Day 4 of 5:

The Process of Preparation

Let’s dig into 1 Kings 17. This is the first mention of the prophet in Scripture.

Read 1 Kings 17:1.

The exact location of Tishbe, despite being home to one of the greatest figures in all the Bible, cannot really be identified. Geologists and archaeologists have never been able to pinpoint it with any degree of accuracy. But Gilead comes with a bit more documentation.

Read Genesis 31:17-21; Genesis 37:23-25; and Deuteronomy 34:1-4.

Gilead was hill country, covered with dense forests and wild undergrowth. It was remote and uncivilized. Even its name—Gilead— means “rocky” or “rugged.” That’s where Elijah was from. And that’s who Elijah was. A mountain man. A tough, adventurous, free-ranging spirit. 

Elijah came from a hard place. A rough place. An obscure place. The right place to be prepared for what God had in store for him.

For Elijah, the fact that he was raised in an uncouth environment; the fact that he wasn’t brought up around more urbane, cultured tastes and people; the fact that he grew up at a distance from mass civilization; the fact that he had no lineage or pedigree even worth mentioning in the Bible. There was a reason for it. 

God used it to give Elijah a clear, objective view of the duplicity that existed in the seat of Israel’s power. By virtue of his outback upbringing, Elijah had not been tainted by living up close to the idolatrous influences of the city, nor dulled into spiritual apathy by its pious religious activity. Instead he was able to nurse a growing indignation about the declined moral state because he hadn’t been absorbed into its fabric. Being from lowly regarded Gilead, Elijah was naturally unencumbered by the need to impress and please others, which made him an ideal mouthpiece for delivering the righteous message God wanted him to convey. 

During Elijah’s unrecorded years in Gilead, he somehow came to know, to really know, Yahweh. 

One way or another, while doing his tedious, mundane, lonesome work, while facing hardships we’ll never know, Elijah had been exposed to influences that convinced him Jehovah wasn’t just one deity among many other options. He’d developed a deep knowledge, reverence, and understanding for Yahweh’s covenant with His people, a holy perspective that would form the basis for his first prophetic declaration in Scripture. This God, Israel’s God, was a jealous God who had no intention of sharing His glory with man-made idols. 

That’s what Elijah learned in Gilead.

1 Kings 17 King James Version

17 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

² And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,

³ Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

⁴ And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

⁵ So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

⁶ And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

⁷ And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

⁸ And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying,

⁹ Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.

¹⁰ So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

¹¹ And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.

¹² And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

¹³ And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

¹⁴ For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.

¹⁵ And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

¹⁶ And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.

¹⁷ And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him.

¹⁸ And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?

¹⁹ And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

²⁰ And he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?

²¹ And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.

²² And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.

²³ And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.

²⁴ And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.

Genesis 31:17-21 King James Version

¹⁷ Then Jacob rose up, and set his sons and his wives upon camels;

¹⁸ And he carried away all his cattle, and all his goods which he had gotten, the cattle of his getting, which he had gotten in Padanaram, for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.

¹⁹ And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father’s.

²⁰ And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled.

²¹ So he fled with all that he had; and he rose up, and passed over the river, and set his face toward the mount Gilead.

Genesis 37:23-25 King James Version

²³ And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him;

²⁴ And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

²⁵ And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

Deuteronomy 34:1-4 King James Version

34 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,

² And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea,

³ And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.

⁴ And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.