1 Kings 17:1 NIV

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - 1 Kings 17:1

The name Elijah means “Yahweh is my God.” It is expressive of the truth which his whole life preached.The two words rendered “Tishbite” and “inhabitant” are in the original (setting aside the vowel points) “exactly alike.” The meaning consequently must either be “Elijah the stranger, of the strangers of Gilead,” or (more probably) “Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbi of Gilead.” Of Tishbi in Gilead there is no further trace in Scripture; it is to be distinguished from another Tishbi in Galilee. In... read more

Joseph Benson

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments - 1 Kings 17:1

1 Kings 17:1. And Elijah the Tishbite, &c. So bad was the character, both of the Israelites and their princes, as represented in the foregoing chapter, that one would have expected God should have cast off a people that had so cast him off; but as an evidence to the contrary, never was Israel so blessed with a good prophet as when it was so plagued with a bad king. Never was a king so bold to sin as Ahab, never was a prophet so bold to reprove and threaten as Elijah, whose story begins... read more

Donald C. Fleming

Bridgeway Bible Commentary - 1 Kings 17:1-24

16:29-22:53 MINISTRY OF ELIJAHJezebel’s Baalism in Israel (16:29-17:24)In a new political alliance, Ahab, the new king of Israel, married Jezebel, daughter of the king-priest of Phoenicia. Ahab not only accepted his wife’s Baalism, but also gave it official status in Israel by building a Baal temple in the capital (29-33). The Baalism imported by Jezebel was of a kind far more evil and far more dangerous to Israel’s religion than the common Canaanite Baalism practised at the high places.... read more

E.W. Bullinger

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes - 1 Kings 17:1

Elijah. First mention = GOD ( El ) is JAH (or Jehovah). See App-4 . Tishbite = sojourner. Probably a priest. inhabitants = sojourners. before, &c. Probably a priest. See note above. dew = night-mist. Compare Deuteronomy 32:2 . 2 Samuel 1:21 .Job 38:28 . these years (not three years). No definite period stated. "Years" is plural, not dual. In Luke 4:25 and James 5:17 = "three years and six months". These six months must be reckoned before the three years, not added to the end because... read more

James Burton Coffman

Coffman Commentaries on the Bible - 1 Kings 17:1

ELIJAH AND THE GREAT DROUGHT IN AHAB'S REIGN;CONCERNING ELIJAHAs we may judge from the appearance of Elijah along with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration with our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 17:4), the great prophet Elijah was the most important character between Moses and the Messiah himself. This chapter and the following two chapters make up what is called the "Elijah Cycle"; but, "that expression has no critical importance."[1] It is significant that at the very moment when Israel was... read more

Thomas Coke

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible - 1 Kings 17:1

1 Kings 17:1. Elijah the Tishbite— Elijah the Tishbite, of Thezbeh in Gilead. Houbigant. Elijah, who in the New Testament is commonly called Elias, was of Thezbeh, a town on the other side of Jordan, in the tribe of Gad, and in the land of Gilead. The Scriptures making no mention either of the quality of his parents, the manner of his education, or his call to the prophetic office, some Jewish rabbis have been of opinion, that he was an angel, sent from heaven, amidst the general corruption of... read more

Robert Jamieson; A. R. Fausset; David Brown

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - 1 Kings 17:1

1. Elijah the Tishbite—This prophet is introduced as abruptly as Melchisedek—his birth, parents, and call to the prophetic office being alike unrecorded. He is supposed to be called the Tishbite from Tisbeh, a place east of Jordan. who was of the inhabitants of Gilead—or residents of Gilead, implying that he was not an Israelite, but an Ishmaelite, as MICHAELIS conjectures, for there were many of that race on the confines of Gilead. The employment of a Gentile as an extraordinary minister might... read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - 1 Kings 17:1-7

Elijah’s announcement of God’s judgment 17:1-7Again God raised up a prophet to announce what He would do. Evidently Ahab’s apostasy had been going on for 14 years before God raised up His prophetic challenge. [Note: Merrill, Kingdom of . . ., p. 346.] Normally God gives sinners an opportunity to judge themselves and repent before He sends judgment on them (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:31; 2 Peter 3:9-10).The three scenes in the Elijah narrative (chs. 17-19) form one story in which we can see the rising... read more

John Dummelow

John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - 1 Kings 17:1-24

Elijah and the Widow of ZarephathThe prophet Elijah, who occupies so large a space in the succeeding history, is, like his successor Elisha, conspicuous among the prophetic figures of the OT. as a worker of miracles; and to him belongs the further distinction of having been removed from earth without dying. His prophecies differed from those of most later prophets in having in view only certain critical occasions of contemporary history, and in having no reference to the remote future or the... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - 1 Kings 17:1

(1) Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead.—The most probable rendering of this disputed passage is that of the LXX., and virtually of Josephus, “Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead,” the last words being added to distinguish the place from a Tishbe (or Thisbe) in Naphtali, referred to, though the reading is rather doubtful, in Tob. 1:2. The word here rendered “inhabitants” (properly “sojourners”) is evidently of the same derivation as the word rendered “Tishbite.” The only... read more