Elijah Prays About Rain

Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit. (James 5:17-18)^[35]

Elijah: An Unlikely Example

Toward the end of his Epistle, James exhorts his readers to pray with faith for the healing of the sick. When we read that “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16), we might have expected James to cite the example of Abraham.^[36] Genesis 20:17 might have served as the perfect prooftext: “Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech.” Citing Abraham as an example to prove that the prayer of faith offered by a righteous man is powerful would seem the obvious choice given the combination of faith and righteousness exhibited by Abraham (Gen. 15:6).^[37] The example of Elijah that was provided by James, however, seems less obvious and more difficult. Less obvious because the example of Elijah does not fit James’ case very neatly—What, after all, do prayers about rain have to do with prayers for healing?—and more difficult, because what James relates about Elijah—that he actually prayed that the rains would cease, that the drought lasted for three and a half years, and that finally he prayed that the rains would return—is not actually reported in the Hebrew Bible. Clearly there is something strange about the example of Elijah that is offered by James. In this article we will examine James’ treatment of Elijah in the light of ancient Jewish sources and attempt to understand what lies behind the surprising claims that James makes about the famous prophet.

A Man of Prayer

The most shocking element with regard to James’ treatment of Elijah surely must be the assertion that Elijah prayed about rain. According to 1 Kings 17:1, Elijah swore an oath before King Ahab that there would be a drought in the land: “As the LORD the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word,” but we do not learn that any prayer was uttered by the prophet. Similarly in 1 Kings 18:41, after the contest with the priests of Ba’al on Mt. Carmel, Elijah merely announced to Ahab that the rains would return, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” We do not read that the rains returned as a result of Elijah’s prayer. Thus while Scripture clearly indicates that it was Elijah who was responsible for the drought and, after three years, its cessation, in neither case does Scripture say that Elijah’s power over rain was in any way connected with prayer. Nevertheless, there are prayers that Scripture does attribute to Elijah. 1 Kings 17 reports how Elijah prayed on behalf of a widow’s dead son, and how, in response to his prayer, the child was restored to life. Elijah’s prayers are answered again in 1 Kings 18, when fire descends from heaven and consumes the offering on Mt. Carmel. Furthermore, it should be noted that from an early period there seems to be evidence that in Jewish tradition the number and importance of Elijah’s prayers was expanded. Already in the Wisdom of Ben Sira we read the following:

• ^[1] All quotations come from the Loeb Classical Library (Josephus, vol. 6 [R. Marcus trans.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press], 1937). ↩
• ^[2] Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets, in The Aramaic Bible, vol. 10 (Daniel J. Harrington and Anthony J. Saldarini trans.; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier Inc., 1987). ↩
• ^[3] B. Reicke, The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude, Anchor Bible, vol. 37 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), without recourse to the ancient sources, also concludes that Elijah’s prayer for rain, “Is the one uttered on Mount Carmel…the reader is expected to reconstruct the order of events for himself” (p. 61). ↩
• ^[4] All quotations of the Mishnah come from the translation of H. Danby (The Mishnah [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933]). Our mishnah describes the liturgy for public prayer in times of drought. Elijah is included among a whole company of biblical heroes, including Abraham, Joshua, Samuel, and David, who were answered by God (see below). According to a baraita in the Babylonian Talmud, there was a variant tradition in which "some...attribute 'crying' (צעקה) to Elijah and 'praying' (תפילה) to Samuel." The talmudic discussion finds this variant tradition hard to account for because in the case "of Samuel Scripture uses the words 'praying' and 'crying', but of Elijah Scripture uses only [the word] 'praying' but never 'crying.'"  The Talmud offers a solution by explaining that "[When Elijah says], Hear me, O Lord, hear me; that is an expression of 'crying'," (b.Ta'anit 17^a).  In fact, however, Scripture neither uses the word 'praying' nor 'crying' to describe Elijah's activity on Mt. Carmel.  Apparently for the Talmdists the tradition that Elijah's prayed on Carmel was so well established that it could be assumed, while creative exegesis was required to prove that Elijah cried out. Our mishnah requires further comment because which prayer of Elijah it refers to is not not made explicit. We have already discovered that Jewish tradition identified two prayers of Elijah on Mt. Carmel: a prayer for fire to descend and a prayer that the rains would return. It is therefore necessary to ascertain which of these prayers our mishnah had in mind. Fortunately, there is both internal and external evidence which can help us to arrive at an answer.  In the first place, the tradition preserved in m. Ta'anit 2:4 can be compared with the tradition already cited from 4 Ezra to support the hypothesis that the prayer referred to in our mishnah should be identified as Elijah’s prayer for rain. The two traditions are apparently related as we shall see when they are placed in parallel columns:

  4 Ezra 7:36[106]-41[111]	m.Ta’anit 2:4
  (1) I answered and said, “How then do we find that first Abraham prayed for the people of Sodom,	[Thus] after the first he says, ‘May he that answered Abraham our father in mount Moriah answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, redeemer of Israel!’
  (2) and Moses for our fathers who sinned in the desert,	After the second he says, ‘May he that answered our fathers at the Red Sea answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, that art mindful of things forgotten!’
  (3) and Joshua after him for Israel in the days of Achan,	After the third he says, ‘May he that answered Joshua in Gilgal answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, that hearest the blowing of the shofar!’
  (4) and Samuel in the days of Saul,	After the fourth he says, ‘May he that answered Samuel at Mizpah answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, that hearest them that cry!’
  (7) and Elijah for those who received the rain, and for the one who was dead, that he might live,	After the fifth he says, ‘May he that answered Elijah in Carmel answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, that hearest prayer!’
  (8) and Hezekiah for the people in the days of Senacherib,	After the sixth he says, ‘May he that answered Jonah in the belly of the fish answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou that answerest in time of trouble!’
  (5) and David for the plague, (6) and Solomon for those in the sanctuary,	After the seventh he says, ‘May he that answered David and his son Solomon in Jerusalem answer you and hearken to the voice of your crying this day.  Blessed art thou, O Lord, that hast compassion on the land!’
  and may others prayed for many?  If therefore the righteous have prayed for the ungodly now, when corruption has increased and unrighteousness has multiplied, why will it not be so then as well?

  In the columns above the order of the individuals cited in 4 Ezra has been rearranged to match the order of their appearance in the Mishnah, but the numbers in parenthesis indicate their original sequence in 4 Ezra. This presentation demonstrates that although the traditions preserved in m. Ta‘anit and 4 Ezra appear in very different contexts, their similarity is great. Both lists enumerate righteous individuals from Israel’s history whose prayers were heard by God. And as we observe, the two lists are nearly identical. With the exception of Moses vs. the forefathers at the Red Sea and Jonah vs. Hezekiah, the two lists are in full agreement with respect to the individuals who are included. Indeed, when we consider that Moses was also present at the Red Sea, and when we further take into account that parallel versions of our mishnah in the Tosefta and in the Babylonian Talmud do, in fact, make mention of Moses (as D. Levine has noted in “A Temple Prayer for Fast-Days,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Esther Chazon; Boston: Brill, 2003), 100, n. 11), then the only real discrepancy between the lists in our mishnah and in 4 Ezra is between Jonah and Hezekiah. The strong agreement between the two lists suggest that 4 Ezra and m. Ta’anit were both drawing on a common source.  Since that source was known to the author of 4 Ezra it is likely that it existed prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. Joseph Heinemann proposed on other grounds that the tradition found in m. Ta'anit 2:4 originated before the Temple's destruction (Prayer in the Talmud [New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977]; 108-110). Given the likelihood that a common source stands behind the lists in 4 Ezra and m. Ta'anit 2:4, we might suppose that since 4 Ezra identifies Elijah’s prayer as his prayer for rain, this is evidence that the prayer of Elijah mentioned in m. Ta'anit should likewise be identified as Elijah’s prayer for rain. Unfortunately, however, the situation is not quite so straight forward. Comparison of the two traditions reveals that although the lists show strong agreement between the individuals who are cited, there is less agreement with respect to which prayers of those individuals are cited. For example, both 4 Ezra and m. Ta'anit mention Abraham, but whereas 4 Ezra makes reference to Abraham’s intercession for Sodom, m.Ta'anit refers to Abraham’s prayer on mount Moriah. The differences between the two lists with respect to which prayers they reference can be accounted for by the contexts in which the lists appear.  The list in 4 Ezra is recited in protest by the visionary when he is told that on the day of judgement it will no longer possible for the righteous to intercede for the ungodly.  In response to this news, the visionary lists biblical examples of prayers offered by the saints on behalf of sinners. The visionary argues that if it was possible for the righteous to pray for the ungodly in the past, then it should continue to be possible to pray for sinners in the future. The list in m. Ta‘anit 2:4, by contrast, is part of the public liturgy for prayer in times of drought. The list draws attention to biblical examples of prayers that resulted in deliverance for the people of Israel.  In most of these examples God answered the prayers through natural phenomena. Thus Samuel’s prayer was answered when “the LORD thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines” (1 Sam. 7:10). Joshua's prayer, although difficult to identify, probably refers to the occasion when Israel’s enemies were struck down by hailstones (Joshua 10:11). (Scripture does not actually mention any prayer of Joshua at Gilgal, but Joshua 10:9 does describe how Joshua's troops surprised the enemy after an all-night march from Gilgal, and according to Ben Sira 46:5-6 “He called upon the Most High…and the great Lord answered him with hailstones of mighty power.”) Similarly, Solomon’s prayer in Jerusalem probably refers to his request that God hear the people’s prayer for rain in times of drought (1 Kgs. 8:35-36 = 2 Chr. 6:27-27). The list in m. Ta'anit highlights instances in which God answered prayer by exercising his mastery over nature. The lack of agreement between the two lists with respect to which prayers are referenced cautions us against drawing a hasty conclusion regarding the identification of Elijah's prayer in m. Ta'anit on the basis of the evidence from 4 Ezra. But this is where the internal evidence comes to our aid. Elijah’s prayer for rain perfectly fits the context of 4 Ezra which recalls the intercession of the righteous on behalf of the ungodly. 4 Ezra, in fact, recalls two prayers of Elijah: prayer for rain and prayer for the one who was dead.  This last prayer refers to Elijah’s prayer for the widow of Zarephath’s son. When her son died she reproached Elijah saying “You have come to bring my sin to remembrance” (1 Kings 17:18). Elijah’s prayer for rain was likewise intercessory. Elijah certainly did not regard the Children of Israel as worthy of the blessing of rain. On Horeb Elijah points out to God just how undeserving the Children of Israel are (1 Kgs. 19:10), and when he cries out to God on Mt. Carmel it is for God to prove to Israel that the LORD is turning back the hearts that have strayed from him. The context of m. Ta'anit, in which the prayers of the saints for the salvation of Israel in the past are invoked as the community prayed for rain in the present, likewise suggests that Elijah’s prayer for rain, and not his prayer for fire, is intended. It hardly seems likely that in a time of drought the people would be eager to remind God of his ability to send down fire, whereas reminding God how he answered Elijah’s prayer for rain would be entirely appropriate. Thus Elijah’s prayer for rain is one example where we would expect the lists in 4 Ezra and m. Ta'anit to agree. With Elijah, the themes of intercession from 4 Ezra, and of God’s mastery over nature from m. Ta'anit converge. Not one of the arguments for identifying Elijah’s prayer as his prayer for rain in m. Ta'anit is conclusive on its own. But taken together, the internal and external evidence seems to weigh in favor of the hypothesis that our mishnah did indeed intend to refer to Elijah’s prayer for rain. ↩

• ^[5] A. Pope and R. Buth explain that “the expression ‘to give someone the key(s)’ was understood by the Jews to mean giving that person authority,” (“Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven,” Notes on Translation 119 [1987], 13). See also L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society [2003]), 997, n. 12. ↩
• ^[6] Cf. y. Ta‘anit 1:1 [62^c-d], and b. Ta’anit 3^a-b. ↩
• ^[7] We also must note that according to The Lives of the Prophets Codex Q (Marchalianus) 21:5, “Elijah prayed, and it did not rain for three years, and after three years he prayed again and abundant rain came” (J. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (D. Hare trans.; New York: Doubleday, 1985). This passage, however, does not appear in other manuscripts of The Lives of the Prophets and it is usually considered a late addition. D. Satran (Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine: Reassessing the Lives of the Prophets [New York: E. J. Brill], 1995) writes that “the vitae of Elijah and Elisha…appear to have been adumbrated in Codex Q by long sections which depend directly and solely on the narratives from 1 and 2 Kings” (p. 51 n. 33; emphasis mine). This assertion is difficult to sustain when we recall that 1 Kings has no knowledge of Elijah praying about rain. Rather than relying on 1 Kings, The Lives of the Prophets may be relying on James 5:17-18. The wording and structure are remarkably similar, only the results of Elijah’s prayers differ in the two sources. Whereas James has relied upon traditional embellishments in his description of the results of Elijah’s prayers, The Lives of the Prophets adheres more closely to what we find in 1 Kings. ↩
• ^[8] J. Neusner (trans.), Talmud of the Land of Israel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). ↩
• ^[9] According to b. Ta'anit 3^a the Sages did not make prayer for dew obligatory since “we know that dew is never withheld.” This knowledge is derived from the incongruity between 1 Kings 17:1 and 18:1 and probably depends on the notion that Elijah’s prayer for the suspension of dew went unanswered. ↩
• ^[10] In b. Sanhedrin 113^a there is a midrash on 1 Kings 17, where we find that after declaring that there will be neither dew nor rain Elijah prayed, “and the key of rain was given him” (cf. b. Ta'anit 2^a-b). When the widow’s son died Elijah was compelled to return the key of rain to God in exchange for the key of resurrection since God said, "Three keys have not been entrusted to an agent: of birth, rain, and resurrection. Shall it be said, Two are in the hands of the disciple and [only] one in the hand of the Master?" ↩
• ^[11] For those who wished to emphasize Elijah’s prayerfulness, the two scriptural instances of Elijah’s effective prayers left something to be desired, since neither account explicitly uses the word prayer. Thus in the description of Elijah’s prayers for the widow’s son, although we are twice informed that Elijah “cried to the LORD” (1 Kgs. 17:20,21) and we are further told that “the LORD hearkened to the voice of Elijah” (v. 22) the word prayer itself is never actually used. Targum Yonatan to 1 Kings 17, however, replaces Elijah’s cries to the LORD with ”he prayed before the LORD" in vs. 20 & 21, and in v. 22 it states that the LORD received Elijah’s prayer (Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets The Aramaic Bible, vol. 10 (Daniel J. Harrington and Anthony J. Saldarini trans.; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier Inc., 1987). The biblical account of Elijah’s prayer on Mt. Carmel similarly fails to use the word prayer. Josephus resolves this difficulty by explicitly stating that Elijah “began to pray” (Ant. 8.13.5 §342). And, as we have seen above, Targum Yonatan has Elijah say, "Receive my prayer, Lord." What we have discovered then, is that the later retellings of Elijah’s story amplified the prophet’s prayerfulness both by emphasizing the prayers that Scripture admits, and by inventing prayers for him that Scripture did not mention. ↩
• ^[12] James, who wants not only to make Elijah a man of prayer like us, but a man who prayed effectively, avoids mention of the unanswered prayer for dew. ↩
• ^[13] M. Dahood “A Note on tob ‘Rain,” Biblica 54.3 (1973): 404. ↩
• ^[14] R. Gordon, “On BH tob ‘Rain’” Biblica 57.2 (1976): 111. ↩
• ^[15] Here I have followed the NIV since, in this instance, the translation is more literal and will help make matters clearer later on. I have, however, amended the translation to read “heavens” rather than “skies” for שמים for the sake of consistency. ↩
• ^[16] Kevin J. Cathcart and Robert P. Gordon (trans.), Targum of the Minor Prophets: The Aramaic Bible, vol. 14 (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989). ↩
• ^[17] J. Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989 [reprint from Oxford University Press, 1859]), 3:72-73. ↩
• ^[18] H. Guggenheimer (trans.), Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). ↩
• ^[19] H. Freedman and M. Simon (trans.), Midrash Rabbah, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Soncino, 1977). ↩
• ^[20] Cf. B. Thiering, “The Three and a Half Years of Elijah,” Novum Testamentum, 23.1 (1981): 42-43. ↩
• ^[21] Esther Rabbah 2.2 attests to a variant in the tradition; here the length of the drought is counted as 14 months (one full year with one month on either end). The parallel in Yalkut Shimeoni has 18 months. ↩
• ^[22] J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (AB28; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 1:538. ↩
• ^[23] The best reason for supposing that the three years and six months of Elijah’s drought are derived from apocalyptic sources is the testimony of Revelation 11 wherein the two witnesses shut up the heavens for the period of their prophesying which equals three and a half years. Many scholars have identified the two witnesses as Moses and Elijah based on the miracles they performed (Cf. D. Flusser, “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988], 421-422; R. Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993], 275). Two of the miracles, the consuming fire and shutting the heavens, are strongly reminiscent of Elijah. Rather than seeing the three and a half years of drought as an apocalyptic number, however, it is more likely that this span was another clue provided by the revelator for the identification of the witnesses. ↩
• ^[24] See, for example, Lightfoot, Commentary on the New Testament,  74-75) and E. Bishop, “Three and a Half Years,” The Expository Times 61.4 (1950): 126-127. ↩
• ^[25] Lightfoot, Commentary on the New Testament, 73. ↩
• ^[26] See above, note 9. In Zechariah 10:1 the prophet advises the people of Israel to “Ask rain from the LORD in the season of the spring rain.” ↩
• ^[27] We will also note that James exhibits knowledge of the agricultural cycle of rains which prevail in the land of Israel by referring to “the early and the late rain” in 5:7. See P. Davis “Palestinian Traditions in the Epistle of James,” in James the Just and Christian Origins (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 47-48. ↩
• ^[28] So for example when in Genesis 24:55 Rebekah’s family requests that “the maiden remain with us a while (ימים), at least ten days," the Babylonian Talmud asks, “What could be meant by yamim? If it be suggested ‘two days’, do people, [it might be retorted,] speak in such a manner? [If when] they suggested to him two days he said no, would they then suggest ten days? Yamim must consequently mean a year” (b. Ket. 57^b, cf. Targum Onkelos and Targum Pseudo-Yonatan to Gen. 24:55). Similarly, when in Numbers 9:22 the movements of the Mishkan are described and we are told that “Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time (ימים), that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, abiding there, the people of Israel remained in camp and did not set out; but when it was taken they set out," the Targumim read, “Whether it be two days or a month, or a complete year” (so Pseudo-Yonatan, cf. Onkelos). ↩
• ^[29] In halakhic contexts, however, ימים רבים can have a very different meaning. Leviticus 15:25 states that “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days (ימים רבים), not at the time of her impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness…" For the Rabbis it was important to specify just how many ‘many days’ were, accordingly we find that “It was taught in the school of R. Hiyya: ‘days’ (ימים) means ‘two days,’ ‘many days’ (ימים רבים) means ‘three days’” (Lev. R. 19.5; cf. Targum Ps-Y to Lev. 15:25; b. Ket 75^a; b. Git. 46^a; Est. R. 2.2). See further Guggenheimer’s (cited above, n. 20) helpful discussion (p. 6, n. 5). ↩
• ^[30] See note 31 above. ↩
• ^[31] The same might be said for the three and a half years associated with Elijah in Revelation 11. ↩
• ^[32] S. Safrai, “Teaching of Pietists in Mishnaic Literature,” Journal of Jewish Studies 16 (1965): 15-33; “The Pharisees and the Hasidim,” Sidic Journal of the Service International de Documentation Judeo-Chretienne 10.2 (1977): 12-16; “Jesus and the Hasidic Movement,” Proceedings of the 10th World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division B, vol. 1 (1990): 1-7 (Hebrew); “Jesus and the Hasidim,” JerPersp 42-44 (1994): 3-22. ↩
• ^[33] Epiphanius, a bishop of the late 4th century, records the fascinating tradition that James himself "once...raised his hands to heaven and prayed during a drought, and heaven immediately gave rain," (Panarion 78:14). Does this traditon describe an historical event or did it originate from the statements about Elijah's prayer in James' Epistle? Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra has suggested that Epiphanius' testimony was part of a later Christian attempt to portray James as a high priest (The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 246 ff.).  But might the tradition that James prayed for rain have been incorporated from another source, one that described his affinities with the Hasidim? Huub van de Sandt compared the Epistle of James to the literature of the pious Jewish Sages in "James 4,1-4 in the Light of the Jewish Two Ways Tradition 3,1-6” Biblica 88.1 (2007): 39-63; and idem, "Law and Ethics in Matthew's Antitheses and James's Letter: A Reorientation of Halakah in Line with the Jewish Two Ways 3:1-6” in Matthew, James, and Didache: Three Related Documents in their Jewish and Christian Setting (ed. Sandt and Zangenberg; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008): 315-338. ↩
• ^[34] I would like to thank Dr. Serge Ruzer for helping me to clarify this point. ↩
• ^[35] This article is dedicated to my wife, Lauren Sue. All biblical quotations are taken from the RSV unless otherwise noted. ↩
• ^[36] An earlier form of this article was presented as a seminar paper to Dr. Serge Ruzer to fulfill the course requirement for Reading the New Testament as Second Temple Literature, a graduate course offered at the Hebrew University in 2006-2007. I would like to thank Dr. Ruzer for his many helpful suggestions, and especially for challenging me to consider how the figure of Abraham should be considered in this context. Responsibility for the content of this article, however, is mine. ↩
• ^[37] See my article, “The Approval of Abraham: Traditions of God’s Acceptance of Abraham in Early Jewish and Christian Sources.” ↩