May 9 Daily Devotional

1 Kings 18

The word of Elijah became true—for three years there was no rain nor dew in the land of Israel. The brooks ceased to flow, the grass on the hillsides withered, and the fields produced no harvests. The farmers looked at their cattle and flocks, but did not know what to feed them. Even the people in the land began to suffer from hunger.

King Ahab was in trouble. He knew that Elijah was connected with the famine. He sent out messengers to search for the missing prophet, but no trace of him could be found. One day in the third year of the drought, Ahab called his chief servant. His name was Obadiah; he was a man who feared God. Once, when Jezebel sought to kill the prophets of God, Obadiah hid one hundred of them in caves, provided food for them, and kept them in safety.

And Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts.” So the two separated: Ahab went one way, Obadiah another way. Obadiah had not gone far, and behold, Elijah met him. Obadiah knew the prophet at once. He fell on his face before him and said, “Art thou that my lord Elijah?” The prophet replied, “I am: go, tell thy Lord, Behold, Elijah is here.”

Obadiah was afraid to obey the command of the prophet. He feared that Elijah would disappear during the time he reported to the king and that his life might be in danger. So he said, “What have I sinned, that thou wouldst deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee … And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me.” Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today.”

So Obadiah turned and hurried back to overtake his ruler and to tell him the important news. When Ahab heard that the prophet had been found, he no longer was interested in finding pasture for his horses and mules; he desired to see the man who had dared to bring so much trouble upon him and upon his people. He was responsible, so Ahab believed, for the existing confusion.