Such was the man who delivered to Ahab in one sentence his tremendous message: "As Jehovah, God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand"--such was the introductory formula, which became proverbial, and which authenticated the prophecy--"There shall not be dew[611] nor rain these years but according to my word." The phrase "to stand before Jehovah" was used of priests: it was applicable to a prophet in a far deeper and less external sense.[612] Drought was one of the recognised Divine punishments for idolatrous apostasy. If Israel should fall into disobedience, we read in Deuteronomy, "the Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee--until thou be destroyed"; and in Leviticus we read, "If ye will not hearken, I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass." The threat was too significant to need any explanation. The conscience of Ahab could interpret only too readily that prophetic menace. The message of Elijah marked the beginning of a three, or three and a half years' famine. This historic drought is also mentioned by Menander of Tyre, who says that after a year, at the prayer of Ethbaal, the priest and king, there came abundant thunder showers. St. James represents the famine as well as its termination as having been caused by Elijah's prayer.[613] But the expression of the historian is general. Elijah might pray for rain, but no prophet could, _proprio motu_, have offered up a prayer for so awful a curse upon an entire country as a famine, in which thousands of the innocent would suffer no less severely than the guilty. Three years' famine was a recognised penalty for apostasy. It was one of the sore plagues of God. It had befallen Judah "because of Saul and his bloody house,"[614] and had been offered to guilty David as an alternative for three days' pestilence, or three years' flight before his enemies.[615] We are not here told that Elijah prayed for it, but that he announced its commencement, and declared that only in accordance with his announcement should it close.