1 Kgs 17:1-7 · Read 10 min · think and write 15 min
When Elijah appears, Israel has already split into two kingdoms, north and south. The king of the northern kingdom, Israel, is Ahab. Scripture says Ahab “did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight above all that were before him” (1 Kgs 16:30). He married Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Sidonians, and “went and served Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kgs 16:31); he also built a house for Baal in Samaria and raised an altar there (1 Kgs 16:32).
Right after this, the passage does not introduce Elijah’s family or tell how he was called. It gives only a name and one sentence.
1Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
2Then the LORD’s word came to him, saying,
3“Go away from here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan.
4You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”
5So he went and did according to the LORD’s word, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith that is before the Jordan.
6The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.
7After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
A name, and one sentence. When Elijah appears, the passage says only that he was “Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead” (v. 1). His first words to Ahab are an oath: “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” (v. 1). At a time when Ahab had built a house for Baal, Elijah stood before the king and named the God he served.
Go east, and hide. Once he had spoken, the LORD’s word came to him: “Go away from here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith” (v. 3). The passage does not say why Elijah had to hide; it only says where God told him to go. “So he went and did according to the LORD’s word” (v. 5).
Ravens and a brook. God said, “You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (v. 4). The passage then shows it happening just as God said: “The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook” (v. 6). The provision came by God’s command; the ones who carried it were ravens.
The brook dried up. “After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land” (v. 7). The drought Elijah announced reached the very place where he was hiding. The passage does not say why God let the brook dry up, and it does not record anything Elijah said at the time. This lesson stops beside the dry brook.
The next step has not yet come. After the brook dried up, “The LORD’s word came to him” (1 Kgs 17:8) and sent him to “Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon” (1 Kgs 17:9). That belongs to the next lesson. The Elijah of this lesson knows only that God once commanded the ravens, and that the brook is now dry.
The law had long warned Israel not to “turn away to serve other gods and worship them” (Deut 11:16), or “the LORD’s anger be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky so that there is no rain” (Deut 11:17).
Ahab “went and served Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kgs 16:31). Elijah said, “there shall not be dew nor rain these years” (v. 1). Anyone who knew the law could hear how these two belonged together.
Perhaps you too are sitting beside a brook that is slowly drying up: an income, a relationship, a place that once made you feel safe, growing less day by day.
This lesson does not explain the why for you. It only lets you see that Elijah went to the brook according to the LORD’s word, and the brook still dried up; the passage does not say he did anything wrong. A dry brook is not the end of the story.
This week: Write down one ‘brook’ in your life that is running low. Next to it, write one way God has provided for you in the past — like the bread and meat the ravens brought, in a way you did not expect.
The letter of James speaks of this: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months” (Jas 5:17).
Kings records what Elijah said to the king; James records his prayer. James says this man had a nature like ours.
Scripture: World English Bible.