James 5:17

‘And he prayed fervently (literally ‘prayed with prayer’) that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months.’

And Elijah ‘prayed with prayer’. There was no half-heartedness or superficiality or lack of purpose with him. And with his prayer he controlled the Heavens so that they produced no rain. Note the contrast with the travelling businessmen who were taken up with earthly things (James 4:13-16), and the landlords who thought only of this world’s goods (James 5:1-6), and the comparison with those brothers who wait patiently for rain, no doubt with prayer (5. 7). Here was a man who was not only a hearer of the word, but a doer (James 1:22-23; James 2:14-26), who was concerned only with the purposes of God, and who in the end would receive the Crown of Life (James 1:12), in that he was caught up into Heaven without dying.

‘It rained not on the earth for three years and six months.’ Compare Luke 4:25. This period became symbolic of any period of trial when the faithful were dominated by the powers of this world. Thus it appears again in Revelation in that guise (Revelation 11:2-3 with 6; Revelation 12:6; Revelation 13:5), where also it is connected with an Elijah-like man (Revelation 11:6). Compare also the last half of the seventieth seven in Daniel 9:27, although as Daniel pointedly makes it longer than three year and six months it makes this last comparison doubtful (Daniel 12:11-12).

Thus here was a man who underwent trial and triumphed through faith, demonstrating the power of prayer in one who believed.