1 Reis 17
Ephrem the Syrian · Comentário Patrístico (catena)
1 Reis 17:1
Exactly at the time when the prophet and father of the prophets Elijah appeared, the rebellion of Ahab and his wife Jezebel had increased to such an extent that they not only trampled the law and fear of God underfoot, nor were content to promote the worship of idols, but even persecuted and killed the prophets and the saints. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:1
1 Reis 17:1
Elijah was sent to prevent Ahab's insane rage and to show with words and actions of power and vigor the truth of the curses that the fathers had proclaimed against the transgres sors of the law of God, as they were not vain threats.… Moses wrote a large book of curses and ordered Joshua to proclaim them before the assembly of all the tribes of Israel with great clamor and loudly. He especially mentions the harsh famine and the other evils that follow it, the deprivation of the rain, the aridity and infertility of the land. Ahab despised and laughed at them, because he saw how abundant his supplies were, thanks to his father who was an impious king like him. Therefore, that arrogant king necessarily had to be punished for his arrogance.But the main reason why Elijah was sent was Jezebel, whose pride the Lord wanted to humiliate and whose falsehood he wanted to disclose. She had actually appointed herself as minister of Baal and had entrusted herself with the religious service for this god. She also proclaimed that Baal was the supreme god who ruled over those living in heaven and on earth and sent rain, watered the skies and gave fertility to the ground. She took as witnesses her fellow citizens, the Sidonians and the Tyrians and the other peoples of Phoenicia who were prosperous in those days in wealth and possessions more than any other of the neighboring nations and were also the most fervent worshipers of Baal. It was with good reason and according to justice that Elijah rose and came at that time of distress, and finally issued a stern rebuke against Ahab and his leaders and threatened to bring on them a sky of iron, as Moses had predicted, and a land of bronze. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:1
1 Reis 17:3
From the typological point of view this symbol has two meanings. The stream [wadi] of Elijah prefigures that, at the fullness of time, the Messiah will come and will send the sinners to the stream that comes out of the sanctuary, just like the one that Ezekiel saw. That is the stream that gives healing to the sick when its waters are applied. The [second meaning is that] the stream is the baptism of the Messiah. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:6
"The ravens brought him bread in the morning and meat in the evening." The bread represents perfection and justice accomplished together. This is the bread about which Isaiah says that it is given to those "who will live on the heights, and whose refuge will be the fortress of the rocks, and whose eyes will see the king in his beauty." Indeed, bread, which is the principal nourishment of human beings, indicates quite appropriately their main good. With regard to meat, the fact that it was brought in the evening shows two things: the first is the mourning of penitence, as the psalmist says: "Weeping may linger for the night," and the mortification of flesh and the hard toils, which the penitents marching toward perfection suffer. But their grief will become joy in the morning when the sun of justice, which dispels the darkness of sin, rises.And these words have an even higher meaning, because they are also referred to God the Word, who clothed himself with the flesh of our humanity and came to us in the evening, that is, at the consummation of times, and "filled with good things the hungry" through the Holy Spirit, which "God poured out on them richly through the Messiah, our Savior." — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:9
God sends Elijah to a city of [Gentile] people in order to change his hardness into mercy. He who had given him power over rain and dew did not want to withdraw by force what he had granted him. He wanted, nevertheless, to help the world which was tormented by starvation, but only with the consent of his servant. That is why he sends to the big city of Zarephath Elijah, who had stayed hidden to that time in the valley of Cherith, so that he may see with his own eyes the distress of its inhabitants, even though they had given no cause for that suffering, as they had not participated in the rebellion of Ahab. And even if they did not observe the law of Moses, they did not ridicule it, because they did not know it. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:10-12
When Elijah reached the gate of Zarephath, he met a woman and immediately realized, through the Holy Spirit, that she was the widow about whom God had talked to him. She was there and looked at him. It seems to me that Elijah had asked his Lord whether she was the one, as he was afraid that his severity would be weakened if he began to make inquiries about the widows of Zarephath. And, at the same time, the woman had received the order to feed the prophet through revelation, dream or another means. This is, in fact, what the words of God to Elijah indicate: "I have commanded a widow there to feed you."When he found her barefoot and dressed in rags in the act of gathering some wood, wasted by starvation and made miserably thin, he had the impression of seeing a burned stick, and he himself was ashamed of asking her for bread so that he first asked her for water. Later he added the request of bread. He knew for sure that a jug of flour would not have been lacking thanks to the promise of his Lord. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:15-16
"She went and did as Elijah said." Consider the faith of the widow, her obedience and charity, and then meditate on the greatness of the reward that he granted her. Indeed it is written, "The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah," nor did the number of her family members diminish, because, in exchange for the nourishment given to the prophet, her dead child was resurrected. — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:17-18
Observe carefully the tears of that woman, and see her humility in her grief, because she does not at all blame the judgment of God or rise against the prophet. In the humility of her intellect, she recognizes that that sentence struck her because of her guilt, and she says to the prophet, "You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance." — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2
1 Reis 17:21
"He stretched himself on the child three times and cried out to the Lord, 'O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.' " These words contain many symbols. [The Scripture] shows us immediately that through the invocation of the three names a human being will come back to life. If he kills the ancient Adam with the help of the Messiah in the holy baptism. The divine Paul says, "If we have died with the Messiah, we believe that we will also live with him." And what follows agrees precisely with this meaning: "He stretched himself on the child," because in this life, which he will give us after we are dead to that ancient Adam, "he will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory." And here you can also see a symbol of the triple descent of the Son of God to the dead: the first symbol consists here in the fact that he was made flesh and included his infinite nature into the womb of the Virgin; the second, that he stretched his body on the wood and was crucified; the third, that whoever accepts death lies in the grave and goes down to Sheol, so that, in order to vivify humankind, God consented to stretch his majesty on our smallness. "O ineffable miracle," which Isaiah calls "wonder," "his Lord has come down to the man and has assumed the likeness of a slave." — ON THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS 17:2