1 Kings 18:5

_AND AHAB SAID UNTO OBADIAH, GO INTO THE LAND, UNTO ALL FOUNTAINS OF WATER, AND UNTO ALL BROOKS: PERADVENTURE WE MAY FIND GRASS TO SAVE THE HORSES AND MULES ALIVE, THAT WE LOSE NOT ALL THE BEASTS._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-16 The severest judgments, of themselves, will not humble or change the hearts of sinners; nothing, except the blood of Jesus Christ, can atone for the guilt of sin; nothing, except the sanctifying Spirit of God, can purge away its pollution. The priests and the Levites were gone to Judah and Jerusalem, 2 Chronicles 11:13; 2 Chronicles 11:14, but instead of them God raised up prophets, who read and expounded the word. They probably were from the schools of the prophets, first set up by Samuel. They had not the spirit of prophecy as Elijah, but taught the people to keep close to the God of Israel. These Jezebel sought to destroy. The few that escaped death were forced to hide themselves. God has his remnant among all sorts, high and low; and that faith, fear, and love of his name, which a...

Verse 1 Kings 18:5. _UNTO ALL FOUNTAINS OF WATER_] All marshy or well-watered districts, where grass was most likely to be preserved....

UNTO ALL FOUNTAINS OF WATER AND UNTO ALL BROOKS - Rather, “to all springs of water and to all torrent-courses.” The former are the perennial streams; the latter are the torrent-courses which become dry in an ordinary summer. ALL THE BEASTS - Rather, some, or, “a portion of our beasts.”...

EXPOSITION ELIJAH'S RETURN AND THE ORDEAL OF MOUNT CARMEL.—The preceding chapter having been exclusively occupied with the fortunes of Elijah during his enforced absence of three and a half years from the land of Israel, we are left to conjecture what the course of events in the northern kingdom during this period of drought and suffering must have been. But it is not difficult to picture in our minds the steadily increasing alarm and distress which the solemn ban he had pronounced must have occasioned. At one time, it may be, especially if the prophet up to that period had been unknown, both king and people, under the malign influence of Jezebel, professed to regard his threatening with contempt, the more so as the priests of Baal would not fail to assure them of the protection and blessing of "the Lord" of nature. But as the

AND AHAB SAID UNTO OBADIAH, GO INTO THE LAND, UNTO ALL FOUNTAINS OF WATER, AND UNTO ALL BROOKS,.... To observe in what condition they were, and the places adjoining to them, the meadows and valleys: PERADVENTURE WE MAY FIND GRASS TO SAVE THE HORSES AND MULES ALIVE; particularly those which belonged to the king's stables, to find provisions for which it was found difficult: THAT WE LOSE NOT ALL THE BEASTS; many of them, doubtless, were lost through the drought already, and there was great danger of the rest, and so, in time, of there being none to procreate and preserve their species, and to prevent which Ahab proposed to take this method....

2. ELIJAH ON CARMEL: THE ANSWERED PRAYER CHAPTER 18 _ 1. The command to see Ahab (1 Kings 18:1)_ 2. Elijah's response (1 Kings 18:2) 3. Ahab and Obadiah (1 Kings 18:3) 4. Elijah and Obadiah (1 Kings 18:7) 5. Elijah meets Ahab (1 Kings 18:16) 6. Elijah's demand (1 Kings 18:19) 7. The events on Carmel (1 Kings 18:20

ELIJAH'S MEETING WITH AHAB AND HIS CONTEST WITH THE PRIESTS OF BAAL. The history of Ahab's reign must have been something like the following: On his marriage with Jezebel he must have allowed the worship of the Baal of Tyre and been met with the remonstrances of the prophets. Furious at their opposition, Jezebel had massacred a large number, but the king's steward had supported the cause of Yahweh (1 Kings 18:4); so Ahab cannot have been wholly ill-disposed to those who were faithful to the God of Israel. But he had no mercy for the leader of the whole movement, Elijah, who had prophesied the drought. He was sought in every neighbouring kingdom as the author of all the agitation, the troubler of Israel. In the meantime Jezebel had organised the worship of the Baal, and supported at her own. cost four hundred and fifty prophets ...

GO INTO. Septuagint and Syriac read "Go and let us pass through"....

_Go into_[R.V. THROUGH] _the land_ The change gives a clearer idea of what is meant, and the preposition is the same which in 1 Kings 18:6 is rendered -throughout." In the next clause, as both nouns are definite in the original, the R.V. has - THE fountains" and - THE brooks." In their neighbourhood grass would remain longest. _grass to save_ R.V. -grass AND save," which is literal and equally good English with A.V. _that we leese not all the beasts_ They might have to kill some, but the discovery of grass might save a part. The LXX. gives καὶ οὐκ ἐξολοθρευθήσονται ἀπὸ τῶν σκηνῶν. -Leese" is the old English form of -lose." Cf. Shakspeare, _Sonn._1 Kings 18:14, -Flowers distilled _leese_but their show....