1 Kings 18:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year— St. James, speaking of this event, says, that it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. Our blessed Saviour makes mention of a like compass of time, Luke 4:25.; and yet neither of these are contradictory to what the sacred history tells us, viz. that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year. For we must remember, that, as Egypt had usually no rain, but was watered by the river Nile, so the land of Canaan had generally none, except twice a year, which they call the early and latter rain. The former of these was in the month ניסן Nisan, which answers to our March, and the other in the month מרחשׁון Marcheshvan, which answers to our October. Now, at the beginning of the drought, Ahab might very probably impute the want of rain to natural causes; but when, after six months, neither the former nor the latter rain fell in their season, he began to be enraged at Elijah, as the cause of this national judgment, and forced him, at God's command, to save his life by flight: and from that time the three years of the historian are to be computed, though from the first notice which Elijah gave Ahab of this approaching calamity, to the expiration of it, was certainly three years and a half. This calamity is said to have been procured by Elijah's prayers; yet we must not therefore imagine that his prayers were spiteful and malicious, but necessary rather, and charitable to the offenders, that, by the sharp and long affliction which they produced, God's honour and the truth of his word and threatenings, now universally contemned, might be vindicated; and that the Israelites, whose present impunity hardened them in their idolatry, might hereby be awakened to see their wickedness, their dependence upon God, and the necessity of their returning to his religion and worship. See Bedford's Script. Chron. l. vi. c. 2. and Poole's Annotations.