1 Kings 17.
IT may help us now, as Elijah comes into the story of the wayward ten tribes, to review a little: Only sixty years had now elapsed since Solomon’s death, and the division of the kingdom into two unequal parts, but Judah had already enthroned their fourth king, Jehoshaphat; and Israel their seventh, Ahab.
The ten tribes had openly turned to idols under their first king, Jeroboam. Jeroboam’s family had been exterminated by the third king, Baasha; and the latter’s posterity were killed by Zimri who reigned a week, and committed suicide when he saw that his enemies would take his life.
Ahab, reigning when Elijah appeared, was thus the second king of the fourth dynasty of the kings of Israel while Judah kept to the divinely appointed royal line of David’s descendants. The gold calves which Jeroboam had made, still stood in the idol sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan, but Ahab, having married Jezebel, a daughter of the king of the Zidonians, brought in the worship of her country’s chief male god, Baal. The ancient Canaanites, whom the children of Israel had dispossessed when under Joshua they conquered the promised land, were Baal worshippers and the Israelites, in no small number had followed them in idolatry until Samuel. (See 1 Samuel 7:3,43And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. 4Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only. (1 Samuel 7:3‑4)).
Jezebel attempted to kill all the prophets of God (chapter 18:13) after she married Ahab, who did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him (chapter 16:33).
In the mountainous region of Gilead, east of the Jordan, Elijah lived; God has not given us any account of his birth, or of his life, ere he appeared before the astonished Ahab (verse 1), but in the New Testament is a brief statement about him which should have our attention, as it gives the key to his sudden appearance in Ahab’s court. (See James 5:1717Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. (James 5:17)). He prayed, and what is more important he prayed earnestly, on behalf of his people who were given up to idolatry. He thus became a fit messenger for God. Hear his bold words to the wicked Ahab:
“As the Lord God of Israel liveth before Whom I stand, there shall not be clew nor rain these years, but according to my word!”
It was a declaration from the throne of God, that though Israel had given Him up for idols, He would not give up Israel, but sought to bring them back to Himself by His own means.
ML 08/07/1927