive frame and muscles that had grown strong with climbing the mountains and wresting his daily bread from hard circumstances. But he was, above all, a man of prayer, and the knowledge of what was going on in Israel stirred his soul to its profoundest depths; yet he could not act unless God sent him. With his hand lifted above his head this strange creature of the desert and the mountains exclaims, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Note his description of his relation to God, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand. There was the secret of Elijahs power. As another has well said: Every man stands before something which is his judge. The child stands before the father, not in a single act, making report of what he has been doing on a special day, but in the whole posture of his life, almost as if the father were a mirror in whom he saw himself reflected, and from whose reflection of himself he got at once a judgment as to what he was, and suggestions as to what he ought to be. The poet stands before nature. She is his judge. A certain felt harmony or discord between his nature and her ideal is the test and directing power of his life. The philosopher stands before the unseen, majestic presence of the abstract truth. The philanthropist stands before humanity The artist stands before beauty. The legislator stands before justice. The politician stands before that vague but awful embodiment of average character, the people. The scholar stands before knowledge, and gets the satisfaction or disappointments of his life from the approvals or disapprovals of her serene and gracious lips. Every soul that counts itself capable of judgment and responsibility stands in some presence by which the nature of its judgment is decried. The higher the presence, the loftier and greater the life. And so Elijah, standing before God, was in the highest and most splendid presence that any man can know, and it was this that gave him his lofty courage and his noble power. This was Luthers power. He dared to face the emperor and to face the worldly, sensual church of his time, when from every human outlook it seemed sure that his life must pay the penalty, because he stood in the presence of God. He knew that God was with him, and that knowledge gave him a tremendous power over men. Wesley stood in the presence of God, and a man who is conscious of that presence fears no mob. Finney was a man like that, and God gave him wonderful fruits to his ministry. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
Elijah, the model reformer
I. Elijah was, in the first place, a model of--promptness. Whatever God told him to do, he went to work at once, and did it.
II. Elijah was a model of--patience--as well as of promptness. When God wanted Elijah to work, he was, as we have seen, prompt to do whatever he was bidden to do. And when he was told to wait for the further manifestation of Gods will, he waited patiently. When the long three years drought came on the land, God told him to go and hide himself by the brook Cherith, near Jordan. He went and remained there in patience till he was ordered to leave.
III. But, in carrying on his work of reformation, Elijah was, in the third place, a model of--confidence; and we should try to follow his example in this respect.
IV. Elijah was a model of--courage. (R. Newton, D. D.)
The hero prophet
I. The principle of Divine selection. Elijah comes suddenly and unexpectedly upon the scene. What has been his previous career we cannot say, all we know about him is that he was rudely and scantily clothed, with shaggy hair, a conspicuous personality among the people. However strange it may seem that such a man should be chosen for such a work, it is nevertheless in keeping with the Divine procedure. God makes His own selection of men to meet the demands of every crisis. For every crisis in the worlds history God has taken a leader from very unlikely quarters. A German monk for a great Reformation; a Wesley for a much needed revival; Abraham Lincoln to guide our ship of state, in terrible times, amid stormy seas; and a William Taylor, rough and ready, to become the flaming evangel of Darkest Africa. God is always ready with a man to stand in the gap. So it was in the time when the sin of Ahab and his people had become abominable, He had in reserve a man already trained and willing to assert the sovereignty of God to that crooked and perverse nation. This chosen Tishbite, this prophet hero, recognises that he is--
II. Gods representative, hence he manifests the utmost fidelity and loyalty.
III. Providential provisions meet human exigencies. Elijah proved this fully. Delivering mercy is not only timely, but also comes through unexpected means. It was a very strange method God pursued with Elijah.
IV. No unreasonable demand upon human resources. God is merciful. God is just. He may have given us but little of this worlds good, but of that little He demands a portion. We may possess but one talent, but we must not be selfish in the use of that. He gives grace that we may use grace. We may further learn from this narrative the duty of--
V. Unquestioning obedience to God. Elijah did not speak complainingly of living alone by the side of the brook Cherith and trusting to the ravens for his food; nor did he say it was improper to go to the house of a widow and ask of her food to eat. No, he trusted in the wisdom of God and obeyed His command. (G. Adams.)
The preacher-an ambassador
We send an ambassador to England; there is a difference of opinion between our government and that of England. The ambassador is in a circle in society, but he does not take his opinions from the English people; he cares nothing what they think on national subjects; the crowd around him may be indignant against this country, but the ambassador listens not to the voice of the populace around him. He bends a listening ear for the telegraphic communication from Washington, and whatever words he hears these he utters, no matter how they may be received, no matter what the people or the Crown may think. He stands an American in the midst of English society; he thinks the thoughts and has the feelings of the government at Washington; he dares to say words, however unpleasant, to the English Crown because the power that sustains him, though it is invisible, he knows to be real. Well, now, so it is with a man, principally the true minister of Christ. (Bishop Simpson.)
Standing alone
Thank God for the many instances in which one glowing soul, all aflame with love of God, has sufficed to kindle a whole heap of dead matter, and send it leaping skyward in ruddy brightness. Alas! for the many instances in which the wet, green wood has been too strong for the little spark, and has not only obstinately resisted, but has ignominiously quenched its ineffectual fire. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 "And Elias the prophet stood up as fire, and…
ELIJAH
1Ki_17:1-7
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"And Elias the prophet stood up as fire, and his word was burning as a torch."
-ECCLUS. 48:1
"But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
-LYCIDAS
MANY chapters are now occupied with narratives of the deeds of two great prophets, Elijah and Elisha, remarkable for the blaze and profusion of miracles and for similarity in many details. For thirty-four years we hear but little of Judah, and the kings of Israel are overshadowed by the "men of God." Both narratives, of which the later in sequence seems to be the earlier in date, originated in the Schools of the Prophets. Both are evidently drawn from documentary sources apart from the ordinary annals of the Kings.
Doubtless something of their fragmentariness is due to the abbreviation of the prophetic annals by the historians.
Suddenly, with abrupt impetuosity, the mighty figure of Elijah the Prophet bursts upon the scene like lightning on the midnight. So far as the sacred page is concerned, he, like Melchizedek, is "without father, without mother, without descent." He appears before us unannounced as "Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead." Such a phenomenon as Jezebel explains and necessitates such a phenomenon as Elijah. "The loftiest and sternest spirit of the true faith is raised up," says Dean Stanley, "face to face with the proudest and fiercest spirit of the old Asiatic Paganism."
The name Elijah, or, in its fuller and more sonorous Hebrew form, Elijahu, means "Jehovah is my God." Who he was is entirely unknown. So completely is all previous trace of him lost in mystery that Talmudic legends confounded him with Phinehas, the son of Aaron, the avenging and fiercely zealous priest; and even identified him with the angel or messenger of Jehovah who appeared to Gideon and ascended in the altar flame.
The name "Tishbite" tells us nothing. No town of Tishbi occurs in Scripture, and though a Thisbe in the tribe of Naphtali is mentioned as the birthplace of Tobit, the existence of such a place is as doubtful as that of "Thesbon of the Gileadite district" to which Josephus assigns his birth. The Hebrew may mean "the Tishbite from Tishbi of Gilead," or "The sojourner from the sojourners of Gilead"; and we know no more. Elijahs grandeur is in himself alone. Perhaps he was by birth an Ishmaelite. When the wild Highlander in Rob Roy says of himself "I am a man," "A man!" repeated Frank Osbaldistone; "that is a very brief description." "It will serve," answered the outlaw, "for one who has no other to give. He who is without name, without friends, without coin, without country, is still at least a man: and he that has all these is no more." So Elijah stands alone in the towering height of his fearless manhood.
Some clue to the swift mysterious movements, the rough asceticism, the sheepskin robe, the unbending sternness of the Prophet may lie in the notice that he was a Gileadite, or at any rate among the sojourners of Gilead, and therefore akin to them. It might even be conjectured that he was of Kenite origin, like Jonadab, the son of Rechab, in the days of Jehu. {1Ch_2:55} The Gileadites were the Highlanders of Palestine, and the name of their land implies its barren ruggedness. They, like the modern Druses, were
"Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom hold."
We catch a glimpse of these characteristics in the notice of the four hundred Gadites who swam the Jordan in Palestine to join the freebooters of David in the cave of Adullam, "whose faces were like the faces of lions, and who were as swift as the roes upon the mountains." Though of Israelitish origin they were closely akin to the Bedawin, swift, strong, temperate, fond of the great solitudes of nature, haters of cities, scorners of the softnesses of civilization. Elijah shared these characteristics. Like the forerunner of Christ, in whom his spirit reappeared nine centuries later, he had lived alone with God in the glowing deserts and the mountain fastnesses. He found Jehovahs presence, not in the
"Gay religions, full of pomp and gold,"
which he misdoubted and despised, but in the barren hills and wild ravines and bleak uplands where only here and there roamed a shepherd with his flock. In such hallowed loneliness he had learnt to fear man little, because he feared God much, and to dwell familiarly on the sterner aspects of religion and morality. The one conscious fact of his mission, the sufficient authentication of his most imperious mandates, was that "he stood before Jehovah." So unexpected were his appearances and disappearances, that in the popular view he only seemed to flash to and fro, or to be swept hither and thither, by the Spirit of the Lord. We may say of him as was said of John the Baptist, that "in his manifestation and agency he was like a burning torch; his public life was quite an earthquake; the whole man was a sermon, the voice of one crying in the wilderness." And, like the Baptist, he had been "in the deserts, till the day of his showing unto Israel."
Somewhere-perhaps at Samaria, perhaps in the lovely summer palace at Jezreel-he suddenly strode into the presence of Ahab. Coming to him as the messenger of the King of kings he does not deign to approach him with the genuflections and sounding titles which Nathan used to the aged David. With scanted courtesy to one whom he does not respect or dread-knowing that he is in Gods hands, and has no time to waste over courtly periphrases or personal fears-he comes before Ahab unknown, unintroduced. What manner of man was it by whom the king in his crown and Tyrian purple was thus rudely confronted? He was, tradition tells us, a man of short stature, of rugged countenance. He was "a lord of hair"-the thick black locks of the Nazarite (for such he probably was) streamed over his shoulders like a lions mane, giving him a fierce and unkempt aspect. They that wear soft clothing are in kings houses, and doubtless under a queen who, even in old age, painted her face and tired her head, and was given to Sidonian luxuries, Ahab was accustomed to see men about him in bright apparel. But Elijah had not stooped to alter his ordinary dress, which was the dress of the desert by which he was always known. His brown limbs, otherwise bare, were covered with a heavy mantle, the skin of a camel or a sheep worn with the rough wool outside, and tightened round his loins by a leathern girdle. So unusual was his aspect in the cities east of Jordan, accustomed since the days of Solomon to all the refinements of Egyptian and Phoenician culture, that it impressed and haunted the imagination of his own and of subsequent ages. The dress of Elijah became so normally the dress of prophets who would fain have assumed his authority without one spark of his inspiration, that the later Zechariah has to warn his people against sham prophets who appeared with hairy garments, and who wounded their own hands for no other purpose than to deceive. {Zec_13:4} The robe of skin, after the long interspace of centuries, was still the natural garb of "the glorious eremite," who in his spirit and power made straight in the deserts a highway for our God.
Such was the man who delivered to Ahab in one sentence his tremendous message: "As Jehovah, God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand"-such was the introductory formula, which became proverbial, and which authenticated the prophecy-"There shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." The phrase "to stand before Jehovah" was used of priests: it was applicable to a prophet in a far deeper and less external sense. {Lev_26:19; Psa_134:1; Heb_10:11} Drought was one of the recognized Divine punishments for idolatrous apostasy. If Israel should fall into disobedience, we read in Deuteronomy, "the Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed"; and in Leviticus we read, "If ye will not hearken, I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass." The threat was too significant to need any explanation. The conscience of Ahab could interpret only too readily that prophetic menace.
The message of Elijah marked the beginning of a three, or three and a half years famine. This historic drought is also mentioned by Menander of Tyre, who says that after a year, at the prayer of Ethbaal, the priest and king, there came abundant thunder showers. St. James represents the famine as well as its termination as having been caused by Elijahs prayer. But the expression of the historian is general. Elijah might pray for rain, but no prophet could proprio motu, have offered up a prayer for so awful a curse upon an entire country as a famine, in which thousands of the innocent would suffer no less severely than the guilty. Three years famine was a recognized penalty for apostasy. It was one of the sore plagues of God. It had befallen Judah "because of Saul and his bloody house," {2Sa_21:1} and had been offered to guilty David as an alternative for three days, pestilence, or three years flight before his enemies. We are not here told that Elijah prayed for it, but that he announced its commencement, and declared that only in accordance with his announcement should it close.
He delivered his message, and what followed we do not know. Ahabs tolerance was great; and, however fierce may have been his displeasure, he seems in most cases to have personally respected the sacredness and dignity of the prophets. The kings wrath might provoke an outburst of sullenness, but he contented himself with menacing and reproachful words. It was otherwise with Jezebel. A genuine idolatress, she hated the servants of Jehovah with implacable hatred, and did her utmost to suppress them by violence. It was probably to save Elijah from her fury that he was bidden to fly into safe hiding, while her foiled rage expended itself in the endeavor to extirpate the whole body of the prophets of the, Lord. But, just as the child Christ was saved when Herod massacred the infants of Bethlehem, so Elijah, at whom Jezebels blow was chiefly aimed, had escaped beyond her reach. A hundred other imperiled prophets were hidden in a cave by the faithfulness of Obadiah, the kings vizier.
The word of the Lord bade Elijah to fly eastward and hide himself "in the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan." The site of this ravine-which Josephus only calls "a certain torrent bed"-has not been identified. It was doubtless one of the many wadies which run into the deep Ghor or cleft of the Jordan on its eastern side. If it belonged to his native Gilead, Elijah would be in little fear of being discovered by the emissaries whom Ahab sent in every direction to seek for him. Whether it was the Wady Kelt, or the Wady el Jabis, or the Ain Fusail, we know the exact characteristics of the scene. On either side, deep, winding and precipitous, rise the steep walls of rock, full of tropic foliage, among which are conspicuous the small dark green leaves and stiff thorns of the nubk. Far below the summit of the ravine, marking its almost imperceptible thread of water by the brighter green of the herbage, and protected by masses of dewy leaves from the fierce power of evaporation, the hidden torrent preserves its life in all but the most long-continued periods of drought. In such a scene Elijah was absolutely safe. Whenever danger approached he could hide himself in some fissure or cavern of the beetling crags where the wild birds have their nest, or sit motionless under the dense screen of interlacing boughs. The wildness and almost terror of his surroundings harmonized with his stern and fearless spirit. A spirit like his would rejoice in the unapproachable solitude, communing with God alike when the sun flamed in the zenith and when the midnight hung over him with all its stars.
The needs of an Oriental-particularly of an ascetic Bedawy prophet-are small as those of the simplest hermit. Water and a few dates often suffice him for days together. Elijah drank of the brook, and God "had commanded the ravens to feed him there." The shy, wild, unclean birds "brought him"-so the old prophetic narrative tells us-"bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." We may remark in passing, that flesh twice a day or even once a day, if with Josephus we read "bread in the morning and flesh in the evening," is no part of an Arabs ordinary food. It is regarded by him as wholly needless, and indeed as an exceptional indulgence. The double meal of flesh does not resemble the simple diet of bread and water on which the Prophet lived afterwards at Sarepta. Are we or are we not to take this as a literal fact? Here we are face to face with a plain question to which I should deem it infamous to give a false or a prevaricating answer.
Before giving it, let us clear the ground. First of all, it is a question which can only be answered by serious criticism. Assertion can add nothing to it, and is not worth the breath with which it is uttered. The anathemas of obsolete and a priori dogmatism against those who cannot take the statement as simple fact do not weigh so much as a dead autumn leaf in the minds of any thoughtful men.
Some holy but uninstructed soul may say, "It stands on the sacred page: why should you not understand it literally?" It. might be sufficient to answer, Because there are many utterances on the sacred page which are purely poetic or metaphorical. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the brook shall pick it out, and the young vultures shall eat it." {Pro_30:17} The statement looks prosaic and positive enough, but what human being ever took it literally? "Curse not the king for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter." Who does not see at once that the words are poetic and metaphorical? "Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched." How many educated Christians can assert that they believe that the unredeemed will be eaten forever by literal worms in endless flames? The man who pretends that he is obliged to understand literally the countless Scriptural metaphors involved in an Eastern language of which nearly every word is a pictorial metaphor, only shows himself incompetent to pronounce an opinion on subjects connected with history., literature, or religious criticism.
Is it then out of dislike to the supernatural, or disbelief in its occurrence, that the best critics decline to take the statement literally?
Not at all. Most Christians have not the smallest difficulty in accepting the supernatural. If they believe in the stupendous miracles of the Incarnation and the Resurrection, what possible difficulty could they have in accepting any other event merely on the ground that it is miraculous? To many Christians all life seems to be one incessant miracle. Disbelieving that any force less than the fiat of God could have thrilled into inorganic matter the germs of vegetable and still more of animal life; believing that their own life is supernatural, and that they are preserved as they were created by endless cycles of ever-recurrent miracles; believing that the whole spiritual life is supernatural in its every characteristic; they have not the slightest unwillingness to believe a miracle when any real evidence can be adduced for it. They accept, without the smallest misgiving, the miracles of Jesus Christ our Lord, radiating as ordinary works from His Divine nature, performed in the full blaze of history, attested by hundredfold contemporary evidence, leading to results of world-wide and eternal significance-miracles which were, so to speak, natural, normal, and necessary, and of which each revealed some deep moral or spiritual truth. But if miracles can only rest on evidence, the dullest and least instructed mind can see that the evidence for this and for some other miracles in this narrative stands on a wholly different footing. Taken apart from dogmatic assertions which are themselves unproven or disproved, the evidence that ravens daily fed Elijah is wholly inadequate to sustain the burden laid upon it.
In the first place, the story occurs in a book compiled some centuries after the event which it attests; in a book solemn indeed and sacred, but composite, and in some of its details not exempt from the accidents which have always affected all human literature.
And this incident is unattested by any other evidence. It is, so to speak, isolated. It is quite separable from the historic features of the narrative, and is out of accordance with what is truly called the Divine economy of miracles. No miracle was wrought to supply Elijah with water; and if a miracle was needed to supply him with bread and flesh, it is easy to imagine hundreds of forms of such direct interposition which would be more normal and more in accordance with all other Scripture miracles than the continuous overruling of the natural instincts of ravenous birds. It has been said that this particular form of miracle was needed for its evidential value; but there is nothing in the narrative to imply that it had the smallest evidential value for any one of Elijahs contemporaries, or even that they knew of it at all.
Further, we find it, not in a plain prose narrative, but in a narrative differing entirely from the prosaic setting in which it occurs-a narrative which rises in many parts to the height of poetic and imaginative splendor. There is nothing to show that it was not intended to be a touch of imaginative poetry and nothing more. Part of the greatness of Hebrew literature lies in its power of conveying eternal truth, as, for instance, in the Book of Job and in many passages of the prophets, in the form of imaginative narration. The stories of Elijah and Elisha come from the Schools of the Prophets. If room was left in them for the touch of poetic fiction, or for the embellishment of history with moral truth, conveyed in the form of parable or apologue, we can at once account for the sudden multitude of miracles. They were founded no doubt in many instances on actual events, but in the form into which the narrative is thrown they were recorded to enhance the greatness of the heroic chiefs of the Schools of the Prophets. It is therefore uncertain whether the original narrator believed, or meant his readers literally to believe, such a statement as that Elijah was fed morning and evening by actual ravens. It cannot be proved that he intended more than a touch of poetry, by which he could convey the lesson that the prophet was maintained by marked interventions of that providence of God which is itself in all its workings supernatural. Gods feeding of the ravens in their nest was often alluded to in Hebrew poetry; and if the marvelous support of the Prophet in his lonely hiding-place was to be represented in an imaginative form, this way of representing it would naturally occur to the writers thoughts. Similarly, when Jerome wrote the purely fictitious life of Paul the Hermit, which was taken for fact even by his contemporaries, he thinks it quite natural to say that Paul and Antony saw a raven sitting on a tree who flew gently down to them and placed a loaf on the table before them. Ravens haunt the lonely, inaccessible cliffs among which Elijah found his place of refuge. It needed but a touch of metaphor to transform them into ministers of Heavens beneficence.
But besides all this, the word rendered ravens (Orebim) only has that meaning if it be written with the vowel points. But the vowel points are confessedly not "inspired" in any sense, but are a late Masoretic invention. Without the change of a letter the word may equally well mean people of the city Orbo, or of the rock Oreb (as was suggested even in the Bereshith Rabba by Rabbi Judah); or "merchants," as in Eze_27:27; or Arabians. No doubt difficulties might be suggested about any of these interpretations; but which would be most reasonable, the acceptance of such small difficulties, or the literal acceptance of a stupendous miracle, unlike any other in the Bible, by which we are to believe on the isolated authority of a nameless and long subsequent writer, that, for months or weeks together, voracious and unclean birds brought bread and flesh to the Prophet twice a day? The old naturalistic attempts to explain the miracle are on the face of them absurd; but it is as perfectly open to any one who chooses to say that "Arabians," or "Orbites," or "merchants," or "people of the rock Oreb" fed Elijah, as to say that the "ravens" did so. The explanation now universally accepted by the Higher Criticism is different. It is to accept the meaning "ravens," but not with wooden literalness to interpret didactic and poetic symbolism as though it were bald and matterof-fact prose. The imagery of a grand religious Haggada is not to be understood, nor was it ever meant to be understood, like the page of a dull annalist. Analogous stories are found abundantly alike in early pagan and early Christian literature and in mediaeval hagiology. They are true in essence though not in fact, and the intention of them is often analogous to this; but no story is found so noble as this in its pure and quiet simplicity.
Let this then suffice and render it needless to recur to similar discussions. If any think themselves bound to interpret this and all the other facts in these narratives in their most literal sense; if they hold that the mere mention of such things by unknown writers in unknown time-possibly centuries afterwards, when the event may have become magnified by the refraction of tradition-is sufficient to substantiate them, let them hold their own opinion as long as it can satisfy them. But proof of such an opinion they neither have nor can have; and let them beware of priding themselves on the vaunt of their "faith," when such "faith" may haply prove to be no more than a distortion of the truer faith which proves all things and only holds fast that which will stand the test. A belief based on some a priori opinion about "verbal dictation" is not necessarily meritorious. It may be quite the reverse.
Such a dogma has never been laid down by the Church in general. It has very rarely been insisted upon by any branch of the Church in any age. A belief which prides itself on ignorance of the vast horizon opened to us by the study of many forms of literature, by the advance of criticism, by the science of comparative religion-so far from being religious or spiritual may only be a sign of ignorance, or of a defective love of truth. A dogmatism which heaps upon intelligent faith burdens at once needless and intolerable may spring from sources which should tend to self-humiliation rather than to spiritual pride. Abundet quisque in sensu sue. But such beliefs have not the smallest connection with true faith or sincere Christianity. God is a God of truth, and he who tries to force himself into a view which history and literature, no less than the faithful following of the Divine light within him, convince him to be untenable, does not rise into faith, but sins and does mischief by feebleness and lack of faith.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1–2 1Ki_17:1. Elijah the Tishbite—This is the first mention of…
THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF ELIJAH THE TISHBITE
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
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1Ki_17:1. Elijah the Tishbite—This is the first mention of him in Scripture; an abrupt introduction, which seems to imply that already he was known as a prophet; or the startling development of national apostasy under Ahab may have called out Elijah into sudden protestation. Tishbite—Not an Israelite, therefore, but a Gentile, whose employment in the prophetic ministry was itself a rebuke to the nation. Was there none in all Israel to speak for Jehovah? The name “Elijah,” אֵליָּה signifies, My God is Jehovah. Israel was rejecting HIM for idols, but this Gentile had rejected idols for HIM. “Tishbite,” from Tisbe, a place east of Jordan. Tob_1:2 refers to Θίσβε as being “at the right hand of the city properly called Naphtali, in Galilee above Aser.” Said unto Ahab—It is suggested that this penal prediction proved the closing application of an unrecorded speech. All reasoning being ineffective, the prophet leaves the king with this prophetic sentence. Yet Elijah’s manner was to accost the guilty with few, yet significant words, and then depart.
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki_17:1
THE TRUE PROPHET AND HIS SIGNIFICANT MESSAGE
ISRAEL had gone from bad to worse, and the cup of her iniquity was fast filling to the brim. Religion was little more than a name. Jehovah was no longer worshipped as a living person, but was only thought of as a far distant and but dimly comprehended being. Faith darkened into a grim unbelief, and virtue wallowed in the filth of a royalty-sanctioned sensuality, or hid itself in solitude with fear and trembling. The nation had revolted from the beneficent sway of Jehovah, and rushed with reckless haste into the embrace of a she-fiend, who held it as with a grip of iron, while she tantalized it with her voluptuous wiles, and goaded it to despair with her heartless cruelties. Surely the spell of the vile enchantress could not last for ever. The end must be at hand: the iniquity of the land cried to heaven for vengeance. A sense of approaching doom took possession of many minds; and it seemed as if a strange, mysterious stillness, like that which sometimes precedes the terrific tempest, settled on the nation—a stillness broken only now and then by the murmur of the idolatrous worshippers in the groves, or the loud, coarse laughter of the licentious priests as they feasted at Jezebel’s table. Suddenly—like a meteor newly kindled in the heavens, or like a thunderbolt hurled from the clouds by the hand of the Almighty—Elijah bursts upon the scene. The revellers tremble and the king grows pale, as the bold and fearless prophet denounces their wickedness, and warns them of the sufferings which their sins would inevitably bring. Thus the dankest night of Israel’s spiritual declension was broken by the appearance of that bright luminary Elijah, the greatest of all the prophets since Moses, and the type of that great preacher of repentance who was the forerunner of Christ.
I. That the true prophet is often called to his work out of comparative obscurity. “Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead.” It seemed very unlikely that a reformer would spring from the midst of the rough, uncouth inhabitants of Gilead. It was a wild, rocky, mountainous region, a country of chase, and the favourite haunt of robbers—something like what some parts of Palestine are rendered by the Bedouins of the present day; or, in relation to the rival kingdoms on the west side of the Jordan, very much what the Highlands were to the Lowlands of Scotland in the days of chieftain feud and foray (vide Macaulay’s England). And yet it was just the place where the very qualities that were so essential in a prophet who would successfully contend with an Ahab and a Jezebel would be likely to be nurtured—the capacity of endurance, the fleet action, the intrepid boldness, the sternness of reproof amounting almost to fierceness. How true is it that God is not limited to locality in the choice of His servants! There was an Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees, a Moses in the land of Midian, a Nicodemus in the Sanhedrim, a Joseph of Arimathea among the aristocracy of Jerusalem, a Cornelius in the Roman camp; there were saints in Cæsar’s household, and in half-heathen Gilead there was found an Elijah.
II. That the true prophet hears unmistakable testimony as to the character of the only True God. “As the Lord God of Israel liveth.” Jehovah is the living God. This truth was uttered by the fearless prophet with an abruptness, a solemnity, and a ringing vehemency that must have startled the guilty Ahab, and have reminded him that the dumb, dead idols to which he was yielding homage were incomparable with the All-powerful and Ever-living Jehovah whom he and his people had so wickedly forsaken. Elijah means God-Jehovah, so that even in his name the great reformer carries a rebuke to the Baal-serving king. The great need of Israel at this time was a revival among them of just ideas concerning God. Notwithstanding the special privileges they had enjoyed in becoming acquainted with the True God, they were now in danger of losing all faith in Him, and of sinking down into a worse state of heathenism than that of the idolatrous nations by which they were surrounded. All true reform must begin by restoring to the mind clear and exalted conceptions of the character of God. This Elijah did, not so much by eloquence of speech, as by picturesqueness and significance of action. He was the prophet of action—the great hero—prophet of the kingdom of the ten tribes: “the grandest and most romantic character that Israel ever produced.” His whole career was one of intense activity, during which he wrote, as if in fiery hieroglyphics, the awful character of the God he so diligently served. His mission was to proclaim the living God in opposition to Ahab’s dead, senseless idols.
III. That the true prophet receives his commission from the Highest Authority. “Before whom I stand.” How honourable, how sublime, how awful the position of him who stands to minister in the presence of God as His servant and ambassador! He receives his commission direct from the throne, he speeds on his errand with ready obedience, he is oppressed with the responsibility of his office, he utters his message as if standing in the presence of God. Elijah was “the loftiest, sternest spirit of the True Faith raised up face to face with the proudest and fiercest spirit of the old Asiatic paganism, against Jezebel rose up Elijah the Tishbite.” Whenever the powers of darkness appear incarnate in some such ruling personage as Jezebel, with her hosts of Baal and Asherah prophets, then God provides an incarnation of his Divine Spirit and power, with suitable signs and wonders to confuse and confound the ministers of Satan. Such an incarnation was Elijah. The power that may be exerted by an individual life is something appalling, especially when it derives its inspiration direct from heaven. Lord Rochester fled from Fenelon, crying, “If I stay here any longer, I shall become a Christian in spite of myself.” The greatest power over humanity to-day is spiritual power.
IV. That the true prophet is commissioned to announce the judgments of God against prevalent iniquity. “There shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word.”
1. Jehovah has absolute control over all the elements of nature. The worshippers of Baalim invested their deities with the lordship over the processes of nature; and the time had come when they must be undeceived. The prophet demonstrates that the dew and rain-clouds are not of Baal’s giving, but are wholly in the hands of God, who can bestow or withhold their blessings according to His will.
2. Jehovah can make the elements of nature the instruments of a nation’s punishment which have been the means of its sin. Israel had ignored God in nature and ascribed all power to Baal: nature is now to wield the rod which is to punish them for their apostasy and sin. It is to be shown how utterly fictitious is the control of their deities over the dew and the rain, and how terrible is the judgment which Jehovah can impose by drying up the moisture of earth and sky. Drought was a punishment threatened against idolatry (Deu_11:16-17); and in this particular instance the obstinacy of Ahab continued it for three years and a half. To Eastern and Southern nations the withholding of rain is the withholding of pleasure, of sustenance, of life itself. It is only in abject distress and suffering that man can see the falseness and vanity of the idols in which he has so blindly trusted.
LESSONS:—
1. In the worst times God can raise up faithful men to do the most difficult and most needed work.
2. They who dare to be bold for God may safely trust to him for protection.
3. We learn how great may be the power of an individual life.
THE LIFE AND LESSONS OF THE GREAT HEBREW REFORMER
No story so bewitches us as the story of Elijah’s life. His meteoric appearances, his lonely life spent hermit-like for the most part in caves and deserts, his fearlessness in the presence of Ahab and hostile priests, his sublime translation, his appearing 900 years after with our Lord; these and other circumstances invest his memory with a romantic interest such as belongs to no other prophet. He is a prophet, and some of the events in his life can only occur in a prophet’s; but he is also a man, a man struggling against weaknesses like our own. His life will touch ours in many parts. Consider
I. The abruptness of his appearance on the arena of action. Where does the wild, stern-looking being come from? Who knows anything of his parents? What is his trade? But we wait in vain for an answer. This throws such a weirdness over him. There was design in sending the prophet with such abruptness into the presence of the king. Ahab had become hardened in sin. For a long time the prophets had been silent; Jehovah dumb. No stern protest had been lifted up; and, his conscience drugged, the man a mere puppet of his imperious queen and her fawning priests, Ahab can be aroused only by shattering peals of thunder, or a bursting volcano. Into his palace rushes the wild solemn man of the desert, and at the drowsy idolatrous king flings his stern threat. Thus God has to act still. To many a man the tenderest utterances of the Gospel have become as opiating drugs. A fire-brand, a thunderbolt, only will wake him up. Fingers of forked lightning must write fiery words of doom on his chamber walls. Ahab needed an Elijah.
II. The words suggested some idea of his previous training. Gilead must have had much to do with the character of the man. When he stood amid the crags of Mount Sinai unappalled by the bursts of thunder that shook the foundation of the hills, and shrunk not when the sheets of flame lit up the ravines, it was because he had been accustomed to similar impressive scenes in his own rugged land. It was a fitting cradle for such a spirit. The Highlands of Scotland have produced a race of men stern, hardy, daring; quite a contrast to the Lowlanders. The wide prairies of America tend to produce a race of Indians swift of foot, passionate in the chase, stealthy, and spurning settled abodes. Jehovah has found His Elijah in the right country. Very little is said about his personal aspects, but we shall always recognise him when he appears—the tawny, shaggy-haired man; around his shoulder the loose cape or mantle of sheep-skin, fastened at his breast with a leathern girdle. The appearance of the hitherto unknown prophet suggests—
III. How God had been steadily preparing an instrument for His work. His eye rested upon the nation’s sin, and away in the solitude of Gilead He was shaping the man who would be as a sweeping tornado in the land, who would be the Regenerator of His people, the mighty Reformer in Israel. The world’s history illustrates the principle. Israel needs to be led out of Egypt. In the very palace of the Pharaohs is young Moses being prepared as the future leader of Israel. God looks with holy anger upon the corruption of the Church of Rome, but in secret He is fitting the brave, heroic miner’s son to shatter the huge fabric of superstition. To turn this principle round, and look on the other side, it conveys encouragement to God’s people. To them, when in trouble, an Elijah of deliverance shall appear. A soldier whipped for a trifle, leaped from his ship into the heavy sea. A large albatross swooped like magic down at the man. In his death struggle, he seized the monstrous bird, and was thus kept afloat until aid arrived. Overwhelmed in the water, there may be an albatross overhead to help the Christian. God may be preparing in secret an Elijah, not to speak words of fire as to Ahab, but to be a deliverer. This mention of Thisbe and Gilead suggests—
IV. From what obscurity the Lord brought the mighty prophet. No rabbi or learned doctor does God produce as the great instrument to effect His purpose, but a “Lay Preacher from the Highlands of Gilead.” One likes to think how God employs the lowly, and works out his plans through the obscure. He is constantly rebuking us for thinking a place must be so many miles square, a man must have such an amount of brain, or wealth, before he can work. A rock in mid ocean may prove a cage large enough to contain the proud eagle of France. A small smithy in Micklefield can produce a Sammy Hick, whose name shall be known and influence felt to the extremities of the land. Bethlehem is large enough for the Redeemer of a world to be horn in. A fisherman’s craft is respectable enough to produce a Peter. Even an insignificant obliterated Thisbe can send forth an Elijah!—(The Lay Preacher for 1874).
GERM NOTES ON 1Ki_17:1
—A strange speech, certainly, to be reported of a man of whom as yet we have heard nothing. What had been passing in his mind up to that day, what he had to do with Ahab, how he came to think that dew or rain would obey his Commands, we are not told. We are to judge of these things as we can. Our only help for judging of them lies in the words themselves. And there is the secret—“As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand.” Here we have the key to the education and faith of Elijah, as well as to his relation with the king of Israel. “I have learnt that there is a Lord God of Israel, and that He lives, and that I am in His presence. I am sure that He is my Guide, and Teacher, and Judge; I am sure that He is the Guide, and Teacher, and Judge of this land and of its king. And this, Ahab, is just what thou dost not believe, just what thou, by thine acts, art denying. Thou believest in a Lord, or in many lords, far off from thee, exercising no government over thy actions, enforcing no duties upon thee towards thy subjects; a lord seated somewhere in the clouds, or on the summit of some hill; a cloud-compeller, a giver of dew or rain when your offerings please him, or when of mere sovereignty he chooses to do it. And I tell you that it is not this lord or these lords who send rain and dew; but that it is the God of you and of your fathers, the God who has ordained the course of seasons, who has appointed summer and winter, seed-time and harvest; who has appointed you to till the land upon which His rain descends and His sun shines; who claims first of all your trust and your obedience, since though you stand, as I stand, before Him, it is not your eyes that will tell you of Him; you must believe in Him if you would know Him. And as a sign and witness that it is even so, I declare to you, that the rain and the dew shall not come except at the word of me, a poor, insignificant, unknown man, by whom it pleases God to declare what He is, and what the being whom He has formed in His image is meant to be.” Herein consists the force of this audacious sentence. It at once proclaims that relation between the unseen God and the spirit of man which Jezebel’s priests by their services, and Ahab by his tyrannical acts, were alike setting at nought.—Maurice.
—Men in general have never been willing to recognize, and are still unwilling to recognize the fact, that need and misery upon earth stand in the closest relation to their conduct towards God; that through their need they may be called back to Him whom they have forsaken, and feel what it is when God withdraws His hand, when they are left to themselves, when the Almighty withholds His gifts and blessings, and sends His punishments and plagues. The God of Israel is the living God, because He has spoken to Israel and has, through His Word, revealed Himself to them (Psa_147:19-20). God has spoken unto us by His son, the image of His being, and has revealed Himself in Him much more gloriously to us; therefore Christendom knows no other living God than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who can venture to say that he stands before God? He who, like Elijah, has firm faith, is unconditionally obedient to the Word of God, and fearlessly and courageously pursues the path God has prescribed for him.—Menken.
—National apostasy and national chastisement. Far away among the craggy glens of Gilead the prophet has become acquainted with the wickedness of the court and the people. Ah! there was one faithful heart who mourned over a nation’s sin, and took it, where we ought to take our country’s sins, into the presence of God. I. National chastisement following upon national apostasy. Does this surprise us? If an individual commit an infamous crime and escape punishment here, there awaits him a stern avenger among the shadows of the world to come. But there cannot be a wholesale retribution dealt out to a nation or tribe in that future state. Prosperity attends upon a virtuous nation, or fell-ruin overwhelms a degenerate one here. No kingdom ever perished through its high-toned morality.
1. This punishment was not arbitrary and prejudiced. The law pronounced it ages before this threat, if the people forsook God (Lev_26:19; Deu_11:16). No calamity came from spite or caprice. Jehovah knows nothing of the despicable venom of some human hearts when He deals in severity with men.
2. The punishment threatened was adapted to the special character of the nation’s sin. Baal was worshipped as the source of fruitful harvest. Now there is to be a test of strength between God and His rival Baal. If drought and barrenness succeed the prophet’s words, that will be a tangible proof of the impotence of their favourite idol. This is God’s method still. The punishment sent often suits with terrible appropriateness the sin committed. II. These words reveal the source of the prophet’s holy boldness. “As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand.” He has a deep conviction that he is the servant of Jehovah. He is powerfully conscious of the continual presence of the Divine Being. Every Christian should have a conviction of being summoned to his particular work in the church. Here was the prophet’s incentive to faithfulness. Moving about in the presence of the Holy One would have a salutary effect upon him. To one conscious of standing, living before the Holy God, as if he were always in the Holy of Holies, irreverence, unfaithfulness, would be exceptionally aggravated. Let the thought of “standing before God,” in the home, behind the counter, and in the exchange, be an incentive to faithfulness.
LESSONS:—
1. The influence of a man in position. Ahab’s idolatry had led the nation astray.
2. Learn to identify yourself with the nation’s conditions, and make it a subject for prayer.—The Lay Preacher.
—The unusual efflux of miraculous energy at this time is suitable to the unusual energy and—may we not say, evoked by it?—God mercifully adapting His gifts to men’s needs. It is not here as in legendary histories. There the supernatural diminishes as the writer descends the stream of time and comes nearer to his own day. Here miracles are abundant or scanty without any reference to time; but in very evident proportion to the spiritual necessities of the people.—Speaker’s Comm.
—Suddenly Elijah appears before us in the narrative as he appeared in his lifetime before Ahab and the children of Israel. Suddenly he appears, like Melchizedec, and suddenly he disappears, “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.” Not unnaturally did the ancient rabbis believe him to be the fiery Phincas returned to earth, or an angel hovering on the outskirts of the world. Not unnaturally have the Mussulman traditions confounded him with the mysterious being, the Immortal one, the Eternal Wanderer, who appears ever and anon to set right the wrongs of earth and repeat the experience of ages past. Not unnaturally did the mediaeval alchemists and magicians strive to trace up their dark arts to Elijah the Tishbite, the Father of Alchemy. The other prophets—Moses, Samuel, Elisha, Isaiah—were constantly before the eyes of their countrymen. But Elijah they saw only by partial and momentary glimpses.—Stanley.
—Peculiar and hopeless as the exigency in Israel appeared, the Lord found a man fit for it—a man fitted beyond all others, by the force of his character, his grasp of faith, and his fearless spirit, to “stem the torrent of a faithless age.” This man was Elijah the Tishbite. He was one of the most extraordinary characters mentioned in the Bible. Great evils require great remedies; extraordinary diseases, extraordinary physicians; gigantic corruptions, gigantic reformers. And such was Elijah, who in his gifts and qualities assumes a figure scarcely human from its gigantic proportions, and towers aloft like one of the sons of Anak among common men. He was such stuff as the heathen made their gods of; and had he appeared in a heathen country he would have come down to us as scarcely less than a god, side by side, perhaps, with Hercules, instead of being only something more than a prophet. There are two sorts of prophets—prophets of deeds, prophets of words. Of the latter the greatest is doubtless Isaiah; of the former, there has not been among men born of women any greater than Elijah.—Kitto.
—Israel had never such a king as Ahab for impiety; never so miraculous a prophet as Elijah. He comes in like a tempest, who went out in a whirl wind. I do not so much wonder at the boldness of Elijah as at his power. Yea, who so sees his power, can no whit wonder at his boldness: how could he but be bold to the face of a man, who was thus powerful with God? While he knows himself a prophet, he remembers to be a man. He doth not therefore arrogate his power as his own, but published it as his master’s. This restraint must be “according to his word,” and that word was from a higher mouth than his. Man only can denounce what God will execute, which, when it is once revealed, can no more fail than the Almighty Himself.—Bp. Hall.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1Ki 17:1
1Ki 17:1
I. There is no finer witness to the marvellous spirit and quenchless "power" of the prophet Elijah than the fact that the impression he made upon his contemporaries retained its clearness and shone as a star of hope on Jewish thought and life after the long period of nearly nine hundred years (see Luk 1:17; Joh 1:24; Mat 16:14).
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II. Nor was this incalculable influence due in any degree to the creative fancy of the age, suffering from the deliriums of oppression, hungering for conquering heroes, and impatient to see its Redeemer. It grew out of the actual man. Elijah is a mighty man of valour, one of the heroes of God. If Luther’s words were half-battles, Elijah’s were whole ones, and still carry the force of an unspent ball. Not more surely is "electricity" the key-word of our century, than spiritual energy is the key-word to the place and function of Elijah.
III. What are the sources of this clear-seeing and victory-winning courage? One bright, brief sentence tells all: "As the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand" This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith in the living God, in whose immediate presence we speak, and stand, and work. Jeremy Taylor specifies three things as the chief instruments of holy living: (1) the care of our time, (2) purity of intention, and (3) the practice of the presence of God. Elijah found, as indeed we all may, that the third includes the first and second. The fact of the real presence of the living God, the idea of an irresistible mandate from God for a specific work, and the enormous power God infuses into solitary souls for His work, carry us to the secret sources of the courageous and powerful ministry of this sturdy, grandly independent, and brave man.
J. Clifford, Daily Strength for Daily Living, p. 223.
From these words we see: (1) that the life of Elijah was a constant vision of God’s presence; (2) that his life was echoing with the voice of the Divine command; (3) that his life was full of conscious obedience.
Such a life will find its sole reward where it finds its inspiration and its law. The Master’s approval is the servant’s best wages.
A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses, p. 1.
References: 1Ki 17:1.—W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 1; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 96; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xi., p. 16; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., pp. 9 and 17; J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire, pp. 3, 17. 1Ki 17:1-7.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 376. 1Ki 17:1-17.—J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire, p. 49. 1Ki 17:2-6.—W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 20; J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire, p. 35. 1Ki 17:7-16.—W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 38. 1Ki 17:8, 1Ki 17:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 817. 1Ki 17:8-24.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 393. 1Ki 17:9.—T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 143. 1Ki 17:13.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 120; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., p. 24. 1Ki 17:14.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 363; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 185. 1Ki 17:16.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 59; Ibid., Sermons, vol. vi., No. 290; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 238. 1Ki 17:17-24.—W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 55; J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire, p. 71. 1Ki 17:18.—J. Keble, Sermons Preached in St. Saviour’s, Leeds, 1845, p. 59; R. J. Wilberforce, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 327. 1Ki 17:23, 1Ki 17:24.—J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., p. 31. 1Ki 17:24.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 526; J. O. Davies, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 296. 1Ki 18:1-6.—Parker, Fountain, Feb. 1st, 1877; J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire, p. 85. 1Ki 18:1-19.—W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 75. 1Ki 18:1-46.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 20. 1Ki 18:3.—J. Jackson Wray, Light from the Old Lamp, p. 1.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1–2 1 Kings
1 Kings
A PROPHET’S STRANGE PROVIDERS
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ELIJAH STANDING BEFORE THE LORD
1Ki 17:1.
This solemn and remarkable adjuration seems to have been habitual upon Elijah’s lips in the great crises of his life. We never find it used by any but himself, and his scholar and successor, Elisha. Both of them employ it under similar circumstances, as if unveiling the very secret of their lives, the reason for their strength, and for their undaunted bearing and bold fronting of all antagonism. We find four instances in their two lives of the use of the phrase. Elijah bursts abruptly on the stage and opens his mouth for the first time to Ahab, to proclaim the coming of that terrible and protracted drought; and he bases his prophecy on that great oath, ‘As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand.’ And again, when he is sent to confront Ahab once more at the close of the period, the same mighty word comes, ‘As the Lord of Hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him this day.’ And then again, Elisha, when he is brought before the three confederate kings, who taunt, and threaten, and flatter, to try to draw smooth things from his lips, and get his sanction to their mad warfare, turns upon the poor creature that called himself the King of Israel with a superb contempt that stayed itself on that same great name and tells him, ‘As the Lord liveth before whom I stand, were it not that I had regard for the King of Judah, I would not look toward you or see you,’ And lastly, when the grateful Naaman seeks to change the whole character of Elisha’s miracle, and to turn it into the coarseness of a thing done for reward, once again the temptation is brushed aside with that solemn word, ‘As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none.’
So at every crisis where these prophets were brought full front with hostile power; where a tremendous message was laid upon their hearts and lips to utter; where natural strength would fail; where they were likely to be daunted or dazzled by temptations, by either the sweetness or the terrors of material things, these two great heroes of the Old Covenant, out of sight the strongest men in the old Jewish history, steady themselves by one thought,-God lives, and I am His servant.
For that phrase, ‘before whom I stand,’ obviously means chiefly ‘whom I serve.’ It is found, for instance, in Deuteronomy, where the priest’s office is thus defined: ‘The sons of Levi shall stand before the Lord to minister unto Him.’ And in the same way, it is used in the Queen of Sheba’s wondering exclamation to Solomon, ‘Blessed are thy servants, and blessed are the men that stand before thy face continually.’
So that the consciousness that they were servants of the living God was the very secret of the power of these men. This expression, which thus started to their lips in moments of strain and trial, lets us see into the very inmost heart of their strength. These two great lives, which fill so large a apace in the records of the past, and will be remembered for ever, were braced and ennobled thus. The same grand thought is available to brace and ennoble our little lives, that will soon be forgotten but by a loving heart or two, and yet may be as full of God and of God’s service as those of any of the great of old. We too may use this secret of power, ‘The Lord liveth, before whom I stand.’
What thoughts then, which may tend to lift and invigorate our days, are included in these words? The first is surely this-Life a constant vision of God’s presence.
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, no dazzle of earthly brightness, dimmed that vision for these prophets. In some measure, it was with them as it shall be perfectly with all one day, ‘His servants serve Him, and see His face,’-action not interrupting vision, nor vision weakening action. To preserve thus fresh and unimpaired, amidst strenuous work and many temptations, the clear consciousness of being ‘ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye,’ needs resolute effort and much self-restraint. It is hard to set the Lord always before us; but it is possible, and in the measure in which we do it, we shall not be moved.
How nobly the steadfastness and superiority to all temptations which such a vision gives, are illustrated by the occasions, in these prophets’ lives, in which this expression came to their lips! The servant of the Heavenly King speaks from his present intuition. As he speaks, he sees the throne in the heavens, and the Sovereign Ruler there, and the sight bears him up from quailing before the earthly monarchs whom he had to beard, and in connection with whom three out of the four instances of the use of the phrase occur. How small Ahab and his court must have looked to eyes that were full of the undazzling brightness of the true King of Israel, and the ordered ranks of His attendants! How little the greatness! How tawdry the pomp! How impotent the power, and how toothless the threats! The poor show of the earthly king paled before that awful vision, as a dim candle will show black against the sun. ‘I stand before the living God, and thou, O Ahab! art but a shadow and a noise.’ Just as we may have looked upon some mountain scene, where all the highest summits were wrapt in mist, and the lower hills looked mighty and majestic, until some puff of wind came and rolled up the curtain that had shrined and hidden the icy pinnacles and peaks that were higher up. And as that solemn white apocalypse rose and towered to the heavens, we forgot all about the green hills below, because our eyes beheld the mighty summits that live amongst the stars, and sparkle white through eternity.
My brethren, here is our defence against being led away by the gauds and shows of earth’s vulgar attractions, or being terrified by the poor terrors of its enmity. Go with that talisman in your hand, ‘The Lord liveth, before whom I stand,’ and everything else dwindles down into nothingness, and you are a free man, master and lord of all things, because you are God’s servants, seeing all things aright, because you see them all in God, and God in them all.
Still further, we may say that this phrase is the utterance and expression of a consciousness that life was echoing with the voice of the divine command. Elijah stands before the Lord, not only feeling in his thrilling spirit that God is ever near him, but also that His word is ever coming forth to him, with imperative authority. That is the prophet’s conception of life. Wherever he is, he hears a voice saying, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’ Every place where he stands is as the very holy place of the oracles of the Most High, the spot in the innermost shrine where the voice of God is audible, All circumstances are the voice of God, commanding or restraining. He is evermore pursued, nay, rather upheld and guided, by an all-embracing law. That law is no mere utterance of cold impersonal duty,-a thought which may make men slaves, but never makes them good. But it is the voice of the living God, loving and beloved, whose tender care for His children modulates His tone, while He commands them for their good. He speaks because He loves; His law is life. The heart that hears Him speak is filled with music.
Ahab and Jehoram, and all the kings of the earth, may thunder and lighten, may threaten and flatter, may command and forbid, as they list. They and their words are nought to him whose trembling ears have heard, and whose obedient heart has received, a higher command, and to whom, ‘across the storm,’ comes the deeper voice of the one true Commander, whom alone it is a glory absolutely to obey, even ‘the Lord, before whom I stand.’ People talk about the consciousness of ‘a mission.’ The important point, on the settling of which depends the whole character of our lives, is-Who do you suppose gave you your ‘mission’? Was it any person at all? or have you any consciousness that any will but your own has anything to say about your life? These prophets had found One whom it was worth while to obey, whatever came of it, and whoever stood in the way. May it be so with you and me, my friend! Let us try always to feel that in the commonest things we may hear the command of God; that the trifles of each day-trifles though they be-vibrate and sound with the reverberation of His great voice; that in all the outward circumstances of our lives, as in all the deep recesses of our hearts, we may trace the indications and rudiments of His will concerning us, which He has perfectly given us in that Gospel which is ‘the law of liberty,’ and in Him who is the Gospel and the perfect Law. Then quietly, without bluster or mock-heroics, or making a fuss about our independence, we can put all other commands and commanders in their right place, with the old words, ‘With me it is a very small matter to be judged of you, or of man’s judgment; He that judgeth me,’ and He that commandeth me, ‘is the Lord,’ In answer to all the noise about us we can face round like Elijah, and say, ‘As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand.’ He is my ‘Imperator,’ the Autocrat and Commander of my life; and Him, and Him only, must I serve. What calmness, what dignity that would put into our lives! The never-ceasing boom of the great ocean, as it breaks on the beach, drowns all smaller sounds. Those lives are noble and great in which that deep voice is ever dominant, sounding on through all lesser voices, and day and night filling the soul with command and awe.
Then, still further, we may take another view of these words. They are the utterance of a man to whom his life was not only bright with the radiance of a divine presence, and musical with the voice of a divine command, but was also, on his part, full of conscious obedience. No man could say such a thing of himself who did not feel that he was rendering a real, earnest, though imperfect obedience to God. So, though in one view the words express a very lowly sense of absolute submission before God, in another view they make a lofty claim for the utterer. He professes that he stands before the Lord, girt for His service, watching to be guided by His eye, and ready to run when He bids. It is the same lofty sense of communion and consecration, issuing in authority over others, which Elijah’s true brother in later days, Paul the Apostle, put forth when he made known to his companions in shipwreck the will of ‘the God, whose I am, and whom I serve.’ We may well shrink from making that claim for ourselves, when we think of the poor, perfunctory service and partial consecration which our lives show. But let us rejoice that even we may venture to say, ‘Truly I am Thy servant’; if only we, like the Psalmist, rest the confession on the perfectness of what He has done for us, rather than on the imperfection of what we have done for Him; and lay, as its foundation, ‘Thou hast loosed my bonds.’ Then, though we must ever feel how poor our service, and how unprofitable ourselves, how little we deserve the honour, and how impossible that we should ever earn the least mite of wages; yet we may, in all lowliness, think of ourselves as set free that we may serve, and lift our eyes, as the eyes of a servant turn towards his master, to ‘the living Lord, before whom we stand.
Such a life is necessarily a happy life. The one misery of man is self-will, the one secret of blessedness is the conquest over our own wills. To yield them up to God is rest and peace. If we ‘stand before God,’ then that means that our wills are brought into harmony with His. And that means that the one poison drop is squeezed out of our lives, and that sweetness and joy are infused into them. For what disturbs us in this world is not ‘trouble’ but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates, and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things. I suppose that we shall never here bring these wills of ours into perfect correspondence with His, any more than we shall ever, with our shaking hands and blunt pencils, draw a perfectly straight line. But if will and heart are brought even to a rude approach to parallelism with His, if we accept His voice when He takes away, and obey it when He commands, we shall be quiet and peaceful. We shall be strong and unwearied, freed from corroding cares and exhausting rebellions, which take far more out of a man than any work does. ‘Thy word was found, and I did eat it.’ When we thus take God’s command into our spirits, and feed upon it with will and understanding, it becomes, as the Psalmist found it, the ‘joy and rejoicing of our hearts.’ Elijah-like, we shall ‘go in the strength of that meat many days.’ The secret of power and of calm is-yield your will to the loving Lord, and stand ever before Him with, ‘Here am I, send me!’
We may add one more remark to these various views of the significance of this expression, to which the last instance of its use may help us. Here it is: ‘And Naaman said, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant. But he said, As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none.’
The thought, which made all Elisha’s life bright with the light of God’s presence, which filled his ear with the unremitting voice of a Divine Law, which swayed and bowed his will to joyful obedience, chilled and deadened his desires for all earthly rewards. ‘I am not thy servant. I am God’s servant. It is not your business to pay my wages. I cannot dishonour my Master by taking payment from thee for doing His work. I look for everything from Him, for nothing from thee.’
And is there not a broad general truth involved there, namely, that such a life as we have been describing will find its sole reward where it finds its inspiration and its law? The Master’s approval is the servant’s best wages. If we truly feel that ‘the Lord liveth, before whom we stand, ‘we shall want nothing else for our work but His smile, and we shall feel that the light of His face is all that we need. That thought should deaden our love for outward things. How little we need to care about any payment that the world can give for anything we do! If we feel, as we ought, that we are God’s servants, that will lift us clear above the low aims and desires which meet us. How little we shall care for money, for men’s praise, for getting on in the world! How the things that we fever our souls by pursuing, and fret our hearts when we lose, will cease to attract! How small and vulgar the ‘prizes’ of life, as people call them, will appear! ‘The Lord liveth, before whom I stand,’ should be enough for us, and instead of all these motives to action drawn from the rewards of this world, we ought to ‘labour that, whether present or absent, we may be well-pleasing to Him.’
Not the fading leaves of the victor’s wreath, laurel though they be, nor the corruptible things as silver and gold, whereof earth’s diadems and rewards are fashioned, but the incorruptible crown that fadeth not away, which His hand will give, should fire our hope, and shine before our faith. Not Naaman’s gifts but God’s approval is Elisha’s reward. Not the praise from lips that will perish, or the ‘hollow wraith of dying fame,’ but Christ’s ‘Well done! good and faithful servant,’ should be a Christian’s aim.
May we, brethren, possess the ‘spirit and the power of Elias’;-the spirit, in that we know ourselves to be the servants of the living God; and then we shall have some measure of his dauntless power and heroic unworldliness!
Still better, may we have the Spirit of Him who was ‘the Servant of the Lord,’ diviner in His gentle meekness than the fiery prophet in his lonely strength! Make yours the mind that was in Christ, that you too may say, ‘Lo, I come! in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, yea, Thy law is within my heart.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath
Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath
The prophet Elijah, who occupies so large a space in the succeeding history, is, like his successor Elisha, conspicuous among the prophetic figures of the OT. as a worker of miracles; and to him belongs the further distinction of having been removed from earth without dying. His prophecies differed from those of most later prophets in having in view only certain critical occasions of contemporary history, and in having no reference to the remote future or the Messianic age, though the moral and religious principles which they affirmed had, of course, a wide application.
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1. Of the inhabitants of Gilead] RM according to LXX, of Tishbeh of Gilead.' Said unto Ahab] Nothing is related about the reason for the drought which the prophet predicted; but the cause was doubtless Ahab's idolatry (1Ki_16:31-33 : cp. Lev_26:19; Deu_11:17). Josephus quotes a Tyrian historian who states that a drought occurred during the reign of Ethbaal (the king of Tyre and Zidon named in 1Ki_16:31), which lasted a year.
3. Hide thyself] The prophets of the Lord were in danger from the anger of Jezebel: cp. 1Ki_18:13.
Brook] strictly, a ravine or torrent-valley.
Before Jordan] i.e. E. of Jordan, in the Gilead he was familiar with.
4. The ravens] The original may possibly mean 'traffickers' (or merchants) or 'Arabians': if this is the real meaning of the word, the command resembles that given in 1Ki_17:9.
9. Zarephath] The 'Sarepta' of Luk_4:26. The modern Sarafend. It lay between Tyre and Zidon, and, from its nearness to these localities, might be a safe, because unsuspected, hiding-place.
12. As the Lord.. liveth] Elijah was probably recognised by speech or dress as an Israelite. May eat it, and die] implying that the drought and consequent famine extended to Zarephath: see on Luk_4:1.
16. The barrel, etc.] cp. the miracle of Elisha (2Ki_4:42-44).
18. To call.. to remembrance] The presence with her of a prophet whom the divine care watched over might (she feared) attract God's attention to herself and to some past sin which seemed to have been overlooked.
19. A loft] better, 'the upper chamber': cp. 2Ki_4:10.
20. Hast thou.. evil] A like despondency is observable in the prophet's language in 1Ki_19:4. Here he complains that evil dogs his steps wherever he turns and fastens even on those who befriend him.
21. Stretched himself] As though to convey the warmth of life from his own frame to that of the dead child: cp. 2Ki_4:34; Act_20:10.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 Elijah Heb. "Elijahu," Luk 1:17; Luk 4:25 called Elias.
Elijah Heb. "Elijahu," Luk 1:17; Luk 4:25 called Elias.
Ahab It was a small thing for a man whose life was passed in Jehovah’s presence to stand before Ahab.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. Elijah’s Prediction and Miracles
IV. THE PROPHET ELIJAH AND KING AHAB
1. Elijah’s Prediction and Miracles
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CHAPTER 17
1. Elijah’s message to Ahab (1Ki 17:1)
2. At the brook Cherith (1Ki 17:2-7)
3. With the widow of Zarephath (1Ki 17:8-16)
4. The widow’s son restored to life (1Ki 17:17-24)
Upon this scene of complete departure of God, when Ahab and his heathen wife worshipped Baal and all the vileness connected with that cult flourished in Israel, there appeared suddenly one of the greatest of God’s prophets, Elijah (my God is Jehovah) the Tishbite. “A grander figure never stood out even against the Old Testament sky than that of Elijah. As Israel’s apostasy had reached its highest point in the time of Ahab, so the Old Testament antagonism to it in the person and mission of Elijah.”--”He was the impersonation of the Old Testament in one of its aspects: that of grandeur and judgment” (A. Edersheim). His miracles, like those of Moses, have a judicial character. Heaven is shut in answer to his prayer and fire falls from heaven at his word. The last promise in the Old Testament is concerning Elijah the prophet who is to appear before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, to turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers (Mal 4:5-6). See also the Lord’s words concerning the coming of Elijah (Mat 17:10-13). He appeared with Moses on the transfiguration mountain. In the book of Revelation two witnesses are mentioned who witness among Israel before the great day of the Lord comes. Though their names are not given, the miracles they perform clearly show that these witnesses will be like Moses and Elijah. “These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy (Elijah), and have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will (Moses).” “And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies (Elijah)” Rev 11:5-6. James speaks of Elijah also and tells us he was a great man of prayer.
He appeared suddenly upon the scene and said to wicked Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” He had, no doubt, like other great servants of God, his training in secret.
The passage in James gives us the key: “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain” (Jas 5:17). It was in secret that he sought God’s presence and wrestled in prayer till the Lord sent him forth with the message of judgment. Prayer, persevering prayer, is the one great need in the days of declension and departure from God, and it is the one resource of God’s faithful ones. And how little true and continued waiting upon God there is in the days of apostasy! When Elijah delivered the message to Ahab and said “according to my word” he did not speak presumptuously, but as standing in the Lord’s own presence as his mouthpiece he had a perfect right to speak thus with divine authority.
As soon as he had delivered the message the Lord told him to hide himself by the brook Cherith. There he was miraculously fed by the ravens. He was in the appointed place and the Lord took care of him in His own way. Rationalistic critics have made the absurd statement that the word “orebim”--ravens--should be arabim, which means Arabs. (Thus Canon Farrar in the Expositor’s Bible: “The word (orebim) may equally well mean people of the city Oreb, or of the rock Oreb; or merchants as in Eze 27:27; or Arabians.) But the Lord had commanded the birds, so shy in their nature, to supply His servant with the needed food. Twice every day they ministered to his wants. How this shows the omnipotence of the Lord. There is nothing too hard for Him. If we are in the right place, the place He assigns to us, we shall find that He still provides for those who trust and obey. The brook dried up. Surely his faith was being tested. Then he was sent to a destitute Gentile widow, who faced starvation. And concerning her the Lord said: “I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” The Lord who commanded the ravens, commanded the widow. The Lord delights to take the weak things and use them for His glory. And how did Elijah find her? Preparing the last meal for herself and her child. Her faith was tested. She was to make first a little cake for Elijah and bring it unto him and afterwards to do the same for herself and her son. She obeyed and “the barrel of meal wasted not neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the Word of the LORD.” Here was greater faith than in Israel. See also Luk 4:26. The story foreshadows the bringing in of the Gentiles to know the Lord. And when the widow’s son fell ill and died and was restored by Elijah and he delivered him to the mother saying: See, thy son liveth--she made the blessed confession: “Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the Word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.” The truth of resurrection both physical and spiritual is here foreshadowed.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Famine
The Famine
v. 1. And Elijah ("My God is Jehovah") the Tishbite, a native, so far as can be determined, of Galilee, but having been removed to Gilead, where he lived as a stranger, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, a most solemn oath, emphasizing his position as servant and ambassador of Jehovah,there shall not be dew, which was usually very heavy in Palestine, nor rain these years but according to my word. It was a threat of punishment for the sin of idolatry and at the same time an evidence against the worship of Baal, to whom was ascribed the controlling power of nature. Drought and barrenness were a proof of the impotence of the idol and a direct punishment of God for the sin of idolatry, Lev 26:19-20; Deu 11:16-17.
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v. 2. And the word of the Lord came unto him, Elijah, saying,
v. 3. Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, out of the reach of Ahab’s and Jezebel’s anger, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, apparently a perennial stream and not an arroyo, carrying water only in the rainy season, that is before Jordan, somewhere on the western side, its exact location being unknown.
v. 4. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there, who were to be God’s messengers in supplying the prophet with food. While Elijah’s life was to be sustained in this miraculous manner, he was not only to be shut off from all intercourse with men, who might have betrayed his hiding-place to the king, but he was also to be strengthened in his trust in the almighty power of Jehovah, in whose service he was engaged.
v. 5. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord; for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.
v. 6. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, all the food which he needed to sustain life, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.
v. 7. And it came to pass after a while, after some time had elapsed, that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land, and the springs, in consequence, were no longer fed by the water in the hills. God has wars and means of keeping His children alive in the midst of the greatest plagues which he sends as a punishment upon the unbelieving world.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 5 the Tishbite
the Tishbite
This is the name of a people group from Tishbe. (See: How to Translate Names)
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Tishbe
This is the name of a town in the region of Gilead. (See: How to Translate Names)
As Yahweh, the God of Israel lives
This phrase is an oath to emphasize that what he will say is true.
before whom I stand
This is an idiom that means "to serve." AT: "whom I serve" (See: Idiom)
dew
drops of water that form on the plants during the night
translationWords
Elijah
Gilead
Ahab
Yahweh
God
Israel
life
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–2 17:1–19:21 The ministry of the prophet Elijah was intimately…
17:1–19:21 The ministry of the prophet Elijah was intimately connected to his own spiritual journey. Elijah confronted Israel’s flirtation with the Canaanite storm-god, Baal. As the struggle ensued, Elijah learned of God’s power and provision in contrast to Baal’s impotence, as demonstrated during Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (18:1-46). Elijah’s subsequent flight from Jezebel led to God’s renewal of his prophetic commission at Mount Sinai (19:1-18). Elijah’s commission was completed by his successor, Elisha (19:19-21).
17:1 Elijah was God’s prophet to the northern kingdom during the reigns of the third-dynasty kings Ahab (874–853 BC) and Ahaziah (853–852 BC) and into that of Joram (852–841 BC). • Elijah showed his commitment to the Lord by declaring that he served the living God of Israel. • Elijah withheld the dew and rain as a direct affront to Baal, who supposedly controlled these natural forces. Their absence until God led Elijah to give the word initiated the contest with Baal that would reach a climax on Mount Carmel (ch 18).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.