They had
prayed to the sun and moon; and this was the fruit of their prayers--
that their prayers had not been heard: but instead of rain and
plenty, was drought and barrenness;--carcasses of cattle scattered
over the pastures--every village full of living skeletons, too weak
to work (though what use in working, when the ground would yield no
crop?)--crawling about, their tongues cleaving to the roof of their
mouths, in vain searching after a drop of water. Fearful and
sickening sights must Obadiah have seen that day, as he rode wearily
on upon his pitiful errand. And the thought of what a pitiful
errand he was going on, and what a pitiful king he served, must have
made him all the more miserable; for, instead of turning and
repenting, and going back to the true God, which was the plain and
the only way of escaping out of that misery, that wretched King Ahab
seems to have cared for nothing but his horses.
We do not read that he tried to save one of his wretched people
alive. All his cry was, 'Go into the land, to all fountains of
water and all brooks; perhaps we shall find grass enough to save the
horses and mules alive: that we lose not all the beasts.' The
horses were what he cared for more than the human beings, as many of
those bad kings of Israel did.
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