1 Kings 18 · a question people ask
"In the third year" (18:1), or "three years and six months" (Luke 4:25)?
1 Kings says, "After many days, the LORD’s word came to Elijah, in the third year" (18:1). The chapter doesn't say from when the third year is counted. Elijah had told Ahab there would be no dew nor rain "these years, but according to my word" (17:1). In the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16) Jesus spoke of "the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land" (Luke 4:25). James (James 1:1) writes that Elijah "prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months" (James 5:17). None of these verses explains how "the third year" and "three years and six months" fit together, and readers have explained them in more than one way. These notes set the verses side by side and don't choose.
The verses
“After many days, the LORD’s word came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain on the earth.””
“Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.””
“He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.”
“But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land.”