Anonymous · 600 BCE · exile

1 Kings 17 to 19. A prophet announces a drought to Ahab and then has to live through it, fed by ravens at a brook and by a widow with a handful of flour. He wins the contest on Carmel outright, and then a message from the queen sends him running four hundred miles south to hide in a cave.

1. 1
   The brook Cherith

   He tells the king there will be no rain except at his word, and is then told to go and hide east of the Jordan - drinking from a stream and fed by ravens morning and evening until the stream dries up like everything else.

2. 2
   Zarephath

   North into Phoenician territory, Jezebel's own country, to a widow gathering sticks for a last meal before she and her son starve - and the jar of flour and the jug of oil that do not run out.

3. 3
   Mount Carmel

   Four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal against one man, two bulls and a day of shouting and self-cutting - and then water poured over the altar three times, and fire, and rain coming up from the sea like a man's hand.

4. 4
   Beersheba

   Jezebel sends word that he will be dead within a day, and the man who has just faced down a kingdom runs the length of the country and leaves his servant behind - and sits under a broom tree asking to die.

5. 5
   Horeb

   Forty days south to the mountain of the Exodus, and a cave. The wind, the earthquake and the fire, and God in none of them - and then the low voice, and a question he has no good answer to: what are you doing here.

6. 6
   Abel-meholah

   Sent back the way he came with three names to anoint, he finds Elisha ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen and throws his cloak over him - and the succession is arranged in a field, without a word being recorded.