The sudden appearance of Elijah
17
📚And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand 📖, there will be no dew or rain 📖 these years, except by my word”.17:1 Deut 28:23-24; 1 Kings 18:1; Luke 4:25-26; Jam 5:17; Rev 11:6. Elijah was one of the greatest figures of the Old Testament. Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, appeared with the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration (Matt 17:3; Luke 9:30-31). John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus, came in the spirit of Elijah (Matt 11:13-14; 17:11-13; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:17). And it seems that Elijah will appear again before the second coming of Christ (Mal 4:6). His name means “Jehovah is my God”. His home was east of the Jordan River.⚜
Elijah fed by the ravens
2 📚And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 3 📚“Go from here, and turn eastward, and hide 📖 yourself by the brook Kerith, that is east of the Jordan. 4 📚And it is to be like this: you will drink from the brook; and I have commanded the ravens 📖 to feed you there”.
5 📚So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the brook Kerith, that is east of the Jordan. 6 📚And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.
Elijah and the widow of Zarephath
7 📚And after a while it happened that the brook dried up 📖, because there had been no rain in the land. 8 📚And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9 📚“Arise, go to Zarephath 📖, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. See, I have commanded 📖 a widow woman there to provide for you”. 10 📚So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, just then the widow woman was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a jar, so that I can drink”. 11 📚And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand”.
17:10-11 Elijah recognized her as the one God had appointed to meet his needs.⚜
12 📚And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I do not have a loaf, but only a handful of flour in a barrel, and a little oil in a jug. And, look, I am gathering two sticks, so that I can go in and prepare it for myself and my son, so that we can eat it, and die”.
17:12 To meet the needs of His servants God often passes by the rich and uses the poor. Compare 2 Cor 8:1-4.⚜
13 📚And Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do as you have said, but with it make for me a little cake first, and bring it to me, and afterwards make for yourself and for your son.
17:13 Here was an opportunity for her to learn of the power of the miracle-working God of Israel, and she believed and experienced it (v 15). We all may have such opportunities. See Luke 6:38.⚜
14 📚For thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘The barrel of flour will not be exhausted, and the jug of oil will not fail, until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth”.
15 📚And she went and did according to the word of Elijah. And she, and he, and her household, ate for many days. 16 📚And the barrel of flour was not exhausted, and the jug of oil did not fail, in accordance with the word of the LORD which he spoke by Elijah.
17 📚And it came about after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and his sickness was so severe, that there was no breath left in him. 18 📚And she said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to call my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?”
17:18 She thought, perhaps, that Elijah had discovered her past sin and had spoken of them to God. And she believed that the death of her son was a punishment for her sin. This was not true, as we can see from what follows.⚜
19 📚And he said to her, “Give me your son”. And he took him from her bosom, and carried him up into the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. 20 📚And he cried out to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, have you also brought disaster on the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”
17:20 Elijah was as puzzled as the widow. God’s servants often find themselves in puzzling circumstances. Compare 2 Cor 4:8.⚜
21 📚And he stretched himself on the child three times, and cried out to the LORD and said, “O LORD my God, I pray you, let this child’s soul come back into him”.
22 📚And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came back into him, and he revived.
17:22 This is the first recorded raising of the dead in the Bible. And it happened, not in Israel, not among believers in Judah, but to the son of a poor widow of another nation. Such is God’s grace.⚜
23 📚And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the room into the house and handed him to his mother, and Elijah said, “See, your son is living”.
24 📚And the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth”.
17:24 In faith this woman leaped ahead of the people of Israel who had rejected both Elijah and God who spoke through him.⚜