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18 April. 1 Kings chapters 15-17
The first two of these chapters are grim reading, as we hear of several generations in which the civil war between Judah and the rest of Israel continued under several ‘kings’ on both sides. These ‘kings’ were not worthy of the name: most of them gained power by force, and nearly all of them, with the exception of Asa of Judah, “did evil in the sight of the Lord” (i.e. acted selfishly with no regard for the common people, and tolerated idolatry). Finally (in this list) comes Ahab of Israel, who was the worst of them all, for he not only tolerated idolatry in the land but took a foreign and evil wife (Jezebel, whose name would become a byword for a wicked woman) and set up a temple to the arch-idol Baal in his own city of Samaria.
Onto this scene suddenly emerges the prophet Elijah, who would become the greatest figure of the whole Old Testament after Abraham and Moses. And with him comes a welcome relief from stories of war, infighting and idolatry. Elijah may have proclaimed doom to the king and his house for their apostasy, but he was not part of the establishment, nor the army, rather an ascetic prophet who was willing to be humbled by the God who called him to live in the desert on bread and water (and carrion brought to him by ravens) and then come to the aid of an ordinary family caught up in the civil war and in drought.
The three years’ drought that Elijah predicted as God’s punishment for Ahab’s sins is apparently recorded in non-Jewish literature so it can be regarded as historical. But we have to take on faith the story of the miraculous provision of flour and oil that saw the family through the crisis, and Elijah’s resuscitation of the widow’s son. This story brings us back home to the reality of much of the near east and north-east Africa in our time: war and drought combine to destroy whole populations. I have recently met a refugee from one of those countries and her son, and can imagine them as I read of the family at Zarephath. God is never concerned only with whole populations, but passionately cares for the sufferings of each individual.