Chapter 17
First mention, to my knowledge, of Elijah the Tishbite. He tells Ahab that it is not going to rain nor dew until he - Elisha - says so. This must have really gotten him off on the right foot with such a King. This is evidenced by the fact that the next thing Elisha did was go hide by the brook Cherith, where the ravens fed him twice a day. He was there until the brook dried up from the drought.
2021 - From chapter 16, we know that Ahab married Jezebel, of the Sidonians, that he built a temple to Baal in Samaria - that is, on land promised to God's people - and then built an altar inside that temple. So beyond the golden calves that Jeroboam made and required and diverted the people into worshiping, now Ahab brings in a false god, an idol worshiped by foreigners, and he sets his people to worshiping it. Most like on pain of death with a king like this. We too may see such a thing. We already are to some extent. Try saying homosexuality is a sin, or that there are only two sexes. Or try saying you won't make cakes for homosexual weddings. The whole wrath of government will come down on you. What we are not really seeing here is what was happening in the countryside in Israel. With this sharp turning away, I would expect droughts and famines and diseases and barren wombs, and stillborn livestock. I would expect poor harvest, and lousy wine. This would all presumably go with it. God had said the north is doomed. He's let them go. So maybe, since they are past that point, these other things - designed to turn nations back to God, don't really happen. Except as we are about to see.)
Then God sends him to Zaraphath, where a widow will feed him. (2021 - Zaraphath belonged to Sidon, where Jezebel was from, and where her father was a king. So Elisha is hiding right under her nose.) Elijah asks a widow at the gate for water, then he asks her for bread. She says she was just going to make bread with the last of her flour and oil, and then, with nothing else to eat, she expects she and her son to die. Elijah says "Do not fear", and tells her to make for him first, and then for her and her son. She does as he asks, and the flour and the oil are always there, for many days, enough to feed her, Elijah, and her household.
The widow's son dies of disease while Elijah is there. Elijah doesn't understand why this should be so. Neither do I. He prays the prayer below:
20 And he cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?" [1Ki 17:20 ESV]
He blames God for "killing her son". This is very direct. Why do I so often avoid this aspect. God uses even the evil to bring about his purposes, there's a verse for that. It stands to reason that he uses disease to do so, and that he sometimes kills the good to bring them about. If good people die, they go to a better place. So to die is gain. This is how we have to look at it, though it is not an easy thing. To die is gain for the righteous, to die is justice for the wicked. They too go to the place God has set for them.
2022 - Elijah's first miracle that he performs is to keep the flour and oil replenished for the widow, her son, and himself. His second miracle is to bring the widow's son back to life. If John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah, why did John perform no miracles? We have no indication at all that John ever did anything that was considered a miracle. Perhaps this is to show that while John was in the Spirit of Elijah, he was not the prophet who will come as the forerunner of the Kingdom of God. John was the forerunner of Jesus the Messiah, and in a way, of the spiritual kingdom of God. But there will be another, the forerunner of the physical Kingdom of the Millennial.