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It's really quite interesting. The part about caves in today's featured story really figures into the Bible just as an aside. The writer of 1 Kings is about to introduce Obadiah, and then chronicle Obadiah's conversation with Elijah, but first the writer puts in parentheses that Obadiah hid 100 of God's prophets in two caves.
What?
When I read over that, I knew that I had to come back for further study. This sounded way too interesting!
Well before we get too deep into all of this, let's read the Bible, specifically we'll be focusing on 1 Kings 18 today. First, let's read v. 3-4:
"(Obadiah was a devout believer in the Lord. While Jezebel was killing off the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)"
Do you know the background here? Well, if you don't, let me give some:
Ahab the king of Israel and his wife Jezebel the queen of Israel were the worst royalty to ever reign on Israel's throne. (now remember, when we say "Israel" we're talking about the ten northern tribes, see my Rehoboam articles to learn why they separated from the other two tribes.) Instead of promoting worship of the true God, this ungodly pair encouraged--no, insisted on--idol worship in the form of Baal. Baal shrines and altars were set up everywhere, and everyone was told to worship at them.
Finally, it got bad enough that God sent Elijah on in to Ahab. In the boldness of God, Elijah just stomps his way to Ahab, says "hey king, there's gonna be no more rain 'till I say so!", and POOF! Elijah disappears. Since then (it's been about three years), Ahab has sent search parties to the four corners of the earth, but no one has been able to find Elijah. The other thing that I should mention is that Elijah's word has come true--a huge famine and drought has come upon the land, everyone is dying, and no one has any hope of it stopping because no one can find Elijah, who apparently is the only one who can stop this disaster!
Obadiah was Ahab's palace administrator. At the start of this story, Ahab and Obadiah are out looking for a last few bits of grass to feed their animals. Ahab has gone off in one direction, Obadiah in the other. Then suddenly Elijah shows up, and tells Obadiah to go fetch Ahab!
But I'm getting ahead of myself...we'll return to this story next week. What I'd like to talk about now is caves! At about this point in Scripture we learn that Obadiah has hidden one hundred of God's prophets in two caves...and constantly supplied food and water to all of them, too. Do you really realize the magnitude of what Obadiah was doing? He could easily die if either Ahab or Jezebel found out. As mentioned earlier, Jezebel was killing off every one of God's true prophets that she possibly could. What do you think she would've done if she had found out that one of her top guys is disobeying her? Not to mention the fact that Obadiah had to ferry out, three times a day most likely, food for one hundred hungry men! Sure, if anyone had food the palace would have food. And Obadiah being palace administrator did help.
But still...that was some risky--right, but risky--moves for Obadiah to take. He could get killed for what he was doing! But Obadiah believed in God, and somehow God must have impressed him that this was what God wanted him to do. He was bold. He was brave. Obadiah did what God wanted him to do, even though it meant a constant threat to his own life.
Are we bold for God, too? Are we brave? Do we do the right thing no matter what, even with our personal Ahabs and Jezebels lurking about? I think these are good questions for all of us to contemplate on throughout the coming week.
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