Being Fed by Ravens – Unclean Birds

[Posted February 5, 2022]

Hi Mike,

Hope you are well, quick question for you. In 1 Kings 17 we read that the prophet Elijah had his food brought to him by ravens. However, according to Leviticus 11 we are told the raven is an abomination unto us. So why did God choose to use an abominable bird to bring food to one of his prophets, and not just any prophet but the mighty prophet Elijah?

Thanks for the help, peace and blessings to you.

C____

Hi C____,

Thank you for your very thought-provoking question. It is true that the raven was declared to be unclean to Israel in Leviticus 11:

Lev 11:13  And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,
Lev 11:14  And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;
Lev 11:15  Every raven after his kind;

The fact is, that while Israel was told not to eat a raven, nothing is said that would preclude being fed by a raven.

Christ said that the fowl which consumed the seed before it could put down a root is “the wicked one”. That might make one think that therefore no wicked person can possibly be used by the Lord to tell the Truth. However, the Lord wants  us to know that is not the case.

Food in scripture symbolizes doctrines:

1Co 10:21  Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.

The devil’s table is furnished with the devil’s food – his lies and his false doctrines – of which we cannot partake, but the Lord can use the devil to speak His truth just as He used the wicked prophet Balaam to bless Israel when Balak, the king of Moab, had hired that wicked prophet to curse Israel.

Num 22:37  And Balak said unto Balaam, Did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee? wherefore camest thou not unto me? am I not able indeed to promote thee to honour?
Num 22:38  And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.

Num 24:10  And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times.

That is how the Lord Himself used “the wicked one”, Balaam, a wicked prophet to bless Israel just as He used a raven to feed Elijah.

Other examples of the Lord using a spiritual ‘raven’ to speak His Truth are the stories of the witch of Endor telling King Saul he would die the next day:

1Sa 28:19  Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.

The Lord also used a lying prophet to speak truth to a prophet who had listened to that lying prophet instead of being obedient to the voice of the Lord:

1Ki 13:11  Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.
1Ki 13:12  And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah.
1Ki 13:13  And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon,
1Ki 13:14  And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am.
1Ki 13:15  Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.
1Ki 13:16  And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place:
1Ki 13:17  For it was said to me by the word of the LORD, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.
1Ki 13:18  He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.
1Ki 13:19  So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.
1Ki 13:20  And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back:
1Ki 13:21  And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee,
1Ki 13:22  But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.
1Ki 13:23  And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
1Ki 13:24  And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase.
1Ki 13:25  And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
1Ki 13:26  And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the LORD: therefore the LORD hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake unto him.

In this story the Lord used a lying prophet to deliver a true prophecy to another prophet who had become weary in well doing and disobeyed the commandment of the Lord.

Therefore we must conclude that the only way to be sure of the value of the spiritual food we consume, is not by judging the messenger, but rather by judging the message, whether that message accords with the Lord’s commandments.

In fact, the Lord has even told us in advance that He would try us in this way to see if we would remain faithful to Him and His words, rather than listen to men who tell us to disobey the Lord.

Here is that prophecy:

Deu 13:1  If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
Deu 13:2  And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
Deu 13:3  Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 13:4  Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

The Lord wants us to be capable of discerning good spiritual food regardless of who the messenger is.

Peter himself was fed by an unclean Gentile when the Lord sent messengers from the house of the Roman Centurion to have Peter come and speak to him and his house. It was through what Christ called a spiritual ‘dog’ that Peter learned that Gentles were no longer to be counted as unclean:

Mar 7:26  The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
Mar 7:27  But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

Act 10:28  And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

The Lord is, to this very day, using the works of evil men to feed His people. Thayer has been used mightily of the Lord through his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Yet Thayer himself was an atheist. Being an atheist he was not beholden to any church doctrines, and many of the Greek words he defined were therefore untainted with the false doctrines that have replaced the Truth in the divided churches and man-made denominations of this world.

Christ and His body are not divided:

1Co 1:10  Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1Co 1:11  For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
1Co 1:12  Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1Co 1:13  Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

God has used the atheist, Thayer, to educate many of His people, just as He used that raven to feed Elijah.

That raven was used in the same way the “widow of Serepta” was used to feed Elijah. She, too, was an unclean Gentile woman, and Christ was almost thrown off a cliff for just pointing that fact out to the folks in his hometown of Nazareth in His first recorded sermon:

Luk 4:25  But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
Luk 4:26  But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
Luk 4:27  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
Luk 4:28  And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
Luk 4:29  And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
Luk 4:30  But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

In a sense, Elijah being fed by an unclean bird, a raven, foreshadows the gospel going to the ‘unclean’ Gentiles who are used by the Lord to feed His elect.

From Brown’s Driver Briggs Bible Dictionary:

– Original: כּלב
– Transliteration: Kaleb
– Phonetic: kaw-labe’
– Definition: Caleb = dog

It is prophetic that the only two people of the generation that left Egypt from twenty years and up who were granted to enter into the promised land were two men – the name of one being Josuha, which means ‘Savior’, and the name of the other was Caleb, which means ‘dog’. A Savior and a dog were the only people who were given to come out of Egypt and enter into the promised land.

I hope this sheds some light on why the Lord used a raven to feed Elijah. If the Lord can use a poisonous serpent as a type of Christ, He can also use a raven as a type of those who feed and give life to His people:

Num 21:8  And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
Num 21:9  And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

Joh 3:14  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
Joh 3:15  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

YbiC, Mike