I Kings 17: 4,7: “And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” 7.“And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”

There was a great drought in the land and God sent his prophet into hiding from King Ahab and Jezebel. God led him down to Jordan where He feed him and provided water.  This was a lot more than most people in the land had. Yet three verses later we learn that the brook dried up.

Did God ever give you something and then sort of like take it away. Maybe it was a job that you enjoyed for a while and then you lost the job. Maybe it was a relationship or a financial blessing As Job declared. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21. The brook dried up because the Lord had to move Elijah onto a new assignment. Old Elijah went from preaching to Kings to ministering to one poverty stricken widow.

Can you imagine that, the great Elijah, the man whom God would use to preach to Kings, to call fire from heaven, who could pray and stop the rain, is called to travel miles and miles to minister to an unknown, forgotten widow. Not only that, this old boy was just as destitute as the widow woman. He had no water, he had no food. This was the great Elijah, personal friends with Obadiah, a well to do man with a steady job with the king.  Why didn’t he help his old buddy out.  Say, how about the 7,000 faithful who never bowed a knee to Baal. They could have collected an offering for their old preacher.  Instead, God sends him to a woman who is poorer than he is to sustain him after the brook dried up. Elijah was in need of a miracle just as much as she was.  Oh, and here is the kicker, she was not even a believer. She lived in a Phoenician town. She was not a Hebrew. Yet, God somehow was able to speak to her, let her know that a man of God would come into her town and would bring a miracle of bread.  I have a friend, who receives these devotionals, whose brook dried up. He mentioned a job possibility in, oh my gosh, secular employment. He was hesitant to pursue that job as it meant leaving the ministry. Well, he might just be in the same situation as Elijah. Ministry possibilities to the kings and princes were not just available and maybe God has commanded a widow to sustain him for a while.

Oh, but there is something else, let’s back up a minute.  As Elijah was hiding out from Ahab, God provided him with food from ravens. That is a little strange considering ravens are not kosher. Doves could have done the job just as well. Taking a closer look at this word for ravens it is avarim it could just as easily be rendered The Arabians. The Masoretic text decided on a vowel pointing that renders this as ravens and the church, for whatever reason, ran with this rendering for the last 1700 years. Of course the Dead Sea Scrolls has recently proven that the Masoretic text is not as accurate as our Christian scholars once believed.

I am not saying the rendering is wrong, I am just asking that you step outside the box and consider an alternative. I like the rendering of Arabians because, for one reason, it fits. I know it deprives Sunday teachers all over the world of a cute little story and my apologies. Like I said, this is just an alternative I could be wrong, it won’t be the first time. However, this just might explain how this widow woman heard of the Hebrew God.  The Arabians who feed Elijah probably sat around listening to his teachings and spread them throughout the land. This widow woman heard the teachings, prayed to this Hebrew God and God heard her and called her to care for his prophet. I also like this rendering because then it would suggest that Elijah was not put on the shelf when his ministry closed down, but God just opened a door to foreign missions and created no little stir throughout the land.

I also like this rendering because it suggest that God just did not deal with the Hebrew people only in the Old Testament, but he was always reaching out to all mankind. He had his missionaries and evangelist spreading the word.

Finally I like this rendering because it shows me that even if I do not have a ministry that I feel I was called to, God will still be using me to reach out to some ‘avarims Arabians and if my brook dries up, it is not an unfortunate event, he is just moving me to a new assignment. It may be to kings or it may be to a poverty stricken widow, no matter, the Lord choses the assignments, not me.

I was once so stubborn that I was just going to minister where I wanted and where I felt comfortable.  The Lord dealt rather harshly with that attitude so when it creeps in and suggest that maybe I should hold out for a better deal in ministry I just quote The Raven, “Never more.”