1 Kings 19:8

1Ki 19:8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

Ver. 8. And he arose, and did eat and drink.] Let us do the like at the Lord’s supper, where to be a holy glutton is a great virtue.

Forty days and forty nights.] So long fasted Moses, Elias, and Christ; which three great fathers met afterwards gloriously in mount Tabor.

Unto Horeb the mount of God.] To this mount from Beersheba is reckoned fourscore miles; so that the prophet needed not to have been so long in going thither; but for safety’s sake, he might haply make many turnings, and fetch many bouts, through pathless places, to shun the pursuers; and whether he at first intended to go to Horeb, who can tell?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki_19:8

And went in the strength of that meal forty days.

Elijahs repast

I. The prophets repast.

1. The sacramental feast is alike simple and plain.

2. Yet is this a mysterious repast.

II. The peculiar unworthiness of the prophet on this occasion.

1. The Lords Supper is a repast prepared for sinners!

2. True, they must be penitent, broken-hearted sinners.

3. It is for the weary, burthened, troubled servants of Jesus.

III. The great benefit which the prophet derived from this repast, although he was so unworthy.

1. Spiritual benefits are not necessarily so attached to the Christian feast. (F. Close, M. A.)

Thought, on life

This incident suggests three things.

I. An undesirable possibility in human life. The fact that a man lived forty days and forty nights without food, certainly impresses us with the possibility of his being kept in existence without food for ever. The possibility is obvious. But such a state would clearly be very undesirable. Were men to continue here without food, a disastrous inactivity would ensue. Want of food keeps the world in action, keeps the limbs and faculties of men going. What would life be without action? a weak and worthless thing.

II. The supporting element of all life. What is it that kept Elijah alive without food? The will of God, nothing else; and this is that which supports all created existences every moment. Man cannot live by bread alone. Gods will can starve men with bread, and sustain them without it. It is He, not material substances, not food, that sustains life. He may do it with means, or without means, according to His pleasure. Let us not trust in means or secondary causes, but in Him who is the Fountain of Life.

III. The Divine care of a godly life. That God takes care of His people individually is

(1) Accordant with reason;

(2) taught by Scripture;

(3) attested by the experience of the good. (Homilist.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Ki 19:8. He went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights — Observe here, how many different ways God took to keep Elijah alive: he was fed by ravens, by a miraculous increase of meal and oil, by an angel, and now, to show that man lives not by bread alone, he is kept alive forty days without meat, while in the mean time he was not resting and sleeping, which might have made him the less to crave sustenance, but continually traversing the mazes of the desert, a day for each year of Israel’s wanderings; yet he neither needs food, nor desires it. The place, no doubt, reminds him of the manna, and encourages him to hope that God would sustain him here, and in due time bring him hence, as he did Israel. Unto Horeb, the mount of God — Which, in the direct road, was not above four or five days’ journey from Beer-sheba: but he wandered, it seems, hither and thither in the wilderness, till the Spirit of the Lord led him, probably beyond his intention, to this noted mountain, that he might have communion with God in the same place where Moses had; the law, that was given by Moses, being revived by him.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19:8 Elijah’s determination to go to Mount Sinai took him on a journey of approximately 200 miles. The trip would not have required forty days and forty nights, so Elijah may have set a pace that was symbolic of Israel’s past. Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai, and Israel subsequently wandered in the wilderness for forty years (Num 14:33-34; Deut 1:2-3). Forty sometimes represented a period of full testing (Gen 7:4; Ps 95:10; Jon 3:4; Matt 4:1-2).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. Forty days and forty nights] So he fasted just the same time as Moses did at Horeb, and as Christ did in the wilderness.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(8) Forty days and forty nights.—Unless this time includes, as has been supposed by some, the whole journey to and from Horeb, and the sojourn there, it is far in excess of what would be recorded for a journey of some two hundred miles. It may, therefore, be thought to imply an interval of retirement for rest and solitary meditation, like the sojourn of Moses in Horeb, and the sojourn of our Lord in the wilderness (Exo_24:18; Mat_4:2) during which the spirit of the prophet might be calmed from the alternations of triumph and despondency, to receive the spiritual lesson which awaited him. During all that time he went “in the strength” of the Divine food, that he might know that “man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Deu_8:3).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. in the strength of that meat] As Moses had been forty days on Sinai and had taken no food with him, so now Elijah, who was to be in many ways a counterpart of Moses, is divinely sustained by the food which had been supplied to him while he rested. The fasting of Jesus at the time of His temptation lights up these Old Testament histories, which were meant to preach to former ages the lesson which the Lord emphasises, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’

forty days and forty nights] A great deal has been written to shew that the journey from the edge of the wilderness of Paran to Mount Horeb could not have occupied forty days, even of very slow walking. But there is nothing in the verse to make it necessary to suppose that the writer intended such a sense. Elijah was wandering in despondency and seeking to hide himself. The time spent was not what was required for the journey only, but far more in meditation and prayer, and seeking from God a reason why all the toiling and testimony, which the prophet had bestowed, had proved so unproductive. The spiritual conflict of Elijah prefigures the spiritual conflict of Jesus.

unto Horeb the mount of God] So called because, above all other places, it was distinguished through God’s manifestations of His power and glory. The LXX. (Vat.) does not represent ‘of God.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he arose, and did eat and drink,.... Of what was left of the cake and cruse of water, before provided for him:

and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God; for so long he was going to that place, though it might have been gone in three or four days; but he went in byways, and wandered about in the wilderness, as the Israelites did, and that for the space of forty days, as they did near forty years; and all this while he had no other sustenance than what he had taken under the juniper tree, from whence he set out, which must be supernatural; for it is said (t), a man cannot live without food beyond seven days; see Gill on Exo 24:18 the food either staying in his stomach all this while, or however the nutritive virtue of it, by which he was supported, and held out till he came to Horeb or Sinai; called the mount of the Lord, because here he had appeared to Moses in the bush, and from hence gave the law to the children of Israel. Abarbinel is of opinion that this term of forty days was consumed in his whole journey to Horeb, his stay there, and return to the land of Israel.

(t) Macrob. in Soma Scipion. l. 1. c. 6.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The old commentators generally understood this to mean that Elijah had no other food at all, and compared this long fast with that of Moses and that of our Lord (marginal references). But the words do not exclude the notion of the prophet’s having obtained such nourishment from roots and fruits as the desert offers to a wanderer, though these alone would not have sustained him.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

In the strength of that food, &c. This bread with which Elias was fed in the wilderness, was a figure of the bread of life, which we receive in the blessed sacrament [of the Eucharist]: by the strength of which we are to be supported in our journey through the wilderness of this world, till we come to the true mountain of God, and his vision in a happy eternity. (Challoner) --- Horeb signifies "a rock, or dry wilderness." (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

In the strength of that meat; God giving that food a far greater and more durable virtue than ordinary.

Unto Horeb: he wandered hither and thither for forty days, till at last he came to Horeb, which in the direct road was not above three or four days’ journey.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Forty days and forty nights — He was miraculously sustained. On the same mountain Moses had twice fasted this same length of time, (Exo_24:18; Exo_34:28,) and in another wilderness Jesus did the same.

Mat_4:2. “Elijah stands,” says Wordsworth, “at a middle point between Moses and Christ. He looks back to the law and forward to the Gospel. He restores the one and prepares the way for the other. He hears an echo of the terrors of the law in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire; he hears the far-off whispers of love in the Gospel in the still small voice.”

Horeb the mount of God — See on Exo_3:1. It is remarkable that after the giving of the law there is no account of any Jew visiting this holy mount except Elijah.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights Cf. Exo_24:18 Exo_34:28; Deu_9:9, Deu_9:25; Jon_3:4; Mat_4:2; Act_1:3. But the primary reference is perhaps to the "forty days and forty nights" which Moses spent in Horeb, during which he "neither did eat bread nor drink water", (Deu_9:9) or to the forty years during which Israel was sustained in this same desert with "angels" food". (Psa_78:25) It is noteworthy how both Moses and Elias were precursors of our Lord in a forty days" fast. "The three great rasters met gloriously on Tabor" (Hall). It is not implied that it took the prophet the whole of this time to reach Horeb, which is only distant from Beer-sheba some 130 miles. "There are eleven days" journey from Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnes". (Deu_1:2) It is of course possible that he wandered aimlessly hither and thither during this period, but it seems better to understand the words of the whole of his desert sojourn unto Horeb the mount of God. See note on 1Ki_8:9. It is just possible that Horeb was already known as "the mount of God" at the time God appeared to Moses there the whole of the Sinaitic peninsula was sacred in the eyes of the Egyptians; but it is more probable that this designation is used in Exo_3:1 prophetically, and that it was Bestowed on the Mount of the Law because of the special revelation of the Godhead there. (Exo_3:6 Exo_19:3, Exo_19:11, Exo_19:18; Deu_1:6 Deu_4:10 Deu_5:2, etc.)

Went in the strength of that meat," etc. It is very noticeable how many miraculous feedings we have in Holy Scripture. Not only does the New Testament record a feeding, now of five thousand with five loaves, now of four thousand with seven loaves; (Mat_15:9, Mat_15:10) not only is one or other of these mentioned by all four evangelists (Mat_14:17; Mar_6:38; Luk_9:13; Joh_6:9; Mat_15:36; Mar_8:6) but the Old Testament, in addition to such narratives as those of 1Ki_17:14 sqq.; 2Ki_4:1-6, 42 sqq., tells of a miraculous supply of food which extended over forty years (Exo_16:14-35; Deu_8:3, Deu_8:4, Deu_8:16) Is not all this to teach us that man doth not live by bread alone? (Deu_8:3) Are they not rehearsals, adumbrations of the great mystery of our religion, of the true "bread from heaven which giveth life unto the world"? (Joh_6:32 sqq.) We too are journeying to Horeb, the mount of God. The home of our souls is the "mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense". (Son_4:6) And the journey is too great for us. Without Divine aid, without soul food, we shall faint by the way." But God has provided for us a gracious viaticum, a meat which the world knows not of, flesh which is meat indeed, blood which is drink indeed. (Joh_6:55)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And went - He wandered hither and thither for forty days, 'till at last he came to Horeb, which in the direct road was not above three or four days journey. Thither the spirit of the Lord led him, probably beyond his own intention, that he might have communion with God, in the same place that Moses had.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.