1And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, Whom I have served, there shall be no rain or dew except by my word.” 2And the word of the LORD came to him saying, 3“Go from here and turn you eastward and hide in the Wadi of Cherith, which goes into the Jordan. 4And it shall be, that from the wadi you shall drink, and the ravens have I charged to sustain you there.” 5And he went and did according to the word of the LORD, and he went and stayed in the Wadi of Cherith, which goes into the Jordan. 6And the ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and from the wadi he would drink. 7And it happened after a time that the wadi dried up, for there was no rain in the land. 8And the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9“Rise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Look, I have charged a widow-woman there to sustain you.” 10And he rose and went to Zarephath and came to the entrance of the town, and, look, a widow-woman was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Fetch me, pray, a bit of water in a vessel that I may drink.” 11And she went to fetch and he called to her and said, “Fetch me, pray, a crust of bread in your hand.” 12And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have no loaf but only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the cruse and I am about to gather a couple of sticks, and I shall make it for me and for my son and we shall eat it and die.” 13And Elijah said to her, “Fear not. Come, do as you have spoken, only first make me from there a little loaf and bring it out to me, and for you and for your son make afterward. 14For thus the LORD God of Israel has said, ‘The jar of flour will not go empty nor will the cruse of oil be drained until the day the LORD sends rain over the land.’” 15And she went and did according to Elijah’s word, and she ate, she and he and her household, many days. 16The jar of flour did not go empty nor was the cruse of oil drained, according to the word of the LORD that He spoke through Elijah. 17And it happened after these things that the son of the woman, mistress of the house, fell ill, and his illness was very grave, till no breath was left in him. 18And she said to Elijah, “What is between you and me, O man of God? You have come to me to recall my crime and to put my son to death.” 19And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her lap and brought him up to the upper chamber where he was staying and laid him in his bed. 20And he called out to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, have You actually done harm to the widow with whom I sojourn to put her son to death?” 21And he stretched out over the child three times and called out to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, let the life-breath, pray, of the child go back into him.” 22And the LORD heeded Elijah’s voice, and the child’s life-breath went back into him, and he revived. 23And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber and gave him to his mother, and Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” 24And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”
CHAPTER 17 NOTES
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1. Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah springs into the narrative, like several previous prophets, with no introduction or explanation. Part of the role he will play is like that of his predecessors; another part is quite new, as we shall see.
Whom I have served. Literally, before Whom I have stood.
there shall be no rain or dew except by my word. A persistent drought is the background of the stories that follow. It will be broken only at the climax of Elijah’s confrontation with the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. He tells Ahab that he has the power to bring a drought through his own word—a posture that previous prophets have not assumed. The implication appears to be that the drought is a punishment for Ahab’s idolatry, but Elijah does not spell that out in his brief and peremptory speech.
3. Go from here and turn you eastward. God’s instruction to Elijah presupposes that the prophet is in mortal danger after his harsh words to the king and so must take refuge in a wilderness region along the Jordan.
which goes into the Jordan. The literal sense is “which is by” or “which faces.” This wadi, unidentified by scholars, is obviously a tributary of the Jordan.
4. the ravens have I charged to sustain you. This is the first in a series of miraculous notes that mark the Elijah story.
7. after a time. This elastic indication of time might also mean “at the end of a year.”
9. Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon. The second place of flight for Elijah is in Phoenician territory, a little north of the Israelite border. Thus the widow for whom Elijah miraculously intervenes is not Israelite. Her coming to recognize the God of Israel is an ironic contrast to Ahab, Israel’s king. The closeness of Phoenician to Hebrew (if the writer thought of such things) would have made conversation between them possible.
I have charged a widow-woman. God has not actually spoken to the widow, as will become evident, but rather has designated her to play this role.
10. gathering sticks. Her intention is to make a fire over which she can bake, Bedouin-style, the bit of flour she carries with her.
Fetch me, pray, a bit of water in a vessel that I may drink. This request is reminiscent of the request of Abraham’s servant to Rebekah in Genesis 24. In this case, however, water would have to be scarce because of the extended drought.
12. we shall eat it and die. This telescoped clause is a vivid expression of the woman’s desperation. The little flour that she possesses is scarcely enough to sustain two starving people; it will provide no more than a teasing taste, a mere scrap of flatbread baked over embers.
13. only first make me from there a little loaf. The order of feeding he stipulates is deliberately perverse: first the prophet then the woman and last her son, instead of the other way around when there is not enough flour even for two. It challenges the woman to place implicit faith in the prophet.
14. the LORD God of Israel. This set phrase has special force in being addressed to a Phoenician woman: it is Israel’s uniquely powerful God, YHWH, who has the power to perform these wonders.
The jar of flour will not go empty nor will the cruse of oil be drained. This is the point at which Elijah’s role as a miracle worker becomes explicit. Unlike the figure cut by Nathan or Ahijah, Elijah looks very much like the protagonist of a cycle of folktales, providing sustenance in time of famine through supernatural means and reviving the dead. It is obviously Elijah, not Moses or Isaiah, who establishes the template for many of the stories about Jesus in the Gospels. It was also this aspect of Elijah as a miraculous and compassionate intervener on behalf of the wretched of the earth that was picked up by later Jewish folklore. His other role, as implacable reprover, was not embraced by folk-tradition.
until the day the LORD sends rain over the land. The inexhaustible jar of flour and cruse of oil thus provide continuing drought insurance for the widow and her son.
17. till no breath was left in him. The somewhat ambiguous phrasing in which the breath, neshamah, has gone out of the boy leaves it unclear whether he has actually died or whether he is in a comatose state in which breathing is barely detectable. In verses 21 and 22, it is the “life-breath,” nefesh, that is said to return to the child. Neshamah and nefesh are close synonyms, though the former may be more closely associated with breathing and the latter with life itself.
18. What is between you and me. This idiom, rendered literally, could mean either What quarrel is there between you and me?, or What should I have to do with you?
You have come to me to recall my crime. One need not assume that she has actually committed any heinous crime. Ancient Near Eastern people, both Israelites and their neighbors, usually assumed that affliction came as retribution for wrongdoing. The woman thus feels that the very presence of a man of God has exposed to God’s attention some transgression, however inadvertent or unconscious, for which she is now punished by the death of her only son.
19. the upper chamber where he was staying. In a piece of delayed exposition, we are now informed that Elijah has not only miraculously provided flour and oil for the widow but has taken refuge—still hiding from Ahab’s wrath—in the upper chamber of her house.
21. he stretched out over the child. Some interpreters see here, as in the parallel story about Elisha, an act of resuscitation through artificial respiration, though the writer probably conceived it as a miraculous intervention, the prophet imparting the supernatural vitality of his own body to the boy. Elijah’s prayer to God obviously supports the notion of a divine miracle.
24. Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth. She had previously addressed him as “man of God,” but in anger. Now the positive force of this identity has been confirmed by his act. The two aspects of Elijah’s mission—wonder worker and prophesier-reprover—are interdependent, the former demonstrating to skeptics the authority of the latter. This pattern, which will be picked up in the stories about Jesus, does not appear in the reports about the prophets before Elijah. Sometimes one detects a belief that the prophet has the power to project a kind of spiritual force-field as when Samuel zaps the messengers Saul sends to him (1 Samuel 19), but Samuel does not go around the countryside performing acts of resurrection and miraculous provision of food.