Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 17:2
And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying,
2. came unto him ] The LXX. explains that it was ‘unto Elijah,’ which could hardly be doubted from what follows.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1Ki 17:2-7
The word of the Lord came unto him.
The word of the Lord
We have in our theme a suggestion of the Divine guidance. The word of the Lord as a guide comes to the man of prayer. I suppose Elijah was greatly disappointed at the message which came to him. He had the heart of a soldier, and he grieved at the idolatry which he saw everywhere. But it was the best thing for Elijah and for the cause. We have a case like it in the New Testament where Philip, who was a very popular preacher and was enjoying great success, was suddenly instructed by word of the Lord to leave where he was and go away into the desert, It must have been a great disappointment to Philip, a severe cross for him to bear. But Philip obeyed, and it was on that journey that the treasurer of Queen Candace came driving by, and the word of the Lord again indicated to Philip his duty. Then Philip knew why the word of the Lord had guided him as it had. So Elijahs great soul was burning to tear down the idols of Baal and Ashtaroth; but the time was not yet ripe, and God was saving the prophets life and giving the bold message he had uttered time to work by guiding him away into the wilderness. God went with Elijah into the wilderness, and long afterwards he knew the wisdom of Heaven. The word of the Lord, if we are obedient to it, will work while we are hidden. No doubt Elijah, if he had used his own judgment, would have backed up the Lords message day after day with his own big body and his own ringing voice. But it was not the time for that. God used Elijah for His message, and he delivered it well. He acted promptly and faithfully, and with perfect courage, and then, against his own judgment, he followed the word of the Lord and went into hiding and into silence. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward.—
Beside the drying brook
I. Gods servants must learn to take one step at a time. Our Father only shows us one step at a time–and that, the next; and He bids us take it in faith. If we look up into His face, and say: But if I take this step, which is certain to involve me in difficulty, what shall I do next? the heavens will be dumb, save with the one repeated message, Take it, and trust Me. But directly Gods servant took the step to which he was led, and delivered the message, then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Get thee hence, hide thyself by the brook Cherith. So it was afterwards: Arise, get thee to Zarephath.
II. Gods servants must be taught the value of the hidden life. Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith The man who is to take a high place before his fellows, must take a low place before his God; and there is no better manner of brining a man down, than by dropping him suddenly out of a sphere to which he was beginning to think himself essential, teaching him that he is not at all necessary to Gods plan; and compelling him to consider in the sequestered vale of some Cherith how mixed are his motives, and how insignificant his strength. Every saintly soul that would wield great power with men must win it in some hidden Cherith. A Carmel triumph always presupposes a Cherith; and a Cherith always leads to a Carmel. We cannot give out unless we have previously taken in. Bishop Andrewes had his Cherith, in which he spent five hours every day in prayer and devotion. John Welsh had it–who thought the day ill-spent which did not witness eight or ten hours of closet communion. David Brainerd had it in the woods of North America, which were the favourite scene of his devotions. Christmas Evans had it in his long and lonely journeys amid the hills of Wales. Fletcher of Madeley had it–who would often leave his classroom for his private Chamber, and spend hours upon his knees with his students, pleading for the fulness of the Spirit till they could kneel no longer. Or–passing back to the blessed age from which we date the centuries–Patmos, the seclusion of the Roman prisons, the Arabian desert, the hills and vales of Palestine, are for ever memorable as the Cheriths of those who have made our modern world.
III. Gods servants must learn to trust God absolutely. We yield at first a timid obedience to a command which seems to involve manifest impossibilities; but when we find that God is even better than His word, our faith groweth exceedingly, and we advance to further feats of faith and service. This is how God trains His young eaglets to fly. At last nothing is impossible. This is the key to Elijahs experience. There is strong emphasis on the word there. I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. Elijah might have preferred many hiding-places to Cherith; but that was the only place to which the ravens would bring his supplies; and, as long as he was there, God was pledged to provide for him. Our supreme thought should be: Am I where God wants me to be? Only trust Him!
IV. Gods servants are often called to sit by drying brooks. Cherith began to sing less cheerily. Each day marked a visible diminution of its stream. Its voice grew fainter and fainter, till its bed became a course of stones, baking in the scorching heat. It dried up. What did Elijah think? Did he think that God had forgotten him? Did he begin to make plans for himself? This would have been human; but we will hope that he waited quietly for God, quieting himself as a weaned child, as he sang, My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. Many of us have had to sit by drying brooks; perhaps some are sitting by them now–the drying brook of popularity, ebbing away as from John the Baptist. The drying brook of health, sinking under a creeping paralysis, or a slow consumption. Tim drying brook of money, slowly dwindling before the demands of sickness. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Gods care of Elijah
I. God suits his workmen to their work. To the hospital He sends a nurse; to the battlefield, a soldier; to penitence and sorrow, a son of consolation; to wickedness and brutality, a son of thunder. Such was this rude, stern, volcanic Tishbite as he comes to the rescue of his country; to champion a cause that seemed lost; to stand alone against a huge and dominant iniquity; to challenge Ahab and Jezebel in the palace of their licentious pleasure, in the citadel of their idolatrous power. He came like the flash of a scimitar, uttered his appalling message, voiced the wrath of the Almighty, and was gone.
II. The prophet vanished, but the drought remained. We know little of the horror of a rainless year. Our seasons come and go, and the bounteous heaven waters the bounteous earth, until we cease to associate plenty, beauty, and life itself with the unfailing rain. But to an Oriental dwelling on the deserts verge, where food is a precarious question of moisture, and bread a problem in irrigation, rain is life; the clouds drop fatness. A rainless sky is a heaven of brass, and an unwatered earth an earth of iron. At first there was no alarm. The farmers sowed their seed in hope, the caravans trailed toward the horizon. But the rains were late. Anxious eyes scanned the western sky, the streams became gravel beds, the wells were drained, the vineyards withered in the burning sun. The temples resounded with prayers to Baal, and great pillars of smoke rose to heaven from the altars of Ashtaroth. At last, from out the fiery furnace, Israel raised a cry of despair; and from the king in the palace to the beggar by the,wayside came one common, desperate inquiry, Where is Elijah the Tishbite?
III. When God undertakes to hide a man we may be sure he will be well concealed, Elijah was sent to a secluded ravine east of Samaria, through which the brook Cherith still rippled to the Jordan. There he lived, solitary but safe, an idle but not a useless prophet. When God sends a man into retirement and inactivity let him not think that he is set aside. In the Divine purpose and plan, as poor blind Milton discovered and sang–
They also serve who only stand and wait.
(M. B. Chapman.)
Elijah and the famine
I. A great national calamity. A nation without rain or dew for three years and a half! And, it is said in the next chapter, there was a sore famine in Samara. National panics are to be regarded as steps in the demonstration of some great problem of government which Almighty God is working out for the advancement and sanctification of the world.
II. The care of Divine Providence. The calamities which befall nations visit also the people of God who dwell in them. The tares and the wheat grow up together; and if the tares are withered for lack of moisture, the wheat suffers from the same cause. As a principle, God does not exempt His people from their share of national calamity and sorrow. But, although He permits His people to suffer in the midst of a general visitation, He never forgets or forsakes them. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. Elijah had his part in the national distress, but the Lord remembered His servant. The modern history of Gods providence furnishes many instances of suit and service rendered to His people by the animal creation, scarcely less wonderful than the supply of Elijah by ravens. I will relate one. Far up in one of the Highland glens, lived a poor but pious woman named Jenny Maclean. One day when her food was almost exhausted, and she was intending to take a journey to get a fresh supply, a heavy snowstorm came on. Never had been seen in that locality such a constant and heavy fall, with such deep snow-drifts. When the heavens at last became clear, the whole face of the country seemed changed. It was some time before the thought suddenly occurred to a shepherd, What has old Jenny been doing all this time? No sooner was her name mentioned than she at once became the theme of general conversation. But for many days, such was the state of the weather, that no mortal feet could wade through the snow-wreaths, or buffet the successive storms that swept down with blinding fury from the hills. Jenny was given up as lost. At last, three men resolved, on the first day that made the attempt possible, to proceed up the long and dreary glen, and search for Jenny. They reached a rock at an angle where the glen takes a turn to the left, and where the old womans cottage ought to have been seen. But nothing met the eye except a smooth, white sheet of glittering snow, surmounted by black rocks; and all below was silent as the sky above. No sign of life greeted the eye or ear. The men spoke not a word, but muttered some exclamations of sorrow. Suddenly one of them cried, She is alive! for I see smoke. They pushed bravely on. When they reached the hut, nothing was visible except the two chimneys; and even these were lower than the snow-wreath. There was no immediate entrance but by one of the chimneys. A shepherd first called to Jenny down the chimney, and asked if she was alive; but before receiving a reply, a large fox sprang out of the chimney, and darted off to the rocks. Alive! replied Jenny, but thank God you have come to see me! I cannot say come in by the door; but come down–come down. In a few minutes her three friends easily descended by the chimney, and were shaking Jenny warmly by the hand. O woman! said they, how have you lived all this time? Sit down, and I will tell you, said old Jenny, whose feelings now gave way in a fit of hysterical weeping. After composing herself, she continued, How did I live? you ask, Sandy? I may say just as I have always lived, by the power and goodness of God, who feeds the wild beasts. The wild beasts, indeed! replied Sandy, drying his eyes; did you know that a wild beast was in your house? Did you see the fox that jumped out of your chimney as we entered? My blessings on the dear beast! said Jenny, with fervour. May no huntsman ever kill it! and may it never want food in summer or winter! The shepherds looked at one another by the dim light of Jennys fire, evidently believing that she had become slightly insane. Stop, lads, she continued, till I tell you the story. I had in the house, when the storm began, the goat and two hens. Fortunately, I had fodder gathered for the goat, which kept it alive, although, poor thing, it has had but scanty meals. I had also peats for my fire, but very little meal. Yet I never lived better, and I have been able besides to preserve my two bonnie hens for summer. I every day dined on flesh meat too, a thing I have not done for years before; and thus have I lived like a lady. Where did you get meat from? they asked. From the old fox, she replied. The day of the storm he looked into the chimney, and came slowly down, and set himself on the rafter beside the hens, yet never once touched them. He every day provided for himself and me too. He brought in game in abundance for his own dinner–a hare almost every day–and what he left I got, and washed, and cooked, and ate, and so I have never wanted. Now that he is gone, you have come to relieve me. Gods ways are past finding out! said the men, bowing down their heads with reverence. Praise the Lord! said Jenny, Who giveth food to the hungry. This incident was related by an old clergyman who attended Jennys funeral. How much like the supply of Elijah by the brook Cherith! Why are we surprised almost to scepticism at such facts?
III. The exercise of human sympathy. It came to pass, after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. The continued drought and heat of the sun gradually lessened the stream; it dried to a narrow thread; then that narrow thread dwindled and disappeared, and Elijah was left by the brook, with no prospect before him but to perish, unless the Lord interposed to save him. The Lord did interpose; and mark how–The word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.
IV. The reward of cheerful generosity. Elijah found the widow gathering sticks to dress her last handful of meal for herself and son, that they might eat it and die. Elijah said unto her, Fear not. The word of the Lord comes to us with a promise similar in principle. The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered himself. That is Gods principle of recompense still. He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord, and that which he hath given will He pay him again. If that is true, if the Word of the Lord is to be relied on, then no man is the poorer for what he gives to the poor. Lending to the Lord, the Lord becomes his creditor: and surely He may be trusted with our deposits. As good Matthew Henry says, What is laid out in charity or pity, is lent out on the best interest, upon the best security. (J. H. Wood.)
Elijah at Cherith
I. Men must be prepared to accept the consequences of their obedience to God. We do not always see such consequences, and when they come upon us they very often find us unprepared to meet them. Obedience to God often exposes men to hatred, scorn, ridicule, opposition, inconvenience, loss of trade, loss of liberty, and even life itself. But when we chose Gods service we chose these consequences, and when they come they should not deter us from our duty. Daniel, when he knew that the law was passed, condemning to the lions den any who should pray except to the king for thirty days, went into his chamber and prayed as aforetime. Peter and John determined to obey God rather than man, notwithstanding the threat of stripes and imprisonment.
II. That God makes provision for the exigencies into which obedience to the Divine commands may bring His servants. He imposes no task but He provides strength for its accomplishment. Whatever may be the consequences of their obedience, He will not leave His servants to meet them alone.
III. This provision is frequently not made known to the obedient until their need is pressing. When the drought comes upon the land, God will not forsake His people; but His voice shall be heard directing them to Cherith, where their need shall be amply provided for. (The Study and the Pulpit.)
Elijah at Cherith
I. The uncertainty of earthly comforts. When Elijah went to Cherith under the direction of God, he would never dream of that brook becoming exhausted. What a picture of human life this is! How many there are of whose worldly comforts it may be said: After a while the brook dried up. One man is settled in life, with circumstances all that could be desired, and he contemplates the future with pleasure; but, unexpectedly something arises–bank failure, or commercial crisis–which tells him that the brook is dried up, and he has to leave his Cherith. Another looks with pride and hope upon a child–his pleasure and joy flow from that child–but, unnoticed, disease settles upon it and takes it away. After a while the brook dried up. And so with earthly comforts. They are uncertain, and do not warrant the eagerness with which they are sought or the value with which they are invested.
II. The certainty of Gods care. Though the water of the brook failed, Gods care was not exhausted. He had made provision for Elijah at Zarephath before He commanded him to leave Cherith. Decay and change may characterise all our earthly comforts, but they do not characterise God; He remains the same, and His care can never fail.
III. Godly generosity shall not lose its reward. Whosoever even giveth a cup of cold water to a disciple, in the name of a disciple, shall not lose his reward. (The Study and the Pulpit.)
It was the water that failed, not the ravens
. It was the natural, not the supernatural, provision that came to an end. That for which the prophet looked upward morning and evening continued steadily. That which had been flowing at his feet all day long began suddenly to diminish. When a trouble comes straight from heaven we are more likely to see Gods hand in it, and to submit patiently and trustfully. When, however, the trouble seems to come quite naturally, we are tempted to look at secondary causes, and to forget that God is behind them all (F. S. Webster, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2, 3. the word of the Lord came untohim, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, c.Atfirst the king may have spurned the prediction as the utterance of avain enthusiast but when he found the drought did last and increasein severity, he sought Elijah, who, as it was necessary that heshould be far removed from either the violence or the importunitiesof 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, alittle below the ford at Beth-shan.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the word of the Lord came to him,…. The word of prophecy, as the Targum; this shows that by word, in the former verse, he means the word of the Lord by him:
saying; as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After the announcement of this judgment, Elijah had to hide himself, by the command of God, until the period of punishment came to an end, not so much that he might be safe from the wrath and pursuit of Ahab and Jezebel, as to preclude all earnest entreaties to remove the punishment. “For inasmuch as the prophet had said that the rain would come at his word, how would they have urged him to order it to come!” (Seb. Schm.) He was to turn , eastward, i.e., from Samaria, where he had no doubt proclaimed the divine judgment to Ahab, to the Jordan, and to hide himself at the brook Cherith, which is in front of the Jordan. The brook Cherith was in any case a brook emptying itself into the Jordan; but whether upon the eastern or the western side of that river, the ambiguity of , which means both “to the east of” (Gen 25:18) and also “in the face of,” i.e., before or towards (Gen 16:12; Gen 18:16), it is impossible to determine with certainty. That it must signify “to the east of the Jordan” here, does not follow from with anything like the certainty that Thenius supposes. An ancient tradition places the Cherith on this side of the Jordan, and identifies it with the spring Phasaelis, which takes its rise in the slope of the mountains into the Jordan valley above the city of Phasaelis, and empties itself into the Jordan (cf. Ges. thes. p. 719, and V. de Velde, Reise, ii. pp. 273-4); whereas Eusebius, in the Onom. s.v. Chorat (Chorra’), places it on the other side of the Jordan, and Thenius thinks of the apparently deep Wady Rajib or Ajlun. All that can be affirmed with certainty is, that neither the brook Kanah (Jos 16:8; Jos 17:9), which flows into the Mediterranean, nor the Wady Kelt near Jericho, which Robinson ( Pal. ii. p. 288) suggests, can possibly come into consideration: the latter for the simple reason, that the locality in the neighbourhood of Jericho was unsuitable for a hiding-place. Elijah was to drink of this brook, and the ravens by divine command were to provide him with bread and meat, which they brought him, according to 1Ki 17:6, both morning and evening. It is now generally admitted that does not mean either Arabs or Orebites (the inhabitants of an imaginary city named Oreb), but ravens. Through this miracle, which unbelievers reject, because they do not acknowledge a living God, by whom, as the Creator and Lord of all creatures, even the voracious ravens are made subservient to His plans of salvation, Elijah was not only cut off from intercourse with men, who might have betrayed his place of abode to the king, but was mightily strengthened himself, through the confidence inspired in the almighty assistance of his God, for his approaching contests with the worshippers of idols, and for the privations and sufferings which awaited him in the fulfilment of his vocation.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
1Ki. 17:3. Hide thyself by the brook CherithHe should hide, in order to escape alike the kings violence and importunities; also to allow his words to vindicate themselves as true, and give men time to learn their need of him and his God. CherithSite unknown. Various conjectures have attempted to locate it, but all is uncertain. Its obscure site indicates its great security as a hiding place.
1Ki. 17:4. I have commanded the ravens, which some, on account of these birds being legally unclean, and notably voracious, have interpreted Arabians. The word is so used in Exo. 27:2-7; 2Ch. 21:16; Neh. 4:17. Others regard the word as pointing to the inhabitants of Orbo, near by the supposed brook. Michaelis, objecting to the supernatural altogether, suggests that Elijah was merely told to feed himself from the ravens nest, by plundering them of the game they seized!
HOMILETICS OF 1Ki. 17:2-7
THE TEACHINGS OF SOLITUDE
ELIJAH had become the most popular man in Israel. His strange, abrupt entrance upon the scene, and the terrible import of his message, tended to fasten all eyes upon him, and to raise him into a position of personal importance. But it was a popularity not to be envied. It was full of peril. It raised up a number of enemies. It was perhaps a temptation to the prophet himself. God called him away into retirement, and amid the rocky solitudes of Cherith, with its solitary brook, he was to learn lessons of humility, of patience, and of faith.
I. Solitude affords protection from threatened peril. Hide thyself by the brook Cherith (1Ki. 17:3). The enraged and deluded Ahab clamoured for the life of the loyal prophet, and the fawning parasites of Jezebel would fain have torn him in pieces. They ransacked every imaginable hiding-place in the kingdom, but in vain. They are well hid whom God doth hide. Moses fled to Midian from the fury of the Egyptians, and was safely lodged there for forty years. David found shelter from the malice of Saul among the fastnesses of Engedi; John the Evangelist, from persecution, in the Isle of Patmos; Luther, from his enemies, in the lonely castle of Wartburg, in the Forest of Thuringia; Tyndale, the first translator of the English Bible, was a fugitive in hiding at Marburg, Worms, Antwerp, and Cologne; John Knox, the Scottish Elijah, was several years a prisoner in the French galleys; and the great prophet of Gilead is sent to Cherith for safety and for culture. The faithful worker for God is scathless till his work is done.
II. Solitude is relieved by special manifestations of Divine care. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh, &c. (1Ki. 17:6). These words record an undoubted miracle, and there are fewer difficulties in believing the miracle than in trying to explain the transaction on natural grounds. The miracle is all the more impressive that ravens, the most voracious of birds, are the unfailing purveyors of the prophet. Since the raven is a carrion bird, and a devourer of all manner of dead flesh, some have wondered how Elijah could eat without scruple all that was brought to him; but they absurdly assume that ravens miraculously sent by Divine command would bring what was common or unclean. When men disobey, says Wordsworth, God reproves them by the obedience of the inferior creatures. The old world disbelieved Gods warnings by Noah, and would not go into the ark, and so perished in the flood; but the inferior animals went in and were fed there. Balaam was rebuked for his disobedience by the ass on which he rode. The disobedient prophet (chap. 1Ki. 13:26) was slain by the lion which God sent from the forest, and which spared the ass and the carcase of the prophet. The disobedience of Ahab and Israel was rebuked by the obedience of the ravenous birds in bringing food to Elijah. Jonah fled from God, and God sent the whale to bring him back to prophesy against Nineveh. The lions spared Daniel when his colleagues would have slain him. Christ was with the wild beasts in peace (Mar. 1:13) when He was about to be rejected by mankind. Jehovah has all nature under His control, and it is an easy thing for Him to make it minister to the necessities of His tried and faithful servants. He who provides meat for the fowls of the air will make the fowls of the air provide meat for man, rather than his dependence on God shall be disappointed.
III. Solitude often severely tests the genuineness of our faith (1Ki. 17:7). A period of enforced inactivity is most difficult to endure, especially to an ardent nature. Why am I doomed to this gloomy solitude? what good purpose can it serve? Time, opportunities, strength to labour, are all passing away unimproved. Ought I not to break away from this tedious imprisonment, and rush at once into the conflict that on every hand demands the stalwart arm and the enter-prizing soul? Is there no testimony to bear, no work to be done, no warfare to wage? Such are the questions sometimes asked by the solitary recluse. The restraint tries our faith, while on the other hand faith generates strength to bear the strain. Nor is a time of retirement without its suffering. It came to pass that the brook dried up. The lessening flow of the life-giving stream and its final exsiccation was an additional trial of faith and source of suffering. It is in extremity that our faith becomes more daring, and yields the most solid comfort. Good bye, dear Lucy, said a drowning youth to his betrothed, after they had both held on to the last possible point of endurance to a piece of the floating wreckage of a foundered steamer; we shall soon meet in heaven!
IV. Solitude is an opportunity for mental and moral discipline. It was to Elijah a time of deep and pensive musing. He thought of God, on whose bounty he was so absolutely dependent. He thought of Israel, its delusions, its vices, its sufferings, its needs. He thought of himself and the work to which he was called. He strove to rectify defects, and sought to brace himself up for the conflict before him. He discovered the true source of his strength, and was enabled more completely to consecrate his whole being to the service of God. Most public men have their Cheriths of retirement and preparation. When the disciples of our Lord returned from their first mission, and reported all they had done and taught, He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile (Mar. 6:30-31). In this way temptations to pride and self-sufficiency are conquered, and lessons of humility and self-abasement are learnt. The sufficiency of my merit, said Augustine, is to know that my merit is not sufficient.
The bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest.
Nearest the throne itself must be
The footstool of humility.Herbert.
LESSONS:
1. The withdrawal of a public instructor is a calamity to a nation.
2. Solitude is fraught with trial and sorrow.
3. Seasons of solitude should be diligently improved.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1Ki. 17:2-7. Characteristics of a child-like faith.
1. It accepts the Word of God without questioning (1Ki. 17:2).
2. It flinches not in the presence of the severest demands (1Ki. 17:3).
3. It is not staggered by apparent improbabilities (1Ki. 17:4).
4. It is prompt in obedience (1Ki. 17:5).
5. Enjoys the fulfilment of the Divine promise (1Ki. 17:6).
6. Fails not when most severely tried (1Ki. 17:7).
Elijah at Cherith.
1. Men must be prepared to accept the consequences of their obedience to God. We do not always see such consequences, and when they come upon us they very often find us unprepared to meet them. Obedience to God often exposes men to hatred, scorn, ridicule, opposition, inconvenience, loss of trade, loss of liberty, and even life itself. But when we choose Gods service we choose these consequences, and when they come they should not deter us from our duty.
2. That God makes provision for the exigencies into which obedience to the Divine commands may bring His servants. He imposes no task, but He provides strength for its accomplishment. Whatever may be the consequences of their obedience, He will not leave His servants to meet them alone. He goes before His people, providing for their necessitiesstrength in weakness and temptation, light in darkness, comfort in sorrow, consolation in bereavement, hope in death.
3. This provision is frequently not made known to the obedient until their need is pressing. It is after we have entered upon our chosen path of duty, and the difficulties begin to appear, that God reveals the provision He has made to enable us to meet them. It is when the darkness gathers around us that the light of heaven appears. When the drought comes upon the land, God will not forsake His people; but His voice shall be heard directing them to Cherith, where their need shall be amply provided for.The Study and Pulpit.
1Ki. 17:3. Obscurity.
1. Repugnant to some men.
2. Sometimes the appointment of God.
3. Necessary for self-discipline.
4. A means of safety.
Even that God sends him to hide his head who could as easily have protected as nourished him. He that wilfully stands still to catch dangers tempteth God instead of trusting Him.
Get thee hence, and hide thyself. A hard word for a heroic man like Elijah, who had 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. 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, 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.Lange.
1Ki. 17:5. 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.Menken.
1Ki. 17:6. Divine Providence.
1. Cares for the most solitary.
2. Has absolute control over all supplies.
3. Never disappoints the believer.
4. May sometimes make use of ravensi.e., abandoned and godless mento help the children of God.
1Ki. 17:7. Faith tried.
1. By the gradual failure of that on which life depends.
2. By the suffering caused by privation.
3. By the uncertainty of the future.
4. Is ever rewarded by timely relief.
The prophet feels the smart of this drought which he had denounced. It is no unusual thing with God to suffer his own children to be in wrapped in the common calamities of offenders. He makes difference in the use and issue of their stripes, not in the infliction. The corn is cut down with the weeds, but to a better purpose.Bp. Hall.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
B. ELIJAH AT CHERITH 17:27
TRANSLATION
(2) And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, (3) Go from this place and torn for your sake to the east, and hide yourself at the river Cherith, which is before the Jordan. (4) And it shall come to pass that from the brook you shall drink, and the ravens I have commanded to feed you there. (5) So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, and he went and dwelt at the brook Cherith, which was before the Jordan. (6) And the ravens brought to him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and from the brook he drank. (7) And it came to pass at the end of several days, that the brook dried up, for there was no ram in the land.
COMMENTS
Shortly after Elijah announced the drought in Israel he received a divine revelation (1Ki. 17:2) instructing him to proceed immediately eastward to the brook (lit., water course) Cherith. Cherith was one of the lateral valleys which run down to the Jordan river. It was probably located in the region of Gilead in a very secluded area.[411] There he was to hide himself (1Ki. 17:3) both to escape royal punishment and to avoid the importunity of his countrymen who would no doubt cry out to him because of the burden he had laid on the land. From that brook Elijah was to drink; but God would provide his food in a miraculous manner. The ravens would bring his food to him in that secluded spot. The ministry of these birds was prolonged and methodical. Under the commandment of God they acted in an intelligent and rational way: they brought food to the prophet, and they brought it for months together with unfailing regularity. Elijah carried out the instructions of the Lord (1Ki. 17:5), and the Lord was faithful to the promises which He had made concerning the miraculous provision of the daily food (1Ki. 17:6).
[411] One tradition places Cherith near Jericho at Wadi-el-kelt.
The miracle of feeding by the ravens has been questioned from earliest times, as for example by Jerome. It is possible by altering the vowel points on the word ravens to yield the meaning Arabs. According to this view Elijah was cared for by some Bedouins who lived in the region of Cherith. The Arabs even to this day are noted for their generous hospitality and loyalty to strangers.[412] This interpretation certainly cannot be ruled out because the Hebrew vowel points are not part of the inspired consonantal Hebrew text and were only added to the Hebrew Bible in the Middle Ages. Still another view transliterates the Hebrew consonants and vowels as a proper name. According to this view it was the Orbites, i.e., the inhabitants of Orbo who fed Elijah at Cherith. But no town by the name of Orbo is attested in the Bible. The correct reading attested by all the ancient versions of the Old Testament (except the Arabic) is ravens. In, the days of Josephus (Ant., VIII, 13.2) at the end of the first Christian century the reading ravens was accepted. Therefore, the traditional understanding of the text is probably the correct one.
[412] However, Bedouins eat very little meat, and it would be very strange that they would twice daily share meat with Elijah. Skinner (cited in SBB, p. 123) calls this emendation of the text a rationalistic absurdity.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Elijah Is Fed By Ravens At The Brook Cherith ( 1Ki 17:2-7 ).
Having made his public declaration Elijah was then advised by YHWH to go to the east of Jordan, to one of the wadis that fed the Jordan, where he was promised that he would be fed by ‘rbm. Pointed as ‘orebim this would indicate ‘ravens/crows’. Pointed as ‘arabim it would indicate wandering Arabs. (The original text had no pointing). In a time of drought the Arabs would have dying cattle from which they could supply meat to Elijah, and for that reason they would not want to move far from water, which would explain why they hung around the Jordan at this time. However, in a similar way, scavenger birds would have more carcases available from which they could bring meat to Elijah, and this appears the more likely meaning as it illustrated the author’s desire to portray the power of the God of creation in making His creatures do His will. Others, however, point out that by taking it as ‘Arabs’ we have (together with the widow of Zarephath) two parallel examples of God providing for His servant through ‘foreigners’, when his own people had turned against him (but had Jesus seen it in this way, surely he would have included it as an example in Luk 4:25). It makes little difference in the end. The point was that the power of YHWH would ensure that he was provided for.
Analysis.
And the word of YHWH came to him, saying, “Get yourself away from here, and turn yourself eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is before the Jordan” (1Ki 17:2-3).
“And it shall be, that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1Ki 17:4).
So he went and did according to the word of YHWH, for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, which is before the Jordan (1Ki 17:5).
And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook (1Ki 17:6).
And it came about after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land (1Ki 17:7).
Note that in ‘a’ Elijah was sent to the Wadi Cherith were he would have a supply of water, and in the parallel the Wadi dried up and he had to move on. In ‘b’ the ravens would feed him there, and in the parallel the ravens did feed him there. Centrally in ‘c’ Elijah obeyed the word of YHWH.
1Ki 17:2-3
‘ And the word of YHWH came to him, saying, “Get yourself away from here, and turn yourself eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is before the Jordan” ’
As a prophet Elijah then received the word of YHWH which told him to leave Samaria and go to the Wadi Cherith, east of Jordan (or overlooking the Jordan) to a deserted spot where he could find a hiding place where Ahab’s men could not find him.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
(2) And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, (3) Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. (4) And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
It should seem that this hiding of the prophet, was not so much by way of security to his person, as it was that the Lord might accomplish his purpose concerning Israel. A time was determined of famine, by way of punishment. And Elijah shall not be at hand to make intercession, to reverse the sentence. Reader! think of thy privileges: Jesus ever liveth, ever loveth; is ever at hand to make intercession for poor sinners; and by him the distressed soul may have access at all times, by one Spirit, unto the Father. What deeper designs were in this event, or what it might be intended to prefigure, I do not venture to say. But it is worthy of remark, that when the church, which is represented in the book of Revelations under the similitude of the woman, is said to have been driven into the wilderness, a place is said to be prepared of God for her, where they should feed her a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And in the same chapter, it is said, that she should be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. Which, if explained according to the usual terms of prophecy, would correspond (in this latter part, at least,) to the three years and half of Elijah’s concealment. See Rev 12:14Rev 12:14 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1Ki 17:2 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying,
Ver. 2. And the word of the Lord came. ] The Lord is said to have come to Balsam, Laban, and other profane wretches, but the word of the Lord to his prophets only, as was afore noted.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1 Kings
A PROPHET’S STRANGE PROVIDERS
1Ki 17:1 – 1Ki 17:16
The worst times need the best men. The reign of Ahab brought a great outburst of Baal worship, imported by his Phoenician wife, which threatened to sweep away every trace of the worship of Jehovah. The feeble king was absolutely ruled by the strongwilled Jezebel, and everything seemed rushing down to ruin. One man arrests the downward movement, and with no weapon but his word, and no support but his own dauntless courage, which was the child of his faith, works a revolution in Israel. ‘Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than’ Elijah the Tishbite. Bugged, stern, solitary, he has no commission to reveal new truth. He is not a ‘prophet,’ like later ones whose words were revelation.
Little is preserved of his sayings. His task was to reform and restore, not to advance; and his endowments of ‘spirit and power’ corresponded to his work. The striking peculiarities of this heroic figure will appear as we go on with his history. For the present, we have to consider the three points of this narrative.
I. The Prophet and the King. -The startling suddenness of Elijah’s leap into the arena, where he appears without preface or explanation, helps the impression of extraordinary force which his whole career makes. He crashes into the midst of Ahab’s court like a thunderbolt. What did Jezebel think of this wild man from the other side of Jordan, with his long hair and his loose mantle, who thus fronted Ahab and her? Nothing is told us of his descent; it is even questionable whether the reading which calls him ‘the Tishbite’ is correct. We only know that he was of Gilead, and therefore used to a ruder, freer, simpler life than that in kings’ palaces.
The natural conclusion from the narrative is that the prophet and the king had never met before; and, if so, the stern brevity of the threat is even more remarkable. In any case, the absence of explanation of reasons for the drought, or of credentials of Elijah, or of offers of mercy on condition of repentance, give a peculiarly grim aspect to the message, and make it a dangerous one to carry to such a hearer as Ahab, stirred up by Jezebel. When God commands us to speak, no thought of peril must make us dumb. If the ‘word of the Lord’ is to sound from our lips with power, it must first have absolute sway over ourselves. One man with God at his back, who fears nothing, can work marvels.
God’s servant is men’s master. The vision of God’s Presence paled the splendour, and blunted the perils, of the court of Samaria. Ahab was but a poor puppet in the sight of eyes that ‘saw the Lord sitting on His throne, high and lifted up.’ So the very first words of Elijah lay bare the secret spring of his fiery energy and courage. ‘Before whom I stand,’-that is the thought to put nerve, daring, and disregard of earth into a man.
James’s comment on this incident assumes that the declaration to Ahab followed earnest prayer that it might not rain, and that the ‘word’ which should end the drought was also prayer. The truest lover of his country or of any men may sometimes have to wish for losses and sorrows. Elijah did not open and shut the heavens, but his prayer had power to move the Hand that ‘openeth and no man shutteth.’
II. The Prophet and the Ravens. -One would like to know how Elijah made his escape from Ahab; but the whole story is marked by sudden appearances and disappearances. He flashes into sight and flames for a moment, and then is swallowed up in the dark again. The exact position of the brook Cherith is doubtful. It would seem most natural to look for it across Jordan, as safer and more familiar ground to Elijah than any of the tributaries on the western side. At all events, somewhere among the savage rocks in some wady with a trickle of water down it, and rank vegetation that would help to hide him, he lurked for an indefinite period, alone with God.
Why did he flee? Not only for safety, but that the period of the drought might be prolonged till it had done its work, and that the prophet might learn more lessons for his calling. Good Obadiah would have made a place for the chief of the prophets in his caves; but the man who is to do work like Elijah’s must live in solitude. Cherith was part of the training for Carmel. The flight thither was as much an act of obedient faith as was the appearance before the king. However the necessity of flight was impressed on the prophet, it was impressed on him as manifestly not his own plan, but God’s command; and though the journey was a weary one, and the appointed place of refuge inhospitable, the command was unhesitatingly obeyed. He was not left to wonder how he was to be fed when he got there, but God gave him, what He seldom gives-a previous assurance of miraculous provision, which obviously met some unspoken thought. We do not usually know how we are to be fed in the solitude till we get there; but if our doubting hearts object, ‘But, Lord, there is nothing at Cherith but a brook and some ravens,’ He sometimes gives us assurance that these will be enough. Whether or no, the duty is the same,-to follow God’s voice, whether it take us face to face with Ahab and Jezebel or into the wild gorge.
Note that the same words are employed about the ravens and the widow: ‘I have commanded the. . . to feed thee.’ God has ways of reaching the mysterious animal instinct and the mysterious human will, and each, in its own way, obeys. It is needless to try to pare down the miracle by saying that, of course, ravens would haunt the water-courses in drought, and that the food which they brought might be for their young, and so on. The daily regularity of the supply takes it out of the natural category, to say nothing of the remarkable breed which the ravens must have been of, if they brought their young ones’ food within reach and let the prophet take it.
People take offence at the abundance of miracles in the lives of Elijah and Elisha, and assert that some of them, this among the rest, are for unworthily trivial occasions. But the grave crisis in Israel is to be taken into account, which involved the necessity for unusual manifestations of divine power, and very evident credentials for the prophets; and the preparation of Elijah for his tremendous struggle was, even to our eyes, surely an adequate end for miracle. How could he doubt that God had sent him and would care for him, with such memories as those of his winged purveyors? How could he doubt future words which should come to him, when he recalled how marvellously this one had been fulfilled? The silence of the ravine, the long days and nights of solitude, the punctual arrival of his food, would all tend to weld his faith into yet more close-knit strength. If we may so say, it was worth God’s while to work miracles, to make Elijah. The highest end of creation is the production of God-fearing men. All things serve the soul that serves God.
III. The Prophet and the Widow. -The little stream that came down the wady dried up ‘after a while’; and Elijah, no doubt, would wonder what was to be done next, as he saw it daily sending a thinner thread to Jordan. But he was not told till the channel was dry, and the pebbles in its bed bleaching in the sun. God makes us sometimes wait on beside a diminishing rivulet, and keeps us ignorant of the next step, till it is dry. Patience is an element in strength. It was a far cry from Cherith to Zarephath, right across the kingdom of Ahab; and to run for refuge to a dependency of Zidon, Jezebel’s country, looked like putting his head in the lion’s mouth. But the same ‘command’ which the ravens had obeyed had smoothed his way.
So he girded up his loins, and left, no doubt reluctantly, the brook for a city. How his heart would bow in adoring thankfulness, when the first person he saw outside the little ‘city’ was ‘the widow’! He knew her; did she know him? The natural interpretation of 1Ki 17:9 is that, at the time when God spoke to Elijah, he had already ‘commanded’ the woman. But the despondent tone of her answer seems against that idea; and perhaps we are to suppose that, just as the ravens were commanded and knew not by whom, so this woman received the command, when she saw the travel-stained and gaunt stranger, through her womanly impulses of compassion, not knowing who moved them nor what she did when she sheltered the man whose life was, at that moment, the most important in the world. The motions of pity and charity are of God, and He commands us to help when He sets before us those who need help.
The whole incident was a lesson to the prophet. He might well have thought that God had sent him to a strange helper in this poor widow with her empty cupboard; and it must have taken some faith on his part to reassure her with his cheery ‘Fear not!’ The prediction of the undiminishing stores demanded as much faith from its speaker as from its hearer.
It was a lesson in faith for the woman too. Her use of the phrase ‘the Lord thy God’ may imply some inclination to the worship of Jehovah, and so there may have been a little glimmer of faith in her; but she was full of sorrow and despair, and yet willing to help the stranger with the ‘little water in a vessel,’ though the ‘morsel of bread in thine hand’ was beyond her power. Elijah’s apparently selfish demand that his wants should be looked after first was a test of her faith. Sometimes self-denying duty is made clearly imperative on us, before we hear the promise which, believed, will make it easy. They who have ears to hear the command, and hearts to obey, even if it seem to strip them of all, will soon hear the assurance that secures abundance. The barrel would have been empty by nightfall, if the meal in it had been used for the woman and her son. The continuance of supply depended on her obedience, which, in its turn, depended on faith in the prophet as a messenger of God. ‘There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth.’ The use of earthly goods for God’s service may not be rewarded with the increase of them; but, if the barrel is not kept full of meal, the heart will be kept full of peace, which is better. No sacrifice for God is ever thrown away. He remains in no man’s debt.
The incident has a further bearing, as an instance of a divine benediction resting on heathendom. The synagogue at Nazareth pointed that lesson for us. Elijah and the widow both learned that the God of Israel is the God of all the earth, and that His prophets have a mission to every race. The woman rebuked, by her pity and self-denying benevolence, the prejudices of Israel; the prophet foreshadowed, by his familiar abode with one won from idolatry to the worship of God, the universal aspect of the Jewish religion, and its destiny to overleap the narrow bounds of the nation. Charity and pity have no geographical limits. Much less can the love of God and the light of His revelation be bounded by any narrower circle than the circumference of the world.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
1Ki 12:22, 1Ch 17:3, Jer 7:1, Jer 11:1, Jer 18:1, Hos 1:1, Hos 1:2
Reciprocal: 1Ki 17:8 – the word