Doing more with less – Tuesday, 10th Week in Ordinary time – I Kings 17:7-16
Chapter 16 of 1 Kings give us an insight to the background of the three narratives found in Chapter 17. The three narratives of chapter 17 are written to prove the prophet Elijah’s worth as both a prophet and the one who will challenge King Ahab’s reign. The prophet Elijah became the dominant spiritual force in Israel during the dark days of King Ahab’s apostasy. King Ahab married the Sidonian princess, Jezebel more to make a political alliance. But with this marriage, Ahab embraced the Canaanite fertility god Baal and worshiped him. Chapter 16:30 tells us that Ahab, “did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him” for he erected an altar of Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria.
Chapter 17 can thus be seen as a fitting answer to both the King and his new found god. In the days when Ahab’s government officially supported the worship of Baal and other gods, the prophets name itself stood as a bold statement against the rule of Ahab, for Elijah means, “Yahweh is my God”. While the Canaanite god was considered to be a powerful fertility God, the writer of the book of Kings wants to demonstrate through chapter 17 that Yahweh alone is the guarantor of fertility; he alone gives life. In this context, Elijah representing the Lord, predicts a three-year drought on the land over which Ahab rules. This was a dramatic demonstration against the pagan god Baal, who was thought to be the sky god, the god of the weather. Elijah showed that through his prayers to the God of Israel, Yahweh was mightier than Baal.
When the water runs dry and food is no longer available, Elijah is sent to a Zarapath, a Sidonian town. Sidon was the land of Jezebel and it is here that he is asked not only to live in the land but to be provided for by a widow. When the widow’s son dies of illness, it is Elijah who raises him to life. In all the three narratives it is Yahweh who has the power to take or give life prompting a Sidonian woman to acknowledge the God of Elijah and not their own god, Baal.