“ And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, Behold, Elijah.' ”
And now Elijah was sending him to make his announcement to Ahab. But how did he know that if he did so Elijah would be found?
1 Kings 18:12 a “And it will come about, as soon as I am gone from you, that the Spirit of YHWH will carry you where I know not, and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find you, he will kill me.”
For such was Elijah's reputation that he feared that as soon as he had left Elijah the Spirit of YHWH would whisk him off somewhere, so that when Ahab came to seek him, Elijah would have gone, and the messenger who had brought the news would suffer accordingly. It may well be that Obadiah knew of cases where this had happened.
(This may suggest that all kinds of rumours had built up when Elijah had been unable to be found anywhere. Surely, the people were saying, it could only be because YHWH Himself kept removing him away out of sight by His Spirit. An aura was clearly growing up around Elijah, The author wants us to compare the facts as he has revealed them with these wild suppositions, although in a way, of course, it was true. YHWH had taken Elijah to places where he could not be found. But not quite so spectacularly. It is man who glories in the spectacular).
1 Kings 18:12 b “But I your servant fear YHWH from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of YHWH, how I hid a hundred men of YHWH's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, Behold, Elijah,' and he will kill me.”
He asked Elijah to consider the fact that he himself was a true worshipper of YHWH and had been from his youth, and reminded him of how he had saved a hundred prophets of YHWH by hiding them in a number of caves (with which Israel was plentifully supplied). And now Elijah was asking him to take a message which could put him in jeopardy of his life.
‘ And Elijah said, “As YHWH of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.”
But Elijah assured him that he need not fear, for as truly as YHWH was the living God, and he was His servant who stood before Him (as Obadiah did before Ahab) he would show himself to Ahab that very day.
The title ‘YHWH of hosts' occurs regularly in Samuel (see especially 1 Samuel 17:45, but compare also Joshua 5:14 where the idea is clearly in mind). It probably came to prominence in the wars with the Philistines, as Israel sought to bolster up their faith in YHWH as their Deliverer. The Philistines were mighty, but with YHWH's assistance YHWH's hosts were mightier. By Elijah's time those hosts included all the hosts of Heaven (2 Kings 2:10-11; 2 Kings 6:17), and probably creation itself (Genesis 2:1). But the main point is to emphasise that YHWH of hosts, the God of the confederation of Israel from of old, is on his side.
‘ So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.'
‘ And it came about, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”
We are not told whether Elijah took any special safety precautions by standing on some inaccessible crag, or something similar. The details are not given. But when Ahab saw Elijah he cried out, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” All Ahab's efforts to find Elijah, together with his words here, indicate that underneath, in his heart. Ahab knew that it really was Elijah and YHWH who were responsible for the famine. Otherwise why be so concerned about them? But it is an indication of the folly and hardness of men's hearts that he did not repent, or consider changing his ways. Sinful man is always illogical in his dealings with God. This was in total contrast with David who always responded to such things by seeking God (2 Samuel 21:1)
‘ And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you, and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of YHWH, and you have followed the Baalim.” '
For as Elijah then pointed out, it was not he who was troubling (bringing disaster on - compare Genesis 34:30; Joshua 6:18; Joshua 7:25) Israel but Ahab. It was because Ahab and his father's house had forsaken the commandments of YHWH and were following ‘the baalim' (a deliberately contemptuous reminder of the plurality and insignificance of Baal images) that this disaster had come on Israel. There was no one apart from Ahab and the people themselves to blame.