As countless commentators have said, in 1 Kings 17:1–24 the prophet Elijah bursts upon the scene without any warning. The appellation the Tishbite
means that he came from the town of Tishbe, located in Gilead. It is thought to be north-east of Samaria by a considerable distance and on the east side of the Jordan River.
Though the writer of 1 Kings gives him no introduction, we note some background data about him, since he is remarkable in a number of ways. He, like Enoch, before the flood, was taken bodily into heaven and did not physically die. He is the first prophet since Moses to be used by God to work miracles. He is also the first prophet since Moses to have a hand-picked successor, Elisha, who followed him, taking up a good deal of 2 Kings. Finally, he, along with Moses, appeared with the Lord Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. We, therefore, will do well if we pay suitable attention to him.
Though the chapters where we meet him are part of the record of Ahab’s evil reign, Elijah is the main actor, with Ahab having a comparatively minor part. Israel’s most wicked king was opposed by one of the greatest of the prophets, and Ahab takes something of a backseat to Elijah.
The verse before us shows a confrontation between these two figures, Elijah and Ahab, but the writer gives us no information concerning the circumstances of the meeting of the two. We may infer from the language of the text, Elijah said to Ahab,
that the encounter was in person. It is not wise to seek to speculate regarding the circumstances of the meeting beyond this.
The first matter that Elijah declares concerns the source of the message that he was commissioned to declare. It comes from the Lord, that is, Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel.
Directly, therefore, the Lord challenges the king, who was attempting to substitute Baal as the god of Israel. The living and true God (note that the message is introduced in the words As the Lord...lives
) speaks through his prophet in effect to condemn the king who erected in his capital city an altar and temple dedicated to the false god of the Sidonians.
In addition to the source of the message that Elijah was about to deliver, he claims his own prophetic authority to deliver the message. That is how we ought to interpret the language before whom I stand.
The statement here is not a reference to a past encounter with God. Rather, it is a reference to a present reality. Elijah is the visible representative of the invisible God, who is nevertheless present. He stood not just in the presence of an idolatrous king but in the presence of the living God.
The statement of Elijah’s prophetic commission cleared him, as it did all true prophets, of the sin of pride in confronting God’s enemy. Those today who have been given the awesome responsibility to declare God’s Word to his people or outsiders ought to remember this. We have this treasure in jars of clay,
as Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:7. Pride has no place in the proclamation of God’s Word. It is not the messenger upon whom the focus ought to be but the One who has given the message.
The Lord’s message to Ahab is a truly devastating message. There was to be a drought where no dew or rain would fall except at the word of the prophet. Those who do not live close to the land and in places where there are large surpluses or external sources of food supply may not realize that the drought threatened the very life of the nation. It would threaten crops, livestock, and ultimately people with death.
Many scholars see something here that does not allow us to think of this judgment as an arbitrary choice of what kind of calamity Israel was going to face. It was, they argue, a direct challenge to the introduction of Baal worship.1,2,3,4
Baal was a storm god who, the Sidonians believed, by a cycle of death and restoration to life brought about the rains that were necessary to life. If Elijah’s word could bring a drought apart from the activity of Baal, and if his word could bring the rains again, the power of the God that he served would serve to indicate that trust in Baal and the lying myth that surrounded him was futile.5,6,7,8
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”