Obadiah and the famine.

1 Kings 18.1-6.

The scriptures say this happened in “the third year,” 1Ki 18.1 which could either mean the third year of the reign of Ahab ben Omri, king of Ephraim; or the third year of the water being turned off. The apostle James presumed it was the third year of drought, Jm 5.17 and he’s probably right.

Elijah was hiding in Sidon, so the word of the LORD (whom we Christians know as Jesus) told him it was time to return to Ahab and present himself. Rain was coming.

1 Kings 18.1-2 KWL

1Many days came, and in the third year

the LORD’s word came to Elijah to say,

“Go appear to Ahab.

I will give rain to the face of the soil.”

2Elijah left, to appear to Ahab.

The hunger was hard in Samaria.

Verse 2’s וְהָרָעָ֖ב חָזָ֥ק/vᵉha-ra’av khazáq, “and the hunger [was] hard” tends to be translated, “The famine was severe,” but a shortage of food is one thing; it’s the fact people have to cut back on eating which causes the greatest amount of distress in a famine. In the United States, if money is tight, you gotta switch to cheaper food, or start visiting the food banks. In wealthy countries you don’t have to suffer during our years of famine. Ancient Ephraim was not a wealthy country; Ahab might be able to ride it out just fine, but his people were definitely feeling it. And unlike the other Israeli country of Judah, the Ephraimites didn’t consider their king divinely appointed by the LORD; they could totally overthrow him, same as Ahab’s last two predecessors had overthrown their predecessors. So in that sense, Ahab was feeing it too.

Anyway, while Elijah headed for Samaria, Ahab and his butler Obadiah—not the prophet; different Obadiah—started looking for grass for Ahab’s hungry livestock.

1 Kings 18.3-6 KWL

3Ahab summoned Obadiah,

who supervised the house.

Obadiah greatly respected the LORD.

4Jezebel was cutting off the LORD’s prophets.

Obadiah took a hundred prophets

and hid them by fifties in a cave.

He provided bread and water for them.

5Ahab told Obadiah, “Go to the land,

to all the water springs

and all the wadis.

Perhaps we might find grass,

and keep alive the horse and mule,

and not cut off the domestic animals.”

6They divided the land between them,

to pass through it:

Ahab went one way to his part,

and Obadiah went one way to his part.

Most bibles translate verse 5, “horses and mules,” but the Hebrew is singular. Ahab might have been down to only one of each by now. I should point out the Israelis were forbidden to breed mules, Lv 19.19 and the king was forbidden to overdo it on owning horses. Dt 17.16 But as an unrepentant pagan, we can’t expect Ahab to care much about God’s commands.

Polytheists’ religious persecution.

It appears while Elijah has been gone, things got rough for the LORD’s prophets and followers. Ahab’s queen Jezebel had been “cutting them off,” which can either mean driving them out of the country, or straight-up murdering them. Most interpreters figure it’s the second thing.

Preachers tend to talk about Jezebel’s behavior as if she’s trying to eliminate the competition. But the thing about polytheism is, there wasn’t competition; not really. Polytheistic pagans were free to worship multiple gods. If you wanted to worship Baal and Dagon, and Amun-Ra, and Zeus, and Vishnu, and any other gods you could get your hands on, you could. Worship all the gods you please! And if you wanna worship the LORD too, the more the merrier!

It’s only the LORD who objects to the competition; who commands,

Exodus 20.2-5 Schocken Bible

2I am YHWH your God,

who brought you out

from the land of Egypt, from a house of serfs.

You are not to have

any other gods

before my presence.

3You are not to make yourself a carved-image

or any figure

that is in the heavens above, that is on the earth beneath, that is in the waters beneath the earth;

4you are not to bow down to them

and you are not to serve them,

for I, YHWH your God,

am a zealous God,

calling-to-account the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, to the third and the fourth [generation]

of those hating me,

5but showing loyalty to the thousandth

of those loving me,

of those keeping my commandments.

The other gods aren’t actual competition. They’re not even real. They waste your time and wealth, and their worship is immoral and corrupting. God doesn’t want us ruining ourselves with polytheism. Worship him alone.

The LORD’s exclusivity often rubbed pagans the wrong way—the Greeks especially—because they believed their idols were gods, and if you didn’t appease the mightier ones, they might smite you. It never occurred to them their gods weren’t real; just that they might be weak—or spiteful, and caused calamity or didn’t answer prayer requests becauses they had something against you. You see a little bit of this attitude in the Sidonian widow, and for that matter Obadiah in the next passage.

So why would Jezebel persecute the LORD’s prophets? My guess: Elijah, of the LORD’s prophets, started this drought. Clearly the LORD was behind it. Elijah wasn’t around to talk the LORD into bringing the water back, so this meant going to one of the LORD’s other prophets and seeing whether she or he might be able to bring the water back. But since the water wasn’t coming back till Elijah said, 1Ki 17.1 the other prophets of the LORD couldn’t bring the water back, no matter what Jezebel offered. Or threatened. “Bring the rain back or die!” was likely the threat, and since the prophets couldn’t deliver, Jezebel followed through.

Now, why was Jezebel doing this? I remind you ancient Israel was a patriarchal culture. Though a woman might inherit land from her father, Nu 27.8 or be the head of her family in the absence of a father or husband or adult son, in every other situation she really had no power. Jezebel wasn’t a queen regent; she was a a queen consort. Same as Ahab’s other wives, if he had others; ancient Israelis did polygamy too y’know.

But Jezebel bat Ethbaal wasn’t Israeli; she was Sidonian. And Sidonian queens did rule stuff: The queen of Sidon was automatically the head priest of Ashtoreth, who ran Ashtoreth’s temple, led its worship, and likely participated in its orgies. (Eww.) It gave Jezebel considerable religious power, and this was regularly converted into political power, ’cause you don’t wanna outrage Ashtoreth’s very favorite worshiper. Ahab was a great big Baalist, and no doubt wanted to duplicate Sidon’s religous system, with himself as Baal-Hadad’s head priest in Ephraim, and Jezebel as Ashtoreth’s. This meant his queen held power.

This idea still rubs today’s patriarchy-minded sexists the wrong way; mostly because they imagine Jezebel was usurping power from Ahab. She wasn’t really; Ahab expected her to wield power, as any Sidonian priest-queen would. Even so, Christians still refer to women coveting or usurping power as “the spirit of Jezebel.” As for men who covet and usurp power… yep, they aren’t likewise condemned. But they absolutely should be.

Obadiah’s deal.

Obadiah “feared the LORD greatly,” 1Ki 18.3 KJV or more accurately respected the LORD greatly. If you love the LORD, there’s no fear in love. 1Jn 4.18

As such, he naturally didn’t want to see the LORD’s prophets destroyed, so Obadiah was playing a deadly and expensive game. Thus far a hundred prophets were stashed away in two caves, and he was feeding and watering them despite the famine and drought—and despite the wrath of the family he worked for. Likely he used his position to find out which prophets Jezebel might go after next, and spirited them away first. That certainly had to be stressful—and his later near-panicked reaction to meeting Elijah, suggests he himself was desperately afraid of getting caught.

Even so, Obadiah is a useful reminder of how God always has a contingent of followers in the worst of places, and how they can still continue to do good even in dire circumstances. If you ever despair that God has no one left—no one to stand in the gap between our increasingly corrupt civilization and him—you’re usually worrying for nothing. He has followers everywhere. Frequently in places you’d never expect.

And if there really was no God-follower left… well, maybe you remember what happened once that was true of Sodom and Gomorrah.