Commentaria in III Regum
Again, Galaad was fertile in resin, balm and other spices, from which plasters and medicines are made to cure diseases and wounds. Hence it represents the Prophets, who, like spiritual physicians, cure the wounds and sicknesses of souls. This is what Jeremias says, chapter 8, verse 22: “Is there no balm in Galaad, or is there no physician there? Why then is not the wound of the daughter of my people closed?” Whence the Chaldee Paraphrast there renders, I longed for the teaching of Elias the prophet, who was of Galaad, whose words were medicines. Elias and Eliseus, therefore, as they dwelt on Carmel, at Bethel, Jericho and Galgala, so also dwelt in Galaad, to lead the inhabitants to the true worship of God, that “where sin abounded, grace might abound more,” Romans 5:20, and therefore in these places he established colleges of disciples, who are therefore called “sons of the prophets”: to them belongs that of Canticles 4:1: “Thy hair is as flocks of goats, which come up from mount Galaad.” For this reason Elias, about to be taken up to heaven, went round these colleges at Bethel, Jericho, Galgala, etc., 4 Kings 2, to bid farewell to his disciples and to confirm them in the pursuit of the austere eremitical and cenobitical life. So Abulensis.
AS THE LORD THE GOD OF ISRAEL LIVETH, IN WHOSE SIGHT I STAND, THERE SHALL BE NEITHER DEW NOR RAIN THESE YEARS, BUT ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH.—There is no doubt that Elias, burning with zeal, first admonished King Achab to abandon the worship of Baal and worship the true God: but when he turned a deaf ear, Elias went from words to blows, and struck the whole land with barrenness, that Achab and the idolaters might learn that not Baal, as they thought, but the true God gives rain, harvest and the other goods of the earth, and so should call upon Him to obtain these, not Baal; he says therefore: “As the Lord liveth,” that is, I swear by the life of God, that there shall be no rain to make the earth fruitful, except according to my good pleasure, namely when I by my prayers shall open heaven to rain, as now by my prayers I have shut it: for that Elias obtained all this from God by prayers James teaches in his epistle, chapter 5, verse 17: “Elias,” he says, “was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded her fruit.”
IN WHOSE SIGHT I STAND.—The Septuagint, before whom I have stood; the Chaldees, before whom I minister, as if to say: I always have God present in mind, and strive to adore, praise and revere Him, and to please Him in all things, and therefore I have called and do call upon Him, to grant me this power of shutting and loosing the rains, to overthrow the worship of Baal, as in fact He granted. For Elias would not swear that it would be so, had not God granted it to him, and made him as it were lord of the air. Whence Eucherius exclaims: “Great is the power of the prophetic dignity: the speech is human, the effect divine. A man speaks on earth, and the heavenly powers obey his command. One word of the prophet moved all creation, and, sounding in a wondrous way upon the ground, shook the air and the sky; the order of human ministry was disturbed, and the harmony of the elements established from ages dissolved, when moisture was denied to the dry, and cold to the hot: but the elements gladly receive their penalty, provided it profits either the salvation of men or the honour of the Creator.”
IF THERE SHALL BE DEW AND RAIN THESE YEARS.—In Hebrew the particle is the same as “not.” The Author of the Wonders of Holy Scripture gives the reason, book 2, chapter 15: “That those who had provoked God by evils on earth might lack the clemency and the favourable condition of the air.”
BUT ACCORDING TO THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH,—so that there shall be no rain, except when I shall bring it by my words and prayers. St. Chrysostom, in homily 4 On Elias, speaking oratorically, says that out of rigid zeal for avenging idolatry he was unwilling that the matter should be left to God (whom he knew to be merciful, easily bent by prayers to grant pardon and rain), but wished it reserved to himself; since he had already hardened his mind not to give pardon or rain to the idolaters. Wherefore he wearied God with prayers until He granted him this, and having obtained it he constantly and severely declared: I swear by God that it shall not rain except when I shall will: and I will not, except when the priests of Baal are slain, and the worship of Baal overthrown, as is plain from chapter 18, verse 41. So St. Chrysostom, who in homily 2, graphically depicting this, says: “When Elias, the most holy prophet, beheld the people transgressing, and saw Baal and the groves worshipped by sacrilegious men, the Lord being despised; and when the whole people, the Creator being despised, had devoted themselves to idols and woods; moved by zeal for God, he sentenced the land of Judea to drought and the barrenness of rains. Then suddenly the earth gasps, the sky is dried up, all thirst, the fountains fail, all moisture seeks the depths and leaves the heights, the air burns, clear weather torments, calm is a punishment, the nights are sultry, the days parched, the crops are scorched, the trees sicken, etc., the whole creature testifies to the wrath of God.”
3. HIDE THYSELF BY THE TORRENT OF CARITH.—For King Achab will seek thee, as the author of the barrenness, and if he finds thee, will kill thee. Flee therefore and hide, lest the cause of the drought be turned back upon thy head. The torrent Carith descends from the mountains of Ephraim near the city Phalesum, whence near it were many caves and hollows into which Elias could hide himself.
Here, then, he lay hid for the three years of drought, fed by ravens. Whence in memory of it St. Helena built a church there, as Nicephorus testifies, book 8, chapter 30. Carith in Hebrew is the same as cutting off, cutting down, because here Elias cut down the shoots and crops of the earth by the dryness brought on by him. Whence St. Chrysostom, in the homily On Peter and Elias, says that Elias brought a fiery heat and as it were a fever upon the earth: “Scarcely,” he says, “had his word gone forth, when suddenly the air is changed, the sky became as brass, and the same word settled upon the inward parts of the earth like a fever. And at once all things withered, all things bristled with desolation and waste, the grasses were parched, the plants and trees together, both fruitful and barren.”
Menander, a Gentile historian, mentions this barrenness and famine, in Josephus, book 8, chapter 7, but uselessly and imperfectly, after the manner of the Gentiles when they speak of Jewish matters. For he says that this famine lasted one year only, whereas St. James, chapter 5, verse 17, asserts that it lasted three years and six months. This famine seems to have been only in Israel, for Elias was punishing its idolatry. Wherefore take what is said in Luke 4:25, that it was “in all the earth,” in an accommodated sense, namely in all the land subject to King Achab and contaminated by his sins of idolatry.
4. AND I HAVE COMMANDED THE RAVENS,—that is, I have ordained as one commanding, and implanted this instinct in them, to bring thee bread. So Cajetan.
6. THE RAVENS ALSO BROUGHT HIM BREAD AND FLESH IN THE MORNING, AND BREAD AND FLESH IN THE EVENING.—The raven is a voracious, inhuman, malicious bird; God therefore used the raven to feed Elias, to show that He commands all animals, and changes and turns their nature whither He pleases, and that for the saints, such as Elias was, all creatures serve and obey at God’s bidding. So ravens brought daily half a loaf to St. Paul the first hermit, and a whole one when St. Anthony came. Whence St. Paul, turning to him, said: “Lo, the Lord has sent us a dinner, truly good, truly merciful. It is sixty years since I have received daily a piece of half a loaf; now at thy coming Christ has doubled the allowance for His soldiers.” So St. Jerome in the Life of St. Paul.
St. Benedict, however, had a raven which at the hour of dinner was wont to come to him and take food from his hand; when the envious Florentius had sent him bread infected with poison, he ordered the raven to take it and carry it to a place where it could be found by no one: the raven obeying did this, as St. Gregory relates, book 2 of the Dialogues, chapter 8; the offspring of this raven still survives, and is continually fed by the Benedictines on Monte Cassino.
Moreover, as to why God used ravens rather than other birds the literal reason was that ravens love solitary places, and especially torrents, because they are of a very dry and hot nature. Whence Proverbs 30:17 it is said: “The eye that mocketh at his father, etc., let the ravens of the brooks pick it out.” He used ravens, therefore, as the birds most ready to hand, to feed Elias at the torrent Carith, that in so great a drought of all things he might take food from the raven and drink from the torrent. For water suffices for drink, and is the most natural drink, which all the ancients before Noe used.