The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 450

masc111.ine), in ver. 6 with a masculine, is oven, constructed in the sand or soil. A not the juniper, but the plant now known little hollow is made ; sometimes it is lined to the Arabs as retem, i.e., the broom (9enista with stones to retain the heat; fuel, often mono.,perma, or G. raetam), "the most the root of the genista, is placed upon it longed-for and most welcome bush of the and kindled, and when the sand or stones desert, abundant in beds of streams and are sufliciently hot, the embers are raked valleys, where spots for co.roping are to one side, and the dough is placed in the selected, o.nd men sit down o.nd sleep in oven, where it is sometimes covered with order to be protected against wind and the ashes. Hence the Vulgate cnlls it sub- sun" (Robinson, Pal. vol. i. p. 203). It does cinericius panis], and & cruse of water at not, however, afford a complete protect1on his head [i.e., the place of his head. Marg. (Thomson, L. and B. vol. ii. pp. 436, 437). bolster. The word is almost used as a. Every traveller remarks on its abundance in preposition. Cf. 1 Sam. xix:. 13 ; xxvi. 7). the desert ; it gave a name, Rithmah, to one And he did eat and dr'..:J.k, and laid him of the stations of the Israelites (Nu.m. xxxiii. down aga.l..D... [Heb. returned and laid dou:n.] 18. Cf. Stanley, S. and P. pp. 20, 79). Its Ver. 7.-And the angel of the Lord came roots are still used by the Bedouin, for the again the second time, and touched him manufacture of charcoal (of. Psa.. cxx. 4, [i.e., to o.waken him. It was the food was "coals of rethem "), which they carry to to strengthen him], and said, Artse and eat CairoJ : and he requested for himself [Heb. [Probably he had ea.ten but little the first asked as to his life, accusative of reference) time, for sorrow and weariness] ; because that he might die [Again like Moses, Num. the Journey is too great for thee. [The xi. 15 ; Exod. xxxii. 32) ; and said, It is LXX. or, 'll'OAAJ7 ,i,ri, O'OV •i /,li6!; o.nJ the enough [or, Let it be enou9h. LXX. lravou- Vulgate grandis eni111 tibi restat via, which 119w. See note on eh. xii. 28] ; now, 0 Lord, Biihr follows, seem hardly so true to the take away my life [" Strange contradiction I Hebrew idiom as the A. V. rendering. Keil Here the man who was destined not to taste cites Vata.blus, iter est majus qumnpro viribus of death, flees from death on the one hand tuis. It is very improbable that (Rawlinson and s~eks it on the other." Kitto] ; tor I al.) the journey to Horeb wo.s now suggested am not better than my fathers. [These to him for tile first time by the angel.] words clearly reveal the great hopes Elijah Ver. 8.-And he arose, and did eat and hnd formed as to the result of his mission, drink, and went in the strength of that and the terrible disappointment his banish- meat forty days and forty nlghts [Cf. ment had occasioned him. Time was when Exod. xxiv. 18; xxxiv. 28; Deut. ix. 9, 25; he had thought himself a most special Jonah iii. 4; M,itt. iv. 2; Acts i. 3. But messenger of Heaven, raised up to effect the primary reference is perha.ps to the the regeneration of his country. He now "forty dnys and forty nights'' wllich Moses thinks his work is fruitless, and he ho.s spent in lloreb, during which he" neither nothing to live for longer. Keil concludes did eat bread nor drink wa.ter" (Dout. ix. 9), from these words that Elijah was already or to the forty years during which Isro.el of a grent age, but this is extremely was susto.ined in this same desert with doubtful.] "angels' food" (Paa. hxviii. 25). It is Ver. 6.-A.nd as he lay and slept ["While noteworthy how both Moses nncl Elias death was onlled for, the cousin of death wero precursors of our Lord in o. forty comes unbidden " (Hall)] under a [Heb. days' fast. " The tbreo great fosters met one] Juniper tree, behold, then [Heb. i1J gloriously on Tabor" (Hn.11). It is not this; "behold here," sielie da, Gesen.], an implied that it took tho prophet tho whole angel [Heb. ,nessenger; the same word as in of this time to reach Horcb, which is only var. 2, but explained in ver. 7 to be a distant from Beersheba some 130 miles. messenger of God. Cf. Gen. xvi. 9 ; xxi. " There arc eleven days' journey from 17) touched [Hcb. touchin9] him, and said Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir to Kadosh unto him, Arise and eat. [Probo.bly he had Bamea" (Deut. i. 2). It is of oourso ea.ten little or nothing since leaving J ezreel. possible that he wandered aimlessly hither Food was now what he most needed. This and tllithcr during this period, but it scorns circumstance suggests that the profound better to understand the words of the whole depression betrayed in his prayer (ver. 4) of his desert sojourn J unto Horeb the mount was largely the result of physical weakness.] of God. [See note on oh. viii. 9. It is just Ver. 6.-Andhe looked, and, behold, there possible that Horeb was already known as was a cake [same word aa in eh. xvii. 13] "the mount of God" o.t the time Goll ap- baken on the coals [Heb. a cake of stones, or peared to Moses there-the wholo of the coals. LXX. lyKpv,pia,. The thin, flat bread Siuaitio poninsula was sacred in tho eyes of the East, especially among the nomadio of the Egyptians; but it is moro probable desert tribes, is constantly baked in a rude that this de~ignation is used in Exod, iii. 1  ,so THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [Oil, Xlx, 1-21.