{"id":9336,"date":"2022-09-24T03:01:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T08:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/exegetical-and-hermeneutical-commentary-of-1-kings-177\/"},"modified":"2022-09-24T03:01:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T08:01:13","slug":"exegetical-and-hermeneutical-commentary-of-1-kings-177","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/exegetical-and-hermeneutical-commentary-of-1-kings-177\/","title":{"rendered":"Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 17:7"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 align='center'><b><i> And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. <\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n<p> <strong> 7<\/strong>. <em> because there had been<\/em> [R.V. <strong> was<\/strong> ] <em> no rain<\/em> ] Not only had there been none, but the drought was continuing.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p><P> Verse <span class='bible'>7<\/span>. <I><B>The brook dried up<\/B><\/I>] 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 <span class='bible'>De 11:16-17<\/span>.<\/P> <\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Adam Clarke&#8217;s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p><P> <B>After a while, <\/B>Heb. <I>at the end of days<\/I>, i.e. of a year; for so the word days is oft used, as in <span class='bible'>Exo 13:10<\/span>; <span class='bible'>Lev 25:29<\/span>; <span class='bible'>Num 9:22<\/span>; <span class='bible'>Jdg 17:10<\/span>; <span class='bible'>1Sa 1:3<\/span>; <span class='bible'>27:7<\/span>. And this seems to be a convenient time for the drying up of the brook, which was gradually dried up; and so this agrees well with <span class='bible'>1Ki 18:1<\/span>, <\/P> <P><B>in the third year; <\/B>of which See Poole &#8220;<span class='bible'>1Ki 18:1<\/span>&#8220;. <\/P> <P><B>The brook dried up; <\/B>God so ordering it, partly, for the punishment of those Israelites who lived near it, and had hitherto been refreshed by it; partly, for the trial and exercise of Elijahs faith, and to teach him to depend upon God alone, not on any creature, for his support; and partly, to show his own all-sufficiency in providing for his people. <\/P><\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p><strong>And it came to pass after a while<\/strong>,&#8230;. Or &#8220;at the end of days&#8221; x, perhaps a year, which sometimes is the sense of this phrase, see<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'>Ex 13:10<\/span>,<\/p>\n<p><strong>that the brook dried up<\/strong>; through the excessive heat, and for want of supplies from the springs and fountains with which it was fed, and for the following reason:<\/p>\n<p><strong>because there had been no rain in the land<\/strong>; from the time Elijah prayed and prophesied; of this drought mention is made in profane history: Menander, a Phoenician writer, speaks y of a drought in the times of Ithobalus (the same with Ethbaal the father of Jezebel), which lasted a whole year, and upon prayer being made there were thunder, &amp;c.<\/p>\n<p>x   &#8220;in, vel a, fine dierum&#8221;, Pagninus, Montanus, &amp;c. y Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 8. c. 13. sect. 2.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: John Gill&#8217;s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p> After some time this brook dried up for want of rain. Then the Lord directed His servant to go to the Sidonian <em> Zarephath<\/em>, and to live with a widow whom He had commanded to provide for him.   does not mean <em> post annum<\/em>, for  merely derives this meaning in certain passages from the context (cf. <span class='bible'>Lev 25:29<\/span>; <span class='bible'>1Sa 27:7<\/span>; <span class='bible'>Jdg 17:10<\/span>); whereas in this instance the context does not point to the space of a year, but to a longer period of indefinite duration, all that we know being that, according to <span class='bible'>1Ki 18:1<\/span>, the sojourn of Elijah at Cherith and Zarephath lasted at least two years. Zarephath (  , lxx) was situated on the Mediterranean Sea between Tyre and Sidon, where a miserable Mohammedan village with ruins and a promontory, <em> Surafend<\/em>, still preserve the name of the former town (Rob. iii. p. 413ff., and V. de Velde, <em> Syria and Palestine<\/em>, i. pp. 101-3, transl.).<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Keil &amp; Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p> <strong> 7<\/strong>. <strong> <\/strong> <strong> After a while <\/strong> Margin, <em> At the end of days. <\/em> He probably dwelt by the brook Cherith a year. See note on <span class='bible'>1Ki 18:1<\/span>.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Whedon&#8217;s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p> <strong> Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath <span class='bible'>1Ki 17:7-16<\/span><\/strong> gives us the account of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. <\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:7-16<\/strong><\/span> <strong> Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath <\/strong> In his message <em> The God of the Breakthrough<\/em> Jerry Savelle tells the story of one of his divine visitations in which the Lord explained to him that the Church was living in a mode of lack, getting by financially from week to week. He was in his hotel room while ministering in Liberty, Texas and the Lord appeared to him. Jesus said to him that there were three things required for anyone to receive a supernatural breakthrough. The Lord took him to the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. <\/p>\n<p><em> 1. One Must Have A Prophetic Word from God &#8211;<\/em> <strong> <\/strong> The first thing that is required for a breakthrough is a prophetic word from God, a &ldquo;Thus saith the Lord!&rdquo; This comes most often from spending time in prayer so that we can know God&rsquo;s mind. The widow of Zarephath was in lack to the point of dying. She intended on dying after her day&rsquo;s meal (<span class='bible'>1Ki 17:12<\/span>). Elijah&rsquo;s word was intended to change her situation drastically from &ldquo;I have not&rdquo; (<span class='bible'>1Ki 17:12<\/span>) to having more than enough (<span class='bible'>1Ki 17:15-16<\/span>).<\/p>\n<p><em> 2. One Must Have a Willingness to Obey &#8211;<\/em> <strong> <\/strong> Once a prophet word comes, there must be a willingness to obey that word. The Scripture says, &ldquo;And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah.&rdquo; (<span class='bible'>1Ki 17:15<\/span>) <\/p>\n<p><em> 3. One Must Sow a Seed &#8211;<\/em> <strong> <\/strong> Obedience will require the sowing of a seed. People are often &ldquo;need-minded&rdquo; while God is &ldquo;seed-minded.&rdquo; The widow had to sow a significant seed in order to release her faith. The word &ldquo;significance&rdquo; means that something has special meaning to you. She gave all that she had. <\/p>\n<p> Jesus went on to tell Jerry Savelle that if God&rsquo;s people will apply these laws of prosperity, the God of the breakthrough would visit their house. When Jerry asked the Lord for a Scripture to support this statement, the Lord gave him <span class='bible'>Gen 50:24<\/span>, which says, &ldquo;And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.&rdquo; The last thing that the Lord said to Jerry was to tell them that once they release that seed, the depth of their praise would determine the magnitude of their breakthrough. [36]<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:3em'> [36] Jerry Savelle, interviewed by Kenneth Copeland, <em> Believer&rsquo;s Voice of Victory <\/em> (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:10-11<\/strong><\/span> <strong> <\/strong> <strong><em> Comments Giving and Receiving &#8211; <\/em><\/strong> Elijah asked for a drink of water and a morsel of bread so that she might be able to give what little affection she had to God. In return, God could pour out His divine love into her life. It is the same principle that we find when Jesus asked the woman at the well to give him a drink. Note these insightful words from Frances J. Roberts:<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'>&ldquo;&lsquo;Give and ye shall receive&rsquo; is a spiritual law that holds true as much between thyself and God as between man and his fellowman. Even more so, for this is a higher plane of operation. Learn it on the highest plane, and it will become simple and automatic at the human level. Even as I said to the woman at the well (knowing her need of true satisfaction) &lsquo;Give Me a drink&rsquo;, so I say to you, Give Me a portion of the love ye have even though it be limited and natural, and I will give you My love in return. Love that is infinite. Love that is abounding. Love that will gush forth from thy life to refresh others. Give Me just a cupful of your limited affection. I long for it. I weep for it as I wept for the love of Jerusalem. I will pour out upon you such love as ye have never known. Love that will flood your whole being with such satisfaction as ye never dreamed possible to experience except in Heaven. Lo, I beg of thee, &lsquo;Give Me a drink; Or in the language of Elijah, &lsquo;Bake me a little cake first&rsquo;, and thou wilt never lack for meal and oil.&rdquo; [37]<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:3em'> [37] Frances J. Roberts, <em> Come Away My Beloved<\/em> (Ojai, California: King&rsquo;s Farspan, Inc., 1973), 45-6.<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:12<\/strong><\/span> <strong> And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an 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 son, that we may eat it, and die.<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:12<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> <strong> &ldquo;I am gathering two sticks&rdquo; <\/strong> <strong><em> Comments &#8211; <\/em><\/strong> Peter Pett, in his work &ldquo;The Use of Numbers in the Ancient Near East and In Genesis,&rdquo; studies the use of numbers in the ancient world by looking at modern-day primitive tribes. He suggests that the woman in <span class='bible'>1Ki 17:12<\/span> is really saying, &ldquo;I am gathering a few sticks.&rdquo; If she were gathering many sticks, she would have said, &ldquo;I am gathering three sticks.&rdquo; He supports this statement by noting that in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, the symbol that was later used for the number three originally represented the concept of &ldquo;many.&rdquo; Pett also refers to Neugebauer&rsquo;s work, &ldquo;In the Exact Sciences in Antiquity,&rdquo; where he describes the growth of numbers in ancient Sumer. Pett says, &ldquo;He points out that the word used for &lsquo;one&rsquo; (as) is the same word as that for &lsquo;man,&rsquo; the word for &lsquo;two&rsquo; (min) is the same as that for &lsquo;woman,&rsquo; and the word for &lsquo;three&rsquo; is the same as that for &lsquo;many.&rsquo;&rdquo; Thus, Pett suggests that &ldquo;two sticks&rdquo; is used as a generality for the concept of &ldquo;few.&rdquo; [38]<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:3em'> [38] Peter Pett, &ldquo;The Use of Numbers in the Ancient Near East and in Genesis,&rdquo; [on-line]; accessed 3 August 2009; available from http:\/\/www.geocities.com\/genesiscommentary\/numbers.html; Internet.<\/p>\n<p> Another example of the use of the number &ldquo;two&rdquo; is found in <span class='bible'>2Ki 5:10<\/span>, where we are told that Elisha saved the king of Israel &ldquo;not once nor twice.&rdquo; Here again, the number two represents a few times, while anything above it represents many times.<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>2Ki 6:10<\/span>, &ldquo;And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> In contrast, the number &ldquo;ten&rdquo; is used throughout the Scriptures to represent the concept of &ldquo;many.&rdquo; This is probably because someone finishes counting when he has counted all of his fingers.<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Gen 31:7<\/span>, &ldquo;And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times ; but God suffered him not to hurt me.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Gen 31:41<\/span>, &ldquo;Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times .&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Num 14:22<\/span>, &ldquo;Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times , and have not hearkened to my voice;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Neh 4:12<\/span>, &ldquo;And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times , From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Job 19:3<\/span>, &ldquo;These ten times have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Dan 1:20<\/span>, &ldquo;And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Dan 7:10<\/span>, &ldquo;A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p style='margin-left:1.8em'> <span class='bible'>Rev 5:11<\/span>, &ldquo;And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:15<\/strong><\/span> <strong> And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:15<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> <strong> <\/strong> <strong><em> Comments &#8211; <\/em><\/strong> Each day the widow had to go to the barrel of meal and cruse of oil and make Elijah a meal by faith. <\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:16<\/strong><\/span> <strong> 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.<\/p>\n<p> <span class='bible'><strong> 1Ki 17:16<\/strong><\/span><\/strong> <strong> <\/strong> <strong><em> Comments &#8211; <\/em><\/strong> Each day the widow sowed a seed by giving to Elijah the prophet of God, and each day the Lord multiplied her seed.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Everett&#8217;s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p> (7) And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p> Perhaps this drying of the brook was for the exercise of Elijah. And when our friends, like Job&#8217;s, deal deceitfully by us, as a brook, (<span class='bible'>Job 6:15<\/span> ) or when all creatures comfort fail; how sweet is it to live upon the full and never-ceasing fountain? Jesus is all this to his people! God the Father is a fountain, and the Holy Ghost also: See <span class='bible'>Zec 13:1<\/span> ; <span class='bible'>Jer 2:13<\/span> ; <span class='bible'>Joh 7:37-39<\/span> .<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Hawker&#8217;s Poor Man&#8217;s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p> 1Ki 17:7 And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.<\/p>\n<p> Ver. 7. <strong> That the brook dried up.<\/strong> ] So will all human helps and comforts fail, in time, those that confide in them. Only God is an inexhaustible and ever-springing fountain.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: John Trapp&#8217;s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p>am 3095, bc 909 <\/p>\n<p>after a while: Heb. at the end of days <\/p>\n<p>the brook: Isa 40:30, Isa 40:31, Isa 54:10 <\/p>\n<p>Reciprocal: Gen 4:3 &#8211; in process of time 1Ki 18:1 &#8211; in the third year 2Ch 18:2 &#8211; after certain years Jer 14:3 &#8211; pits Joe 1:20 &#8211; the rivers<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p>THE DRY BROOK<\/p>\n<p>The brook dried up.<\/p>\n<p>1Ki 17:7<\/p>\n<p>I. This is one of the benedictions of disaster: that it sets us face to face with the realities of life.We come into an irresistible recognition of the fact that there is something more valuable than money, and more precious than pleasure. Day by day we are busy doing our days work, occupied with the small interests which crowd our time, set upon transitory purposes, taken up with matters of the moment. And these things seem the only realities there are. God is out of sight and out of mind. Heaven and hell are theological expressions. Prayer is of no practical value. But we can put our hand on the round face of the gold sovereign. We can be absolutely sure of the existence of a sovereign. That, anyhow, is real.<\/p>\n<p>And then comes trouble. And what a change that makes! What a reversal of all our valuations! Can money help us? Can society console us? O Baal, hear us! But there is no voice, nor any that answers. And here is the drought and the famine, and the brook is dried up because there is no rain in the land. Then we begin to think. And we remember God. And we change the emphasis of our life, and put it in a better place. And the dry brook teaches the lesson which it taught in Ahabs day, the lesson of the supremacy of God, the lesson of the infinite seriousness of life.<\/p>\n<p>II. But Elijah knew that lesson.There was no need to teach that to Elijah. Let the other brooks dry up; but this brook Cherith at Elijahs feet, surely God will keep that full of water. Morning and evening came the ravens, bringing breakfast and supper to the hungry prophet, and he drinks the water of the brook. God is taking care of Elijah. The hot sun glares out of the sky, but the deep valley is in the shadow. The famine tightens its hold upon the starving people, but Elijah neither thirsts nor hungers. And he paces up and down in his solitary valley, safe and satisfied, and rejoices, like Jonah, to imagine the fearful execution of the sentence of the indignant God.<\/p>\n<p>But by and by the drought touches Elijah. The brook dries up. Here is one of the hardest things to understand in the hard problem of pain. I mean this strange impartiality. If the brook had dried up in front of Ahabs palace, that would have been right. We could see plainly enough what that was for. But when the brook dries up at the feet of the only good man in the whole country, that is quite a different matter. There was no rain in the land, and that affected Elijahs brook just as it affected Ahabs. Sometimes there is a pestilence in the land, and the saint suffers like the sinner. All the time there is trouble in the land, of one sort or another, and the trouble touches the good just as it touches the bad. There is no difference. And we wonder why. No doubt but Elijah, standing on the bank of the dry brook, wondered why.<\/p>\n<p>III. The dry brook taught Elijah the lesson of fellowship.Out goes Elijah into the suffering world. Hungry and thirsty he takes his journey across the country. He knows now what starvation means. A great pity begins to take possession of his heart. He thinks now about that great famine in quite another way, and wants it ended. And presently he is standing on the top of Carmel, and looking up into the hot sky, and praying God for rain.<\/p>\n<p>It is essential that whoever would be a helper of men must first have fellowship with men. He must go out among them and know them. He cannot stay apart in any pleasant seclusion, having no experience of the hunger and thirst which devours the life of man; he must himself bear our sicknesses and carry our sorrows. We must first love him before he can be of help to us. And we can love him only when he first loves us.<\/p>\n<p>Illustrations<\/p>\n<p>(1) Elijah must have felt it trying to his faith to see the brook vanishing before his eyes. The ravens brought him food, it is true, but when one blessing is being withdrawn from us we do not always comfort ourselves with those we have. It is easy for us to forget Gods mercy on one side when it is veiled in trouble or loss on another.<\/p>\n<p>(2) The prophet, like the people, suffers from the famine. The great and powerful, and the holy and noble, are one with the rest of humanity, and are not exempted from the sorrows and troubles which press upon the obscure, the lowly, and even the sinful. It is a beneficent law; for it saves men from the inhumanity of power and pride, and, as it were, forces us to suffer with, and so to have sympathy with our brethren.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p>1Ki 17:7. After a while  Hebrew, at the end of the days; that is, of a year, as that phrase is often used. The brook dried up  For want of rain, and 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 Elijahs faith, and to teach him still to depend on God alone, and not on any natural means for support and preservation. <\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n<p>ELIJAH AT SAREPTA<\/p>\n<p>1Ki 17:7; 1Ki 18:19.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The rain is Gods compassion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>-MOHAMMED<\/p>\n<p>THE fierce drought continued, and &#8220;at the end of days&#8221; even the thin trickling of the stream in the clefts of Cherith was dried up. In the language of Job it felt the glare and vanished {Job 6:17} No miracle was wrought to supply the Prophet with water, but once more the providence of God intervened to save his life for the mighty work which still awaited him. He was sent to the region where, nearly a millennium later, the feet of his Lord followed him on a mission of mercy to those other sheep of His flock who were not of the Judaean fold.<\/p>\n<p>The word of the Lord bade him make his way to the Sidonian city of Zarephath. Zarephath, the Sarepta of St. Luke, the modern Surafend, lay between Tyre and Sidon, and there the waters would not be wholly dried up, for the fountains of Lebanon were not yet exhausted. The drought had extended to Phoenicia, but Elijah was told that there a widow woman would sustain him. The Baal-worshipping queen who had hunted for his life would be least of all likely to search for him in a city of Baal-worshippers in the midst of her own people. He is sent among these Baal-worshippers to do them kindness, to receive kindness from them-perhaps to learn a wider tolerance, and to find that idolaters also are human beings, children, like the orthodox, of the same heavenly Father. He had been taught the lesson of &#8220;dependence upon God&#8221;; he was now to learn the lesson of &#8220;fellowship with man.&#8221; Traveling probably by night both for coolness and for safety, Elijah went that long journey to the heathen district. He arrived there faint with hunger and thirst. Seeing a woman gathering sticks near the city gate he asked her for some water, and as she was going to fetch it he called to her and asked her also to bring him a morsel of bread. The answer revealed the condition of extreme want to which she was reduced. Recognizing that Elijah was an Israelite, and therefore a worshipper of Jehovah, she said, &#8220;As Jehovah thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but (only) a handful of meal in the barrel, and a little oil in the cruse.&#8221; She was gathering a couple of sticks to make one last meal for herself and her son, and then to lie down and die. For drought did not only mean universal anguish, but much actual starvation. It meant, as Joel says, speaking of the desolation caused by locusts, that the cattle groan and perish, and the corn withers, and the seeds rot under their clods.<\/p>\n<p>Strong in faith Elijah told her not to fear, but first to supply his own more urgent needs, and then to make a meal for herself and her son. Till Jehovah sent rain, the barrel of meal should not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail. She believed the promise, and for many days, perhaps for two whole years, the Prophet continued to be her guest.<\/p>\n<p>But after a time her boy fell grievously sick, and at last died, or seemed to die. So dread a calamity-the smiting of the stay of her home, and the son of her widowhood-filled the woman with terror. She longed to get rid of the presence of this terrible &#8220;man of God.&#8221; He must have come, she thought, to bring her sin to remembrance before God, and so to cause Him to slay her son. The Prophet was touched by the pathos of her appeal, and could not bear that she should look upon him as the cause of her bereavement. &#8220;Give me thy son,&#8221; he said. Taking the dead boy from her arms, he carried him to the chamber which she had set apart for him, and laid him on his own bed. Then, after an earnest cry to God, he stretched himself three times over the body of the youth, as though to breathe into his lungs and restore his vital warmth, at the same time praying intensely that &#8220;his soul might come into him again.&#8221; His prayer was heard; the boy revived. Carrying him down from the chamber, Elijah had the happiness of restoring him to his widowed mother with the words, &#8220;See, thy son liveth.&#8221; So remarkable an event not only convinced the woman that Elijah was indeed what she had called him, &#8220;a man of God,&#8221; but also that Jehovah was the true God. It was not unnatural that tradition should interest itself in the boy thus strangely snatched from the jaws of death. The Jews fancied that he grew up to be servant of Elijah, and afterwards to be the prophet Jonah. The tradition at least shows an insight into the fact that Elijah was the first missionary sent from among the Jews to the heathen, and that Jonah became the second.<\/p>\n<p>We are not to suppose that during his stay at Zarephath Elijah remained immured in his chamber. Safe and unsuspected, he might, at least by night, make his way to other places, and it is reasonable to believe that he then began to haunt the glades and heights of beautiful and deserted Carmel, which was at no great distance, and where he could mourn over the ruined altar of Jehovah and take refuge in any of its &#8220;more than two thousand tortuous caves.&#8221; But what was the object of his being sent to Zarephath? That it was not for his own sake alone, that it had in it a purpose of conversion, is distinctly implied by our Lord when He says that in those days there were many widows in Israel, yet Elijah was not sent to them, but to this Sidonian idolatress. The prophets and saints of God do not always understand the meaning of Providence or the lessons of their Divine training. Francis of Assisi at first entirely misunderstood the real drift and meaning of the Divine intimations that he was to rebuild the ruined Church of God, which he afterwards so gloriously fulfilled. The thoughts of God, are not as man&#8217;s thoughts, nor His ways as man&#8217;s ways, nor does He make all His servants as it were &#8220;fusile apostles,&#8221; as He made St. Paul. The education of Elijah was far from complete even long afterwards. To the very last, if we are to accept the records of him as historically literal, amid the revelations vouchsafed to him he had not grasped the truth that the Elijah-spirit, however needful it may seem to be, differs very widely from the Spirit of the Lord of Life. Yet may it not have been that Elijah was sent to learn from the kind ministrations of a Sidonian widow, to whose care his life was due, some inkling of those truths which Christ revealed so many centuries afterwards, when He visited the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and extended His mercy to the great faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman? May not Elijah have been meant to learn what had to be taught by experience to the two great Apostles of the Circumcision and the Uncircumcision, that not every Baal-worshipper was necessarily corrupt or wholly insincere? St. Peter was thus taught that God is no respecter of persons, and that whether their religious belief be false or true, in every nation he that feareth Him and doeth righteousness is accepted of Him. St. Paul learnt at Damascus and taught at Athens that God made of one every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, that they should seek God if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far; from every one of us.<\/p>\n<h4 align='right'><i><b>Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. 7. because there had been [R.V. was ] no rain ] Not only had there been none, but the drought was continuing. Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Verse 7. The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/exegetical-and-hermeneutical-commentary-of-1-kings-177\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Kings 17:7&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}