1 Kingschapter 17
24 verses · BSB1 Kings book hub →
Elijah Raises the Son of the Widow of Zarephath, Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
The section titles are this site's own.
A.Neither dew nor rain, but according to my wordvv. 1-7
1 Kings 17:1-2
Elijah enters Scripture with no genealogy beyond a place name, the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead, unlike the fuller introductions Kings gives its other prophets. His oath, before whom I stand, is the standing formula he repeats to Obadiah at 18:15, and it grounds his authority to shut heaven in a single sentence rather than in any king's sending. Kings measures the drought as these years and the third year at 18:1; Luke 4:25 and James 5:17 give the New Testament's own count, three years and six months.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
1 Kings 17:1, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Kings 17:1
“Great is the virtue of fasting. Indeed, its military appearance is so beautiful that it delightfully attracts and elevates humans to heaven for fasting and for Christ: so powerful that it raises men up to heaven. And to use more human than divine examples, from the fasting mouth of Elijah a voice was uttered that closed heaven to the sacrilegious people of the Jews. For when Ahab, the king, had set up an altar to the idol, according to the words of the prophet, there was no rain for three years and six months upon the earth.”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On Elijah and Fasting, Chapter 2, 2-3patristic
1 Kings 17:1
“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.”
1 Kings 17:1
“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, James”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Then a revelation from the LORD came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan. And you are to drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So Elijah did what the LORD had told him, and he went and lived by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan. The ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening, and he would drink from the brook. Some time later, however, the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
1 Kings 17:3-4
The command sends Elijah east across Jordan to Cherith, away from Ahab's reach, where ravens rather than any human hand supply his bread and flesh morning and evening. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown defend the plain reading of raven against conjectures that would emend the word to Arabians or merchants, since a miraculous feeding needs no natural explanation for where the birds found food. The prophet who shut heaven by his own word now depends on a daily supply he did not arrange, the same lesson Zarephath will teach a widow's jar.
1 Kings 17:3, 3 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Kings 17:3
“From the typological point of view this symbol has two meanings. The stream [wadi] of Elijah prefigures that, at the fullness of time, the Messiah will come and will send the sinners to the stream that comes out of the sanctuary, just like the one …”
Ephrem the Syrian· written before 373· ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2patristic
1 Kings 17:3
“Brook Cherith - Rather, “the torrent course,” one of the many which carry the winter rains from the highlands into that stream.”
1 Kings 17:3
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 17:4, 1 voice
1 Kings 17:4
“Have commanded - Or, I shall command, that is, effectually move them, by instincts which shall be as forcible with them, as a law or command is to men. God is said to command both brute creatures, and senseless things; when he causeth them to do the things which he intends to effect by them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 17:5-7
Elijah obeys at once and settles by the brook until it fails after a while, at the end of days, Wesley notes, meaning a year, the season a severe drought would need to dry a perennial stream. Clarke ties the drought itself to the curse Deuteronomy attached to a land that turns after other gods, that the Lord's wrath be kindled and he shut up the heaven. The drying brook lays a second trial on the first, teaching the prophet who called the drought to depend on the God who sent it rather than on the brook itself.
1 Kings 17:6, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:6
“Therefore do not boast when you fast, do not glory lest fasting profit you nothing; for those things that are done for ostentation will not prolong their fruit into the future, but they consume the reward for present deeds. Elijah was in the desert that no one might see him fast except the ravens alone, when they supplied him with food. Elisha was in the desert where no food except poisonous wild gourds could be found. John was in the desert, where he could find only locusts and wild honey.”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On Elijah and Fasting, Chapter 11, 40patristic
1 Kings 17:6
“And the ravens brought him bread and flesh - The Septuagint, in the Codex Vaticanus, and some ancient fathers, read the passage thus: - Και οἱ κορακες εφερον αυτῳ αρτους το πρωΐ, και κρεα το δειλης, And the crows brought him bread in the morning, and flesh in the evening: but all the other versions agree with the Hebrew text.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 17:7, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:7
“The brook dried up - Because there had been no rain in the land for some time, God having sent this drought as a testimony against the idolatry of the people: see Deu 11:16, Deu 11:17.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 17:7
“A while - Hebrew. at the end of days; that is, of a year; for so the word days is often used. Dried - God so ordering it, for the punishment of those Israelites who lived near it, and had hitherto been refreshed by it: and for the exercise of Elijah's faith, and to teach him to depend upon God alone.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
B.A handful of meal that would not spendvv. 8-16
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Get up and go to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Elijah called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread.” But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.” “Do not be afraid,” Elijah said to her. “Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake of bread from what you have, and bring it out to me. Afterward, make some for yourself and your son,
1 Kings 17:8-10
When Cherith fails, the word comes a second time and sends Elijah further still, to Zarephath in Sidon itself, inside the territory of Jezebel's own father. Barnes notes Zarephath's dependence on Sidon from the Assyrian inscriptions and suggests the prophet is sent to the one place least likely for Ahab to search. Wesley reads the sequence as provision from an unclean bird and then from a Gentile in turn, and Jesus draws the same widow into his own preaching at Nazareth, naming her against the many widows in Israel in the days of Elias.
1 Kings 17:9, 4 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Kings 17:9
“God sends Elijah to a city of [Gentile] people in order to change his hardness into mercy. He who had given him power over rain and dew did not want to withdraw by force what he had granted him. He wanted, nevertheless, to help the …”
Ephrem the Syrian· written before 373· ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2patristic
1 Kings 17:9
“The dependence of Zarephath (Sarepta) on Sidon is indicated in the inscriptions of Sennacherib, where it is mentioned as belonging to Luliya (Elulaeus), king of Sidon, and as submitting to the Assyrian monarch on Luliya’s flight from his capital. Elijah may have been sent to this place, so near the city of Jezebel’s father, as one which it was most unlikely that he would visit.”
1 Kings 17:9
“The prophet was sent to this widow, not merely for his own security, but on account of her faith, to strengthen and promote which he was directed to go to her rather than to many widows in Israel, who would have eagerly received him on the same privileged terms of exception from the grinding famine.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Kings 17:9
“Zidon - To the jurisdiction of that city, which was inhabited by Gentiles. And God's providing for his prophet, first, by an unclean bird, and then by a Gentile, whom the Jews esteemed unclean, was a presage of the calling of the Gentiles, and rejection of the Jews. So Elijah was the first prophet of the Gentiles.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 17:10, 1 voice
1 Kings 17:10
“To her Elijah was sent, that he might still live upon Providence as much as he did when the ravens fed him. It was in compassion to the low estate of his handmaiden that God sent the prophet to her, not to beg of her, but to board with her, and he would pay well for his table. (2.) That she was very humble and industrious.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 17:11-12
Elijah's request for bread tests the widow before she can test him, though she has told him only that she gathers sticks for a last meal. Her answer names her stock exactly, an handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse, enough by her own reckoning for one meal before she and her son die of the famine. Wesley notes the famine's effects reached beyond Israel into Tyre and Sidon, since both regions depended on Israel's grain, so her poverty is the drought's own doing before Elijah asks anything further of her.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
1 Kings 17:12, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:12
“A handful of meal in a barrel - The word כד cad is to be understood as implying an earthen jar; not a wooden vessel, or barrel of any kind. In the East they preserve their corn and meal in such vessels; without which precaution the insects would destroy them. Travellers in Asiatic countries abound with observations of this kind. The word cruse, צפחת tsappachath, says Jarchi, signifies what in our tongue is expressed by bouteille, a bottle. Jarchi was a French rabbin.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 17:12
“For though the famine was chiefly in the land of Israel, yet the effects of it were in Tyre and Sidon, which were fed by the corn of that land. But what a poor supporter was this likely to be? who had no fuel, but what she gathered in the streets, and nothing to live upon herself, but an handful of meal and a little oil!”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 17:13-14
Elijah asks the widow to feed him before she feeds her own son, a request Clarke calls an extraordinary trial of faith, since her last handful of meal is at stake for a stranger she has met only at the city gate. The promise attached is exact rather than vague, that the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day the Lord sends rain, tying the miracle's own end to the very drought Elijah pronounced at verse 1. Wesley reads the command as a trial God intended to reward, given as much to encourage others toward the same obedience as to test her own.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’” So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and there was food every day for Elijah and the woman and her household. The jar of flour was not exhausted and the jug of oil did not run dry, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Elijah.
1 Kings 17:15-16
The widow obeys, and she, he, and her house eat many days on a supply that never runs out. Henry calls the widow's own faith as great a miracle in the kingdom of grace as the oil's increase was in the kingdom of providence, since believing the promise came before seeing it kept. Gill compares the standing increase to the loaves and fishes multiplied in the disciples' own hands while they were still distributing them, a later miracle worked on the same pattern.
1 Kings 17:15, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Kings 17:15
“And she went, and did according to the saying of Elijah,..... Made a cake for him first, and brought it to him, which showed great faith in the word of the Lord by him: and she, and he, and her house, did eat; many days, a year at least, if not two years, see 1Ki 17:7 the widow, the prophet, and her family, lived upon the meal and oil so long; we read but of one son, but she might have more.”
1 Kings 17:15
“But surely the increase of this widow's faith, to such a degree as to enable her thus to deny herself and to depend upon the divine promise, was as great a miracle in the kingdom of grace as the increase of her oil was in the kingdom of providence. Happy are those who can thus, against hope, believe and obey in hope.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 17:16, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:16
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. There being a continual increase and supply of both, through the mighty power of God working a continued miracle; just as the loaves and fishes were increased while the disciples were eating, Mat 14:19.”
1 Kings 17:16
“There is nothing lost by being kind to God's people and ministers; she that received a prophet had a prophet's reward; she gave him house-room, and he repaid her with food for her household. Christ has promised to those who open their doors to him that he will come in to them, and sup with them, and they with him, Rev. iii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
C.Stretched upon the child three times: now I knowvv. 17-24
Later, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill, and his sickness grew worse and worse, until no breath remained in him. “O man of God,” said the woman to Elijah, “what have you done to me? Have you come to remind me of my iniquity and cause the death of my son?” But Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this boy’s life return to him!” And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s life returned to him, and he lived. Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive,” Elijah declared. Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is truth.”
1 Kings 17:17-18
The widow's son dies outright, no breath left in him, and her grief turns at once into an accusation, art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son. Wesley reads her question as fear that Elijah's presence, and his prayers, have brought her own guilt under the same judgment his word brought on the whole land. Clarke notes that adversity commonly surfaces a conscience adversity itself had let sleep, so the death forces an examination the drought alone had not.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
1 Kings 17:17, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Kings 17:17-18
“Observe carefully the tears of that woman, and see her humility in her grief, because she does not at all blame the judgment of God or rise against the prophet. In the humility of her intellect, she recognizes that that sentence struck her because of …”
Ephrem the Syrian· written before 373· ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2patristic
1 Kings 17:17
“No breath - Or, “no spirit,” “no soul.” (Compare Gen 2:7). The word used is translated “spirit” in Pro 20:27; Ecc 3:21; Job 26:4; and elsewhere.”
1 Kings 17:18, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:18
“Art thou come - Didst thou come for this end, that thou mightest severely observe my sins, and by thy prayers bring down God's just judgment upon me, as thou hast brought down this famine upon the nation? To call, &c. - To God's remembrance: for God is said in scripture, to remember sins, when he punisheth them; and to forget them, when he spares the sinner.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 17:18
“Note, (1.) When God removes our comforts from use he remembers our sins against us, perhaps the iniquities of our youth, though long since past, Job xiii. Our sins are the death of our children. (2.) When God thus remembers our sins against us he designs thereby to make us remember them against ourselves and repent of them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Kings 17:19-21
Elijah takes the child from her arms, carries him to his own upper room, and lays him on his own bed before he prays. Barnes notes the stretching of himself upon the child three times differs from the method Elisha later uses over the Shunammite's son, and compares it instead to the touch by which Jesus later raises the dead. The prayer names the God he serves twice, O Lord my God, and asks plainly that this child's soul come into him again, a request Wesley calls bold, made by a man whose own experience of answered prayer had already earned him standing to make it.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
1 Kings 17:20, 1 voice
1 Kings 17:20
“Thou art the Lord, that canst revive the child: and my God; and therefore wilt not, deny me. She is a widow, add not affliction to the afflicted; deprive her not of the support and staff of her age: she hath given me kind entertainment: let her not fare the worse for her kindness to a prophet, whereby wicked men will take occasion to reproach both her, and religion.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Kings 17:21, 2 voices
1 Kings 17:21
"He stretched himself on the child three times and cried out to the Lord, 'O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.' " These words contain many symbols. [The Scripture] shows us immediately that through the invocation of the three names …
Ephrem the Syrian· written before 373· ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2patristic
1 Kings 17:21
“He stretched himself upon the child three times - This action of Elijah is different from that of Elisha (marginal reference), and does not imply the use of any natural means for the restoration of suspended animation. It is nearly parallel to the “touch,” through which our Lord performed similar miracles Mat 9:25; Luk 7:14.”
1 Kings 17:22-24
The Lord hears, and the child's soul returns to him. Gill calls this the first instance in Scripture of anyone being raised from the dead, and notes that pagan literature's own tales of revived men are its later, lesser copy. Elijah carries the boy down and hands him to his mother with the plainest possible proof, see, thy son liveth, and her confession closes the chapter where it opened: 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 same word that shut heaven at verse 1 now proven true over a single household.
The wording quoted in this note is the King James Version.
1 Kings 17:22, 3 voices
1 Kings 17:22
“As we mentioned, that widow prefigured the church, and her son was a type of the Gentiles. The son of the widow lay dead because the son of the church, that is, the Gentiles, was dead because of many sins and offenses. At the prayer …”
Caesarius of Arles· written before 542· Commentary (church-history corpus)patristic
1 Kings 17:22
“And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah,.... In prayer, and answered it: and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived; this is the first instance of anyone being raised from the dead; this Satan has imitated; hence the many fabulous stories with the Heathens of persons being raised to life after death (k). (k) Vid. Huet. Alnetan. Quaest. l. 2. c. 12. sect. 30.”
1 Kings 17:22
“And the soul - נפש nephesh, of the child came into him again, על קרבו al kirbo, into the midst of him; and he revived, ויח vaiyechi, and he became alive. Did he not become alive from the circumstance of the immaterial principle coming again into him? Although רוח ruach is sometimes put for the breath, yet נפש generally means the immortal spirit, and where it seems to refer to animal life alone, it is only such a life as is the immediate and necessary effect of the presence of the immortal spirit.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Kings 17:24, 1 voice
1 Kings 17:24
“The word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth - Three grand effects were produced by this temporary affliction: 1. The woman was led to examine her heart, and try her ways; 2. The power of God became highly manifest in the resurrection of the child; 3. She was convinced that the word of the Lord was truth, and that not one syllable of it could fall to the ground. Through a little suffering all this good was obtained. The subject in the fourth verse of this chapter deserves a more particular consideration.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Where the chapter sits
1 Kings 17 falls in Divided kingdom and Elijah (chapters 13–22). The man of God from Judah; Ahijah's oracle to Jeroboam's wife; the parade of kings evaluated in formulaic regnal summaries. Elijah arrives in ch. 17 and dominates through Carmel (18), Horeb (19), Naboth's vineyard (21), and the LORD's word that stands against four hundred false prophets (22).
Elijah and the drought. The brook Cherith; the widow of Zarephath; the raising of her son.
Before it: Division at Shechem, chapters 12.
The whole shape of 1 Kings→Key words
The Hebrew words this chapter turns on, by how often it uses them. Each one opens its word study.
| Word | What it means | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| אָמַרʼâmar14 times, as וַיֹּאמֶר֩, לֵאמֹֽר׃, וַיֹּאמַ֔ר | to say | 1, 2, 8, 10 and 10 more |
| יְהֹוָהYᵉhôvâh14 times, as יְהוָ֞ה, יְהוָ֖ה, יְהוָ֑ה | of yahweh | 1, 2, 5, 8 and 7 more |
| אֵלִיָּהʼÊlîyâh9 times, as אֵלִיָּ֨הוּ, אֵלִיָּ֙הוּ֙, אֵלִיָּ֑הוּ | Elijah | 1, 13, 15, 16 and 4 more |
| דָּבָרdâbâr9 times, as דְבָרִֽי׃ ס, דְבַר־, כִּדְבַ֣ר | word | 1, 2, 5, 8 and 5 more |
| אֱלֹהִיםʼĕlôhîym7 times, as אֱלֹהֵ֤י, אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙, אֱלֹהֵ֣י | God | 1, 12, 14, 18 and 3 more |
| הָלַךְhâlak7 times, as לֵ֣ךְ, וַיֵּ֥לֶךְ, וַיֵּ֗לֶךְ | went | 3, 5, 9, 10 and 2 more |
Cross references
The 8 chapters this one speaks with, most first. Open a row for the verses it shares.
2 Kings 46 verses
1 Kings 17:12
2 Kings 4:2“How can I help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”1 Kings 17:17
2 Kings 4:18And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.1 Kings 17:19
2 Kings 4:32When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed.1 Kings 17:21
2 Kings 4:33So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.1 Kings 17:23
2 Kings 4:36Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”1 Kings 17:14
2 Kings 4:42Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.- Read 2 Kings 4 →
Hebrews 113 verses
1 Kings 17:15
Hebrews 11:17By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar. He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son,1 Kings 17:22
Hebrews 11:35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused their release, so that they might gain a better resurrection.1 Kings 17:3
Hebrews 11:38The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground.- Read Hebrews 11 →
Luke 42 verses
1 Kings 17:1
Luke 4:25But I tell you truthfully that there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and great famine swept over all the land.1 Kings 17:9
Luke 4:26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to the widow of Zarephath in Sidon.- Read Luke 4 →
James 52 verses
1 Kings 17:20
James 5:15And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.1 Kings 17:1
James 5:17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.- Read James 5 →
The rest of the chapters this one speaks with, 4 of them, for a reader following a thread past the four above
Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.
The world behind itThe place, the time and the people around this chapter, for a reader who wants the setting.
The world behind this chapter
1 Kings 17The history
Baal was the storm god, rider of the clouds, giver of rain, the deity whose worship Jezebel had brought into Israel as state religion. Announcing a drought that will not break except at this prophet's word is a direct challenge fought on Baal's own ground, and the whole contest that follows is about who sends water.
The country makes the drought vivid. Israel farmed on rainfall, not irrigation; the rains come between October and April and nothing grows without them. Three years without rain meant no barley, no wheat, empty cisterns, dying livestock, and by the end a king personally searching for grass to keep his horses alive.
Elijah is hidden in a ravine, one of the deep seasonal streambeds cutting down to the Jordan, and fed by ravens, birds the Law lists as unclean, bringing him bread and meat. Then the brook dries up like everything else, and he is sent to Zarephath, a Phoenician town between Tyre and Sidon. That is Jezebel's home country: the prophet of the drought is sheltered inside Baal's heartland by a woman who is down to a handful of flour and a little oil in a jug.
Her house has an upper chamber, and grain and oil were kept in narrow-mouthed storage jars of exactly the kind found all over Iron Age sites, the miracle is described in ordinary kitchen containers. The famine of these years may have left a trace outside the Bible: Josephus quotes the Tyrian historian Menander recording a year-long drought without rain in the reign of Ethbaal, Jezebel's father.
What it meant to them
The first hearers heard a foreign widow, in the territory of the queen who was killing Israel's prophets, put a stranger's word ahead of her last meal and be fed through the whole famine.
And they heard a mother's raw complaint when her son died anyway, and a prophet who took that complaint straight to God rather than defending him. Faith in these chapters is not smooth.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation)
Where this chapter leads
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Kings 17. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 10 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Ambrose of Milan; Caesarius of Arles, Commentary (church-history corpus); Ephrem the Syrian, ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley and Matthew Henry.