ELIJAH PART 2
Elijah as Rainmaker and Miracle Worker
We first meet Elijah as he talks to Ahab, the king of the Northern Kingdom. “As YHVH lives, before whom I stand, I swear that there will not be dew nor rain during these years, except by my word.” (I Kings 17:1) Ahab presumably doesn’t take this well, and “the word of YHVH came to him [Elijah]” But instead of telling him what to preach, it told him to go run away and hide to a riverbed (wadi) that he can drink from and be fed by the ravens. He stayed there until the riverbed dried up.
I want to highlight three things in this brief introduction to Elijah. First, we immediately are given the idea that Elijah can control the coming of rain, the water from the sky without which life in Israel is impossible. Second, there’s this incredible trust in the divine. Unlike say Jonah, he doesn’t question at all, but goes someplace where he has to depend upon ravens feeding him because he is literally going to the middle of absolutely nowhere with no possible access to food. Third, there’s this incredible intimacy with the more than human world. I don’t know about you, but when a bird hangs out for more than a minute within 10 feet of me, I think it is a miracle.
The wadi dries up and he is commanded to go to a widow who will feed him. He finds the widow who is incredibly poor and down to her last bit of flour and oil. She was on her way home to prepare the last meal for herself and her son, and then be prepared to die. Elijah, who must look like a fright coming from hiding and not having seen a human in some time, tells her not to be afraid, and to make him a small cake from the flour and the oil. And if she does that, the jar of flour and oil will not give out until the rains commence again. She passes the test of faith, makes him the cake and miracle of miracles, the flour and the oil keep replenishing. (I Kings 17:7-16)
The second miracle with the widow concerns her son (I Kings 17: 17-24.) The widow’s son falls sick and looks to have died. She reproaches Elijah, who asks for the son and carries him to upper chamber, lies on top of him 3 times and prays to YHVH to revive him. The boy revives and the widow says “Now I know you are a man of God and that the word of YHVH is truly in your mouth.”
As in the healing of the son, the traditional reading attributes the miracles to YHVH. But miracles don’t happen like this around just anyone.
