translation_id: net-engnet

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “before whom I stand.”


text: Heb “except at the command of my word.”


text: Heb “commanded.”


text: Heb “to provide for you.”


text: Heb “So he went and did.”


text: Heb “And it came about at the end of days.”


text: Heb “Look, I have commanded.”


text: The Hebrew text also includes the phrase “in your hand.”


text: Heb “Look, I am gathering two sticks and then I will go and make it for me and my son and we will eat it and we will die.”


text: Heb “according to your word.”


text: Heb “and she ate, she and he and her house [for] days.”


text: Heb “after these things.”


text: Heb “What to me and to you, man of God, that you have come.”


text: Heb “to make me remember.”


text: Heb “you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is truly in your mouth.” sn This episode is especially significant in light of Ahab’s decision to promote Baal worship in Israel. In Canaanite mythology the drought that swept over the region (v. 1 ) would signal that Baal, a fertility god responsible for providing food for his subjects, had been defeated by the god of death and was imprisoned in the underworld. While Baal was overcome by death and unable to function like a king, Israel’s God demonstrated his sovereignty and superiority to death by providing food for a widow and restoring life to her son. And he did it all in Sidonian territory, Baal’s back yard, as it were. The episode demonstrates that Israel’s God, not Baal, is the true king who provides food and controls life and death. This polemic against Baalism reaches its climax in the next chapter, when the Lord proves that he, not Baal, controls the elements of the storm and determines when the rains will fall.