1 Kings 18:4 (DRB)

Passage

For when Jezabel killed the prophets of the Lord, he took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty and fifty in caves, and fed them with bread and water.

Nearby Context

1 Kings 18:2 And Elias went to shew himself to Achab, and there was a grievous famine in Samaria.

1 Kings 18:3 And Achab called Abdias the governor of his house: now Abdias feared the Lord very much.

1 Kings 18:4 For when Jezabel killed the prophets of the Lord, he took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty and fifty in caves, and fed them with bread and water.

1 Kings 18:5 And Achab said to Abdias: Go into the land unto all fountains of waters, and into all valleys, to see if we can find grass, and save the horses and mules, that the beasts may not utterly perish.

1 Kings 18:6 And they divided the countries between them, that they might go round about them: Achab went one way, and Abdias another way by himself.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "jezabel", "killed", "prophets", "lord", "took", "hundred", and "fifty". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "jezabel" and "killed", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 3's "And Achab called Abdias the governor of..." into verse 5's "And Achab said to Abdias Go into...", so "jezabel" and "killed" belong inside that flow. In 1 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "jezabel" and "killed" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.