But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
Went a day's journey into the wilderness - on the way from Beer-sheba to Horeb [a wide expanse of sand-hills, covered with the rotem (H7574) (not juniper, but broom shrub), whose tall and spreading branches, with their white leaves, afford a very cheering and refreshing shade]. 'The Rothem, or Retem,' says Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 1:, p. 299), 'is the largest and most conspicuous shrub of these deserts, growing thickly in the valleys and water-courses. Our Arabs always selected the place of encampment (if possible) in a place where it grew, in order to be sheltered by it at night from the wind; and during the day, when they often went on in advance of the camels, we found them not unfrequently sitting or sleeping under a bush of retem, to protect them from the sun. Its roots are very bitter, and are regarded by the Arabs as yielding the best charcoal. It was in this very desert, a day's journey from Beer-sheba, which gave the name to one of the stations of the ancient Israelites, that Elijah lay, down and slept beneath a shrub of that name.' [The Septuagint retains the original name, hupokatoo Rathmen, under a Rathman; Syriac, under a terebinth tree.] His gracious God did not lose sight of His fugitive servant, but watched over him, and miraculously ministering to his wants, enabled him, in a better, but not wholly right frame of mind, by virtue of that supernatural supply, to complete his contemplated journey.