The ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening, and he would drink from the brook. Sermons
I. HE HAS RESOURCES FOR THE PROTECTION OF HIS SERVANTS. 1. He could defend Elijah in the midst of his enemies. (1) The power that had shut up the heavens could surely do this. The elemental fire which now scorched the earth, He could cause to fall upon the heads of any who would threaten his servant. (See 2 Kings 1:10-15.) (2) Without recourse to violence, he could dispose the hearts of men to respect His messenger, as afterwards He did. (See chap. 18.) But this was not now His way. 2. He has also places of refuge for His servants. (1) If there be a valley secluded from human intrusion God knows it. In the courses traversed by the brook Cherith Elijah may safely hide. These recesses lay "eastward" from Samaria, where probably the prophet had encountered the king; and eastward from the Jordan, for this is the import of the phrase "before Jordan." Probably this seclusion was in his own wild district of Gilead. (2) Ahab will not suspect that Elijah is here; for how could he possibly subsist in such a desolate region. Water he might find in the streams of the mountains; but where can he get bread from bald rocks in time of drought? (Matthew 13:5, 6.) 3. Into such asylums He can guide His saints. (1) "The word of the Lord" came to Elijah. Christ is that Word (John 1:1-14). He was the MEMRA of the Targums - that personal Word, who "appeared" to patriarchs and prophets. See Genesis 15:1; Genesis 28:20.) He will be ever with his people guiding them into safety. (2) "The word of the Lord came unto him saying.," or expressing His wisdom in human vocables. To Elijah the direction was, "Get thee hence," etc. To all He comes in the promises and precepts of holy Scripture. (3) Those who believe and obey God's Word, as Elijah did, are in safe keeping. They need never fear the combinations of wickedness against them. II. HE HAS RESOURCES ALSO FOR THEIR SUPPORT. 1. Their water is sure. "Thou shalt drink of the brook." (1) There was refreshment for the body. The stream of that brook continued to flow for a whole year. Such is supposed to be the import of (ימים) days, when there is nothing to limit it (as in ver. 7, marg.; see also ver. 15, marg.; Genesis 4:8). (2) His soul meanwhile was refreshed, as, by faith, he realized the wells of salvation which flow from the Word of the Lord, (See Psalm 46:4; John 4:14; John 7:37-39; Revelation 22:17.) 2. Their bread shall be given. "I have commanded ravens to feed thee there. (1) What an unlikely thing! Ravens were unclean creatures (Leviticus 11:15). They are insect-feeding, carrion-eating birds, themselves fed by special providence of God. (See Job 38:41; Psalm 147:9.) (2) Yet God could do it; for the instincts of all creatures are in His hands. He restrained hungry lions from harming Daniel; instructed a fish how to behave to Jonah; and another to lift a piece of silver from the bottom of a lake and then fasten upon a hook. "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" (3) But would He do it? Would He employ an unclean creature to feed His servant? He might have His own reasons even for this. Elijah sustained for three years and a half in the wilderness was a type of the Christian Church nourished by the word of God for three and a half prophetic years (Revelation 12:6, 14). Babylon the great, from whose face the Church had to fly, was the mystical Jezebel, as the true Church was the mystical Elijah. But in this Church the destruction of clean and unclean creatures had no place. (See Acts 10:15, 28; Acts 15:7-11.) Might not this gospel have been foreshadowed in the manner in which Elijah was fed? 3. But is it certain that ravens were employed? (1) He might have been fed by Arabians! For the word (ערבים) translated "ravens" also denotes Arabians. (See it so used in the singular, Isaiah 13:30; Jeremiah 3:2; Nehemiah 2:19; and in the plural as here, 2 Chronicles 21:16: 22:1.) And Gilead bordered upon that tract of country more especially described in Scripture as Arabia. (2) Or he might have been fed by merchants. For this word also designates merchants. (See Ezekiel 27:9, 27.) If Israelitish merchants supplied the prophet's needs, then probably would they be of the seven thousand who scorned to bow the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18), and so would not discover his hiding place to Ahab. (3) Or he might have been sustained by certain inhabitants of Oreb, a rocky place beyond Jordan. (See Judges 7:22; Isaiah 10:26.) This opinion is favoured by Jerome, who says, "The Orbim, inhabitants of a town on the confines of the Arabs, gave nourishment to Elijah." (See more in A. Clarke.) (4) Whether by ravens, Arabians, merchants, or people of Oreb or Orbo, matters little; God can spread a table in the wilderness. He can give us the bread of the day in the day - "bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." Necessary things are sure; luxuries we may dispense with. The greatest luxury to the wise and good is the feast upon the spiritual food which accompanies faithful obedience to God (John 4:32-34) - J.A.M.
And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning. Homilist. I. A MORALLY GREAT MAN IN GREAT PHYSICAL NEED. Elijah was a morally great man. Worldly greatness is but tinselled paper. He only is great who is great in thoughts and noble purposes. Elijah was such: a greater could not be found. Yet he was reduced to the greatest need.II. THE GOD OF NATURE MINISTERING TO A LONELY MAN. The Infinite Father knew His servant's destitution, sympathised with it, and sent relief to him morning and evening by the ravens. Observe, 1. God makes the humblest things in nature serve His people. 2. God supplies His people as their wants return. (Homilist.) Homilist. I. IRRATIONAL CREATURES DIVINELY DIRECTED. All creatures, from the lowest up to the greatest, are under the Divine rule. Generally they are ruled by their own instincts. Here is an exception.II. LOWER CREATURES ENGAGED IN THE SERVICE OF MAN. III. GOD'S ATTENTION TO THE AFFAIRS OF THE INDIVIDUAL. IV. HELP COMING FROM UNLIKELY SOURCES. (Homilist.) 1. Notice, in the first place, in the story of my text, that these winged creatures came to Elijah directly from God. "I have commanded the ravens that they feed thee." They did not come out of some other cave. They did not just happen to alight there. God freighted them, God launched them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That is the same God that is going to supply you. He is your Father. You would have to make an elaborate calculation before you could tell me how many pounds of food and how many yards of clothing would be necessary for you and your family; but God knows without any calculation. You have a plate at His table, and you are going to be waited on, unless you act like a naughty child, and kick, and scramble, and pound saucily the plate, and try to upset things. God has a vast family, and everything is methodised, and you are going to be served, if you will only wait your turn. 2. Notice, again, in this story, that the ravens did not allow Elijah to hoard up a surplus. They did not bring enough on Monday to last all the week. They did not bring enough one morning to last until the next morning. They came twice a day, and brought just enough for one time. You know as well as I that the great fret of the world is that we want a surplus — we want the ravens to bring enough for fifty years. You have more confidence in the Long Island Bank than you have in the royal bank of heaven. You say: "All that is very poetic, but you may have the black ravens — give me the gold eagles." We had better be content with just enough. If, in the morning, your family eat up all the food there is in the house, do not sit down, and cry, and say: "I don't know where the next meal is coming from." About five, or six, or seven o'clock in the evening just look up, and you wilt see two black spots on the sky, and you will hear the flapping of wings, and, instead of Edgar A. Poe's insane raven, "alighting on the chamber-door, only this, and nothing more," you will find Elijah's two ravens, or the two ravens of the Lord, the one bringing bread and the other bringing meat — plumed butcher and baker. God is infinite in resource. When the city of Rochelle was besieged, and the inhabitants were dying of the famine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, and as never since, enough shell-fish to feed the whole city. God is good. There is no mistake about that. History tell us that, in 1555, in England, there was a great drought. The crops failed, but in Essex, on the rocks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cultured, a great crop of peas grew, until they filled a hundred measures; and there were blossoming vines enough promising as much more. 3. Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief came to this prophet with the most unexpected, and with seemingly impossible conveyance. If it had been a robin redbreast, or a musical meadow lark, or a meek turtle-dove, or a sublime albatross that had brought the food to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But no. It was a bird so fierce and inauspicate that we have fashioned one of our most forceful and repulsive words out of it — ravenous. That bird has a passion for picking out the eyes of men and animals. It loves to maul the sick and the dying. It swallows, with vulturous guggle, everything it can put its beak on; and yet all the food Elijah gets for six months or a year, is from the ravens. So your supply is going to come from an unexpected source. You think some great-hearted, generous man will come along and give you his name on the back of your note, or he will go security for you in some great enterprise. No, he will not. God will open the heart of some Shylock toward you. Your relief will come from the most unexpected quarter. The providence that seemed ominous will be to you more than that which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chaffinch with breast and wing dashed with white, and brown, and chestnut, it will be a black raven. Children of God, get up out of your despondency. The Lord never had so many ravens as He has this morning. Fling your fret and worry to the winds. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.) People Ahab, Elijah, ZidonPlaces Cherith, Gilead, Jordan River, Sidon, Tishbe, ZarephathTopics Bread, Bringing, Brook, Drank, Drink, Drinketh, Evening, Flesh, Meat, Morning, Ravens, Stream, TorrentOutline 1. Elijah, having prophesied against Ahab, 3. is sent to Cherith where the ravens feed him. 8. He is sent to the widow of Zarephath 17. He raises the widow's son 24. The woman believes him Dictionary of Bible Themes 1 Kings 17:6 1330 God, the provider Library Elijah Standing Before the LordAnd Elijah the Tishbite ... said ... As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand.--1 KINGS xvii. 1. This solemn and remarkable adjuration seems to have been habitual upon Elijah's lips in the great crises of his life. We never find it used by any but himself, and his scholar and successor, Elisha. Both of them employ it under similar circumstances, as if unveiling the very secret of their lives, the reason for their strength, and for their undaunted bearing and bold fronting of all antagonism. … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture The Inexhaustible Barrel Answered Prayer. Answer to the Jewish Rabby's Letter. Whether it is Praiseworthy to Enter Religion Without Taking Counsel of Many, and Previously Deliberating for a Long Time? Whether Divination by Drawing Lots is Unlawful? Sovereignty of God in Administration Importance in Luke's History of the Story of the Birth of Christ A Cloud of Witnesses. 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