And he lay down and slept under the broom-bush. And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise, eat!
Elijah has run for his life from Jezebel's threat. He has walked a day into the wilderness, asked God to end his life, and fallen asleep. What comes next is not the answer he prayed for, but a touch on the shoulder and a meal.
The shade Elijah found came from a desert shrub, not the evergreen we picture:
This is thought to refer to the Arabic ratam, the Retama raetam, and not to the juniper. It is a "broom" that grows twelve feet high. A person could sit under it for shelter. 1 Kings 19:4-5.
(Older translations say "juniper tree," and some quotes below use that word.)
One writer sets this scene beside an earlier one in Elijah's story:
In 1 Kings 17 Elijah by faith could make the widow's oil and meal last. But here he is weak. He needs an angel to come, strengthen him, and give him some food. He eats, drinks, and like a man without strength lies down. But the Lord sends the angel back again, for He is rich in grace and mercy. He watches over all our ways. He feeds our souls according to our needs and all our circumstances.
Elijah had asked to die. God's reply was food, not death:
Yet the Lord can graciously meet his poor servant even asleep under a juniper tree. "He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust." So He does not grant the sulky request of His hard-pressed and disappointed servant. Instead He seeks to feed and strengthen him for more work. This is not "the manner of man." It is — blessed forever be His name — the manner of God, whose ways and thoughts are not like ours. People often treat one another in a rough and harsh way. They make no allowance, and act in haste and severity. Not so God.
God had fed Elijah before, by ravens and by a widow's supply. This time He sends a messenger:
This was a deeper and a closer token of God's interest and care for him than the supply of the ravens or the widow's barrel. The cake baked on the coals and the jug of water at his head show him how God provides for him. But the angel is there to point them out and urge him to take them. That shows the Lord's own personal interest in him. Solitary as he was, he was not left alone or unattended.
Elijah never asked for this meal:
At the prayer of Elijah, fire had fallen from heaven upon the sacrifice on Mount Carmel. Rain had fallen on the dry land, from a sky opened at the prayer of that same righteous man. But God gave him the burning coals, the hot cakes, and the jug of water without his asking. How faithful was and is our God!
Elijah was not where God had sent him. That is what makes this visit so striking:
Here we have a truly wonderful display of the kindness of God. An angel sent from heaven to provide a meal for a failing servant! This was a man who had left an important post of duty, and who was now completely outside the path of God's leading.
The food was not comfort for its own sake. It was meant to carry him on a journey:
In 1 Kings 17 Elijah himself received food, and then he gave food to others. Here, in the place his lack of faith had driven him to, he had no food at all. But God does not abandon him: He thinks of him... He eats, but does not understand what God wants of him, and goes to sleep again. A second time he finds the same food. The angel says to him, "Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for you." God fed him so that he could walk. An important lesson for us!
Elijah and God wanted opposite things from that sleep:
The Lord knows better than we do what may be demanded of us. In His grace He strengthens us to match what He knows those demands to be. The prophet wished to sleep for sorrow, but the Lord wished to strengthen him and steady him for future service.
- Weakness. The prophet who fed others in 1 Kings 17 now has nothing, and God must feed him.
- Refusal. He asked to die; God declined and gave him breakfast instead — the manner of God, not the manner of man.
- Nearness. Not ravens, not a widow, but an angel who points to the food and urges him to eat: a closer token of care than anything before.
- Grace. All of this reaches a servant who had abandoned his post and was outside the path of God's leading.
- Purpose. God fed him so that he could walk, because the journey ahead was too great for him.
And he looked, and behold, at his head was a cake, baked on hot stones, and a cruse of water. And he ate and drank, and lay down again.
Elijah had run for his life from Jezebel. He asked God to let him die, then fell asleep under a broom tree in the wilderness. He wakes to find food and water at his head. Why does God answer a servant's collapse with a meal instead of a rebuke?
The prophet was not at his post when this meal arrived.
After some time — not too soon, we may be sure — an angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." He looked around and saw a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He refreshed himself and slept again. Here we have a truly wonderful display of the kindness of God. An angel sent from heaven to provide a meal for a failing servant! He had left an important post of duty, and was now completely outside the path of God's leading.
Elijah had been fed before by ravens and by a widow. This time help came another way.
No ravens were there with a ration of bread and meat. The touch that woke him was not a widow's, with her jar of flour that never ran out and a few sticks for a fire. He was not to die, but live. An angel of the Lord had provided for his needs. Fire and food, the gifts of his God, were right beside him.
Someone baked that cake and filled that jar. The wonder is who took the trouble.
One of the lessons of the way is to grasp how God can stoop to arrange the little things for His servants. He delights to stoop. Sadly, we often distrust the One whom we serve. We doubt the interest His heart has in us and in His people. Who would have thought of the blessed God preparing a cake, baking it, and filling the jar! Then He sent His angel to that poor, weary, depressed servant of His, to tell him what He had ready for him. Such is the heart of Him whom we serve.
The meal was not all that God sent. Someone came with it.
The cake baked on the coals and the jar of water at his head show him how God provides for him. But the angel is there as well, to point them out and urge him to eat. That displays the Lord's own personal interest in him. Solitary as he was, he was not left alone or unattended. God sends an angel as his companion and servant; and a second time he touches him, after watching him, no doubt, as he slept.
Elijah took the food without taking the point.
As Elijah slept the sleep of discouragement an angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." How gracious the Lord is! Instead of reproving Elijah He provided the food Elijah needed. But after Elijah had eaten, he lay down again to sleep. When we are in such a lazy state we need the words of Scripture, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Eph. 5:14).
Food from God was never meant to end in sleep. It was meant to put him back on his feet.
In 1 Kings 17 it had been Elijah who handed out food to others, after God had fed him. Here, where his lack of faith had driven him, he had no food at all. But God does not abandon him: He thinks of him. The only strength available to him comes from food God has prepared for him... He eats, but does not understand what God wants of him, and goes to sleep again... God fed him so that he might walk. An important lesson for us! The Lord had fed him at Cherith and at Zarephath so that he might bear a powerful testimony. But if divine food does not give us strength for ourselves, will God's purpose be reached? The food Elijah finds at his head has miraculous power. Is it not the same with the Word of God? It brings us to the mount of God.
God measured the strength to the road ahead, not to the mood of the man.
The Lord knows better than we do the demands that may come on us. He strengthens us in grace, according to His estimate of those demands. The prophet wished to sleep for sorrow. The Lord wished to strengthen him and steady him for future service.
- Failure — Elijah is off the path of duty when the angel arrives. God's kindness meets him where his own fear has carried him.
- Provision — God baked the cake and filled the jar. He stoops to the smallest details for a discouraged servant.
- Presence — the angel points to the food and urges him to eat. That is closer care than the ravens or the widow.
- Purpose — God feeds him so he can walk, not so he can sleep. Food that leaves us where it found us has missed its aim.
- Proportion — God measures the strength to the journey He sees coming, not to the despair the servant feels now.
And the angel of Jehovah came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for thee.
Elijah has walked away from his post and fallen asleep in the wilderness, outside the path of God's leading. The angel has already fed him once. Now the angel comes back and touches him a second time.
Elijah's own strength is gone. The striking thing is that God does not stop at one visit.
He eats, drinks, and like a man without strength lies down. But the Lord sends the angel back again, because He is full of grace and mercy. He watches over all our ways. He feeds our souls according to our needs and all our circumstances. So the Lord bore with Elijah and helped him, and He is the same towards us.
The angel brings no rebuke. He brings a meal to a man who had walked away from his duty.
Here we have a truly wonderful display of the kindness of God. An angel sent from heaven to bring a meal to a faulty servant! This servant had abandoned an important post of duty. He was now completely outside the path of God's leading!
God had fed Elijah by ravens before. This time the way He feeds him carries a message.
When he was right with God, only the need of his stomach had to be met, and the ravens were enough for that service. But when he was all wrong with God, something more serious than his stomach was in question. God would reach his heart. The attentions of the angel would be a definite assurance to Elijah that the Lord loved and cared for him still, despite his deep failure... The angel woke him a second time and said, "Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you." It was a journey he should never have taken!
God does not feed him so that he can lie down again. He feeds him for a reason, and the same reason lies behind what He gives us.
He eats, but does not understand what God wants of him, and goes to sleep again. A second time he finds the same food. God fed him so that he might walk. An important lesson for us! The Lord had fed him at Cherith and at Zarephath so that he might bear a powerful testimony. But if divine food does not give us strength for ourselves, will God reach His purpose?
The angel gives a reason. It is not only the road ahead that outran Elijah's strength — his whole life did.
He learns that he is on a journey, but, says the Lord, "the journey is too great for you." What a journey was Elijah's through this world. Cherith, Zarephath, Carmel, Horeb mark the stages of his journey. The chariot of fire is ready to end it in power and glory. But every stage was "too great" for Elijah. He had to show power. He needed courage and faith. He had to meet opposition and bear hardship. All of it was too great for a man with the same nature as ourselves.
One writer compares Elijah with Moses and with our Lord Jesus Christ. The three cases are not the same at all.
Elijah's was clearly the lowest of the three, for God gave him something that sustained him by a miracle. The Lord did not hold him up by His own power alone, with nothing else. God gave power to a means that sustained him. So his case was more a matter of what God gave. In Moses' case it was what he enjoyed, not what he was given. Created things did not give him power; he enjoyed the Creator Himself. And in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ it was the Creator Himself, in the most perfect self-denial and dependence on His Father.
One writer turns the angel's words toward the reader.
We too must take this to heart. Our journey through the world is too great for us if the food of the Word of God does not sustain us.
- The journey is too great — and not just the road to Horeb. Every stage of Elijah's life outran the strength of a man with our nature.
- So God comes — He sends an angel from heaven with a meal for a faulty servant who had walked off his post.
- And comes again — the second touch shows a God who watches over all our ways and feeds us in every circumstance.
- He feeds so we may walk — food from God that leaves us lying down has not yet reached its purpose.
- The same journey is ours — it is too great for us too, unless the food of God's Word keeps us going.
And he arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
Elijah has just asked to die under a broom tree. Now an angel wakes him twice with bread and water, because the road ahead is longer than he knows. The verse holds two things at once: a servant fed by food he did not make, and a servant walking to the mountain of the law.
One writer sees God's care here as measured by what He alone can see coming.
The Lord knows better than we do the demands that may be made on us, and He graciously strengthens us according to His estimate of those demands. The prophet wished to sleep for sorrow, but the Lord wished to strengthen and nerve him for future service.
Earlier, Elijah's faith kept a widow's jar of flour and jug of oil from running dry. Now the roles reverse: an angel feeds him.
In 1 Kings 17 Elijah by faith could make the widow's oil and meal last; but here he is weak, and needs an angel to come and strengthen him and give him some food. He eats, drinks, and like a man without strength lies down. But the Lord sends the angel back again, for He is rich in grace and mercy. He watches over all our ways. He feeds our souls according to our needs and according to all our circumstances.
What defeats the servant does not defeat the One who supplies him.
As we view the greatness of the journey and our own littleness, we may well cry out, "Who is sufficient for these things?" But at once the answer comes, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And so, if all the grace and power of the risen Christ are at our disposal, we may well press on.
Elijah is not the only one to cross forty days without ordinary food.
With that food a man walks and does not faint. Moses had spent forty days and forty nights upon Horeb, conversing with God. His word and His presence were enough to sustain His servant's strength. The Lord Himself spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness without any food, in the presence of wild beasts and exposed to Satan's attacks. He was hungry, and had no food set by His head to help Him resist the enemy's temptations. But He was the Man who did not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
The cake on the coals belongs with the manna Israel gathered in the same desert.
The strength this food of the mighty gives lets us walk through the wilderness of this world without growing tired... It was in this same wilderness, on his way to the same Horeb, that weary Elijah received a special cake from God. Surely that was indeed the food of the mighty. God gave him water also; and so He did to Israel. In Exodus 16 and 17 we have the bread and the water. In John 6 and 7 the fulfilments of both are given for us, "the living Bread" and "the living Water."
Horeb is where God met Moses and gave the law. Commentators differ on what drew Elijah there. Some read his choice as a sign of his mood.
After forty days the prophet reached Horeb, the mount of God — a place of special interest. There the Lord dealt with Moses, forty years after he tried too soon to rescue His people. At Horeb Moses learned precious lessons that fitted him for his future service in Israel. In the same area was Mount Sinai, where the Lord dealt with the nation and set His holy law before them. It is significant that Elijah in his anger against the people should have gone there. It was as if he wanted judgment on them for their unfaithfulness.
Others stress that he moves at the angel's command, and that God has an errand there he did not plan.
Obedience marks the career of this man of God... Only one time does Elijah go where his own heart directs him, and the thread of his career breaks off. No doubt he then gets up and sets out at the angel's word, but it is so that he may come into God's presence and there learn to judge himself. Later we shall see that despite this, God does not set His servant aside entirely.
- Weakness. The man whose faith once stretched a widow's flour and oil now lies down with no strength left. God does not scold him — He feeds him.
- Food. God gave Elijah the cake and the water, as He gave Israel manna in the same wilderness. Both point on to the living Bread and the living Water.
- Strength. God measures the meal by His estimate of the road, not by Elijah's. The journey too great for the servant is not too great for the servant's God.
- Journey. Forty days without ordinary food place Elijah beside Moses at Horeb, and beside the Lord in the wilderness. The Lord lived by every word from God's mouth.
- Mountain. He arrives at the mount of the law. Did he go there to accuse Israel, or did God bring him there to judge himself? Either way, God keeps him in service and does not discard him.