Elijah the Tishbite, an inhabitant of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord lives, the God of Israel whom I serve, there will be no dew or rain except by my word. The word of the Lord came to him: Leave this place; turn eastward and go into hiding by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. You will drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there. He proceeded to do as the Lord had bidden: he went, and he stayed by the Wadi Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat every morning and every evening, and he drank from the wadi. After some time the wadi dried up, because there was no rain in the land. And the word of the Lord came to him: Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there; I have designate a widow there to feed you. (I Kings 17:1-9)

Rembrandt’s drawing of Elijah at the brook of Cherith captures the feelings of the forlorn prophet who gazes in the direction of the life-sustaining brook that has run dry. The ravens that God commanded to feed Elijah twice daily have long since gone. The tree has withered and the prophet must now consider his next move. Elijah’s foot is flexed perhaps indicating that he is about to rise and set off for his second destination, Zarephath of Sidon.

Elijah is initially instructed to flee and hide at the brook of Cherith. This flight serves a two-fold purpose. He flees for his life before the wrath of the king of Israel against whose idolatrous policies the drought was a reaction. Moreover, by his absence he is severing Ahab’s religious hot line. The king will be unable to access Elijah and prevail upon him to change his decree and bring rain.

At Wadi Cherith God sustained Elijah through the agency of ravens that fed him meat and bread twice daily, while the brook provided him with water. Why ravens? In the Bible they are notorious for preying on cadavers and abandoning their fledglings to starvation, yet they are the very birds that sustain the prophet’s life. God’s implicit message to Elijah is that indiscriminately declaring death upon the land and all of its inhabitants was too extreme a decree. If ravens can act compassionately, so must the prophet.

The divine command to flee to Wadi Cherith is introduced with the phrase, “The word of the Lord came to Elijah”. The phrase stands in direct contradistinction to Elijah’s declaration “by my word”. God intends to teach the impetuous prophet that he, too, must submit to divine decrees. Through his experience Elijah is being instructed in the scriptural lesson: “Man does not live by bread alone, rather man lives by the word of God.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

Whereas in the first scene, Elijah hid locally, in the second scene he must leave the borders of the Land of Israel and flee to the Phoenician city of Zarephath of Sidon. Phoenicia is the home of the Tyrian Baal whose worship was introduced to Israel by Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab. The word of the prophet of Israel affected the land of Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility as well. God’s power knows no bounds.

Elijah is sent to Zarephat not only to witness that power but also to undergo a personal transformation. In Wadi Cherith he was sustained through God’s miracles in nature. In Zarephath, he must rely on people and they must rely on him. God instructs him to find an impoverished widow who will provide for him:

And the word of the Lord came to him: “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there; I have designated a widow there to feed you.” So he went at once to Zarephath. When he came to the entrance of the town, a widow was there gathering wood. He called out to her, “Please bring me a little water in your pitcher, and let me drink.” As she went to fetch it, he called out to her, “Please bring along a piece of bread for me.” “As the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I have nothing baked, nothing but a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am just gathering a couple of sticks, so that I can go home and prepare it for me and my son; we shall eat it and then we shall die.” Don’t be afraid,” said Elijah to her. “Go and do as you have said; but first make me a small cake from what you have there, and bring it out to me; then make some for yourself and your son. For thus said the Lord, the God of Israel: The jar of flour shall not give out and the jug of oil shall not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the ground.” She went and did as Elijah had spoken, and she and he and her household had food for a long time. The jar of flour did not give out, nor did the jug of oil fail, just as the Lord had spoken through Elijah.
(IKings 17:7-16)

I Kings chapter 17 is Elijah’s rite of prophetic initiation. The events he experiences are intended to teach him not only of his dependence upon the Almighty, but about his role as a prophet among the people. In his encounter with the Zarephite widow he is placed in situations where he must build trust. Elijah requests that she make him the first cake with the little flour she has left. The exchange between the two makes it clear that she is uneasy about feeding him at the cost of her own life and that of her son. From the perspective of the prophet, this action will precipitate the miracle he will presently perform. From the perspective of the widow it will result in certain death. Elijah grapples with the ultimate challenge facing the prophet: to convince the people to put their trust in him and in God despite all logical considerations to the contrary. He is successful in convincing the widow. Her faith is rewarded with a miraculous jar of flour and a never-ending jug of oil. Yet far more important is the bridge of mutual trust and understanding, which was built between Elijah and the widow through this experience.

After a while, the son of the mistress of the house fell sick, and his illness grew worse, until he had no breath left in him. She said to Elijah, “What harm have I done you, O man of God, that you should come here to recall my sin and cause the death of my son? (I Kings17: 17-18)

In the final scene the widow’s son dies and Elijah revives him. The child’s death monitors the progress of the drought and places the three scenes in order of ascending gravity. Elijah is now made painfully aware of the repercussions of his actions. His wrath against the idolatrous people of Israel has brought about the death of an innocent orphan in Phoenicia. His mother ascribes the child’s death to the numinous presence of the holy man in her household. Elijah is shocked; he never intended the death of innocents. Yet what of the countless innocents who have suffered as a result of the drought he declared?

Give me the boy,” he said to her; and taking him from her arms, he carried him to the upper chamber where he was staying and laid him down on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, will You bring calamity upon this widow whose guest I am, and let her son die?” Then he stretched out over the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, saying, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life return to his body!” The Lord heard Elijah’s plea; the child’s life returned to his body, and he revived. Elijah picked up the child and brought him down from the upper room into the main room, and gave him to his mother, “See,” said Elijah, your son is alive. (I Kings 17:19-23)

In the widow’s house Elijah mobilizes all of his prophetic powers of prayer and sacred presence and restores the boy to life: he is now prepared to actively confront the sources of evil that demanded the declaration of drought in the first place, and to restore the fortunes of his people.

And the woman answered Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is truly in your mouth.” (I Kings17: 17-24)

Bringing the child back to life, powerfully symbolizes Elijah’s next challenge — the revival of the people of Israel. He has achieved the ability to inspire trust and make others cognizant of his power as well as his compassion. More importantly, Elijah, the unrelenting zealot, has taught the widow and himself that his powers are not his own. He is a man of God, and his pronouncements are the true words of the living God.

1. Baal is a name given to several Canaanite deities, most notably the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon; the god of wind, rain and fertility of the land. See William Foxwell Albright, Yaweh and the Gods of Canaan (London, 1968), pp. 124-126.