Elijah enters with no account of family or call — only the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, east of the Jordan; where Tishbe lay is uncertain. His name is usually taken to mean my God is the LORD, which fits his whole ministry; the study offers the sense as likely. After a line of kings who made Israel to sin, one man stands before the king: As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand. Ahab serves Baal; Elijah names the living God and declares himself His servant. Before whom I stand is the language of a servant in attendance (compare 10:8).

There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. In Canaanite religion Baal was honoured as the god of storm and rain, so a drought at the word of the LORD's prophet strikes at the heart of Ahab's new worship. It was also the covenant warning of Deuteronomy 11:16-17: if Israel served other gods, the LORD would shut up the heaven, that there be no rain. James says that Elijah prayed earnestly that it might not rain (James 5:17); Kings records the announcement, James the prayer behind it.

Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan (v. 3). Having spoken, Elijah must hide; 18:10 shows that Ahab searched every nation and kingdom for him. Where the brook ran is not known. Thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. The LORD supplies His servant by a bird the Law counted unclean for eating (Leviticus 11:15). The God who had shut the heavens could feed His prophet by whatever means He chose.

The ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook (v. 6). Readers hear an echo of the wilderness, where the LORD gave in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full (Exodus 16:8). The Hebrew word for ravens, with different vowels, could be read as Arabians, and a few have read it so; the study, with the KJV and most translations, reads ravens. Jesus said, Consider the ravens... God feedeth them (Luke 12:24); here God feeds a prophet by them.

It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. The prophet is not spared the drought he announced; he watches his own supply shrink. God's provision at Cherith was real, and it was also for a season. The next word comes only when the brook fails (v. 8). Readers may take comfort that God's guidance often comes one step at a time, and that a drying brook can be the start of a new direction rather than the end of His care.

How long did the drought last? 18:1 says the word came to Elijah in the third year. Jesus speaks of the time when the heaven was shut up three years and six months (Luke 4:25), and James says it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months (James 5:17). Many suggest the third year counts from Elijah's stay at Zarephath, or from some point after the drought began, so that the totals agree; others take three and a half years as a conventional span. The study names the difference and holds the explanations loosely.

Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Zarephath was a coastal town between Tyre and Sidon — in the very region of Jezebel's father, Ethbaal king of the Zidonians (16:31). The LORD sends His prophet to shelter in the homeland of Baal worship, beyond Ahab's reach. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. God had commanded the ravens (v. 4); now He has commanded a widow, though she does not yet seem to know it.

A widow was among the poorest in the ancient world, and the Law named her as one God defends: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow (Deuteronomy 10:18). The prophet fed by birds is now to be fed by a foreigner who herself has almost nothing. Jesus pointed to this in Nazareth: many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias... But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow (Luke 4:25-26). The grace of God was already reaching beyond Israel.

Elijah came to the gate of the city and finds her gathering of sticks and asks first for water, then for a morsel of bread (vv. 10-11). In a drought both are precious. Her answer begins with an oath: As the LORD thy God liveth — she recognises Elijah as an Israelite and swears by his God. I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse. She is not refusing; she is telling the truth about how little is left.

I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. Two sticks probably means just a few — enough for one small fire. It is one of the starkest sentences in Kings: a mother preparing a last meal. The drought on Ahab's land reached a widow in Sidon too; the consequences of a nation's sin fall hardest on the poor. Into that hopelessness the word of the LORD is about to come.

Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son (v. 13). The request sounds hard until the promise is heard: The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth. First is not Elijah putting himself before her so much as asking her to put the LORD's word first. Jesus would teach, seek ye first the kingdom of God... and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

She went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days (v. 15). A widow of Sidon acts on the word of Israel's God, while Israel's king would not. The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD (v. 16). The miracle is quiet and daily: no overflowing storehouse, just enough each day until the rain. Readers may recall the manna, where he that gathered little had no lack (Exodus 16:18), and the prayer Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:11).

The son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him (v. 17). The plain sense is that he died; Elijah's prayer speaks of God slaying her son (v. 20). Kept alive through the famine, the boy dies anyway. The woman turns on the prophet: What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?

Her words show a fear many feel in grief: that loss is punishment for some hidden sin, and that nearness to a holy man has exposed her. The text does not say what sin she had in mind, and the study does not guess. Jesus' disciples asked a similar question about a man born blind, and He answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents (John 9:3). Elijah does not argue with her. He answers with action: Give me thy son (v. 19).

Elijah carries the boy up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed (v. 19). His prayer is honest: O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? (v. 20). He does not hide his bewilderment from God. Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD... let this child's soul come into him again. Soul here means life; the prayer is that the life which had gone would return.

Elisha would later stretch himself on the Shunammite's son (2 Kings 4:34-35), and Paul fell on Eutychus and embraced him (Acts 20:10). The stretching out is not presented as a technique; the text stresses that Elijah cried unto the LORD, and that the LORD heard the voice of Elijah (v. 22). The power is God's; the means is prayer. Hebrews 11:35 may have this scene among others in view: Women received their dead raised to life again.

The soul of the child came into him again, and he revived (v. 22). In the Bible's order this is the first account of the dead raised to life. Elijah took the child, and brought him down... and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth (v. 23). Luke tells how Jesus at Nain raised a widow's only son and delivered him to his mother (Luke 7:15) — words that seem to echo this verse — and the people said, a great prophet is risen up among us (Luke 7:16).

Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth. She had eaten from the unfailing barrel for many days, yet it is her son's return that brings full confidence. Her words answer her own question of verse 18: the man of God had come not to expose her sin but to bring life. The chapter that opened with Elijah's word against Israel ends with a woman of Sidon confessing that the LORD's word is truth. Jesus prayed, thy word is truth (John 17:17).