Day 178 (1 Kings 17-19) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. We spent today in the northern kingdom of Israel following more of King Ahab's story. You may recall from yesterday in 1633 that he was God's least favorite king so far, and today's reading gave us a little more insight into why.

The prophet Elijah tells King Ahab that God is sending a drought on Ahab's kingdom. Then God tells Elijah to get out of there and sends him to live far away from Ahab near a creek. There's not any food there either. But since God invented birds, he tells a few of them to bring Elijah food every morning and evening. All is well and good until the creek dries up. At this point, I wonder if Elijah questioned if God had really sent him there.

Obedience doesn't guarantee everything will go our way, or even what we perceive to be God's way. God sends Elijah to a new location, Zarephath, on the Mediterranean coastline. Upgrade! God tells him that he has commanded a widow there to feed him. Awesome! But when Elijah shows up, she's like, "You want food? Oh sure, let me just whip something up out of thin air. Maybe you haven't noticed there's a drought. My son and I are literally about to starve to death."

God sent Elijah to get something from someone who had nothing. At this point, it's starting to look like God is cruel. But not to worry. Elijah tells her God is about to multiply her food miraculously, and her supplies won't end until the drought does. Lest we forget, God made it rain food in the wilderness to feed 3 million people for 40 years, so he can cover three people in a drought with both hands tied behind his back.

Even though they have food, the widow's son gets really sick, and she blames Elijah. The hits just keep coming. But it's actually a saving grace for this widow that Elijah is there, because God is about to work through him to heal her son. In Hebrew, the text never actually says the son dies. The word translated as life here is actually more of a reference to his breath, and the text says his breath left him.

We know that God can raise people from the dead all day long, and maybe that is what happened here, but we just don't see it explicitly stated in the Hebrew like we do in other stories of resurrections. Regardless, God uses Elijah to bring him back to breath at the very least. In year three of the drought, God tells Elijah that time is up. He's ready for it to rain now. But first, Elijah has to confront King Ahab.

Meanwhile, Ahab and his servant Obadiah are out looking for provisions when Obadiah runs into Elijah. Elijah tells him to give Ahab a heads up that he wants to see him. They meet up, and Ahab blames the whole drought on Elijah as though he had commanded it, not God. But Elijah reminds him that it's actually his sin and idolatry that has prompted all this trouble.

Then Elijah's like, speaking of which, why don't you call up all 850 of your false prophets to meet me on the mountain and we'll have a little showcase showdown to see who the real superpower is here. And bring all your people too, the whole kingdom.

So Elijah and Ahab and the people and the 450 prophets of Baal meet up on Mount Carmel. Elijah lets the people know that this fence-sitting business they've been doing, where they try to worship Yahweh and Baal, is not working. They've been trying to double up and cover their bases by worshiping multiple gods. But unlike the pagan gods, Yahweh requires exclusivity, because this is a relationship, not a buffet, but the people don't seem to care.

Elijah sets out to show them why Yahweh is superior to all the other gods. He calls for two bulls. Then he gives the prophets of Baal first choice of the bulls and says, Let's see whose god can burn up this sacrifice. Ahab's prophets probably think they have a leg up because Baal was thought of as the god of fire and thunder. Elijah is making it too easy for them. They've got the home field advantage. Not only that, but he lets them win the coin toss too and they get to go first.

They call out to their god for hours, and exactly zero happens. Then Elijah starts taunting them and basically suggests that maybe their god isn't answering because he's on a bathroom break. So they start cutting themselves, because it was believed that if their gods were asleep in the underworld, as we've talked about before, then they could wake them up by spilling blood on the ground. So they're trying to wake up Baal, but he's still snoozing, and finally Elijah is like, okay, my turn. Then he does something that is remarkable.

It demonstrates so much certainty in God, but in the moment, it was probably infuriating to all the people there. He makes a trench around the altar, and he has people bring 12 jars of water and pour them over the altar and the wood and the ground until everything is soaked. This was a drought. If God's not going to come through, and if this drought isn't going to end, then he just wasted lots of water.

He does this to demonstrate that he doesn't have any tricks up his sleeve. If Yahweh can burn drenched wood, then he's really the one true God. And maybe the message will get through to the people. Elijah prays to God. God sends fire from heaven. And it burns up not just the bull and the wood, but even the stones and the dirt. The people confess that Yahweh is Lord. And Elijah orders the prophets of Baal to be killed.

Then he tells King Ahab, you can go have yourself a feast if you want because God's about to end this drought. Elijah believes it wholeheartedly. He keeps having his servant bring him the weather report, but the servant keeps coming back with bad news of sunny skies. Finally, on the seventh trip, he says, there's a little baby cloud out there, but that's all. He probably thinks he's bringing bad news again, but Elijah is pumped because he knows this is it. The rain comes and the drought end and Elijah's adrenals are probably shot.

Meanwhile, Ahab fills his wife Jezebel in on everything that's happened and how Elijah killed the prophets of Baal. She was a devout worshiper of Baal, so she's furious. She promises to kill Elijah, and he's terrified. He leaves the northern kingdom to go hide in the southern kingdom. He goes into the wilderness, where he's afraid and depressed and alone, and he begs God to kill him. The enemy's attacks often happen after God's great victories.

But then the angel of the Lord shows up and wakes him up and feeds him. Then Elijah's like, okay, thanks. Now I just want to go back to sleep. He dozes off again, but then the angel's like, hey, you've slept enough now. It's time to get up and get moving, but eat some more food first because it's a long trip where you're headed. Not only that, but Elijah fasted the whole way for 40 days. I hope that was a good meal.

He goes and lives in a cave, and God shows up to talk to him. He's still alone, and he's despairing at the plight of Israel, how their hearts have turned away from God. He feels the weight of their rebellion, and he feels alone in his ache. He says he's the only one who still cares about God and his word. We know that's not true, because in chapter 18, we saw that Obadiah saved a hundred prophets of Yahweh from the wrath of Jezebel. But God doesn't correct him. He just tells him what his next steps are.

He sends him off to appoint two kings and a prophet. The prophet is a man named Elisha. If this is confusing to you, just remember that we met Elijah with a J first, and that comes before Elisha with an S. I hope that helps. And Elijah the old prophet begins to mentor Elisha the young prophet. What was your God shot today? Mine was in 1911-13, where Elijah and God are having a conversation. God brings a tornado and an earthquake and a fire, massive displays of his power.

But the text says these demonstrations of power aren't the point right now. Elijah already knows God can do miracles on a massive scale. What happens next is what Elijah needs to see about God in that moment. God is in the whisper. Elijah has seen that God can be big, and now God is showing him that he can be small too. He can be close. You have to be really close to someone to hear their whisper. Elijah was so close he had to cover his face.

Earthquakes are nice, and you know I love it when God throws fire, but what I really want is face-covering closeness. I want the whisper. And God forgive me, I'm so jealous of Elijah right now that I can hardly stand it. I have tears in my eyes because I want that kind of nearness in every cell of my body. I know without a doubt that he's where the joy is.

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