The problem with the Widow?
Selected Letter of Mendelssohn/Letter 31 retrieved 13 August 2020 from: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_31
TO CARL KLINGEMANN, LONDON.
Leipsic, 6th December, 1846.
For several days I have been straining all my powers on the "Elijah," and am hoping to make a good end of most of the things I disliked on the first performance. I have quite done one of the hardest portions—the widow—and you will certainly be content with the alteration, yes, I will say with the improvement.
The "Elijah" has gained much in significance and mystery in this passage. It was the want of these things which troubled me, the sort of want I discover, alas! after the festival, and can only define when I have mended it. But in the other passages we have talked about as well I hope to refine somewhat. I am very seriously going through again everything that satisfied me before, so that in a few weeks I hope to be ready with the whole, and then turn to something new. But the pieces I have already worked over afresh do show me clearly that it is well not to rest with such a work till it is as perfect as ever I can make it, even though a very small number of people indeed hear or know anything of these refinements. And though a prodigious time is taken up in making them, when a passage is really made better, its effect, both by itself and on the rest of the piece, is, indeed, vastly different. You see I am vastly contented with the "widow," the passage I completed to-day; therefore, I think one dare not rest satisfied, and conscience, too, gives me a hint now and then to the same effect.
Selected Letters of Mendelssohn/Letter 21 retrieved 13 August 2020 from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Selected_letters_of_Mendelssohn/Letter_21
TO PASTOR JULIUS SCRUBRING AT DESSAU.
Leipsic, 2nd November, 1838.
Dear Schubring,—Many thanks indeed for your letter and the packet that followed it. You offer me a most essential service, for which I am very grateful; yet you ask if I desire it! I should have told you that the notes I sent were not designed for a completed plan, but only for a collection of material; however, when you have put them together, you leave me nothing to do but only to add the music. I agree that the passage about the widow should go out, also the raven, and that all the beginning should be brought more together so as to expand in the chief passages as one wants it to do. I earnestly beg you, if your time and convenience permit, to continue the first part and send it me—(it will have to be very long)—starting from the point at which your last contribution stopped; do so and you will earn my truest gratitude.
What do you think about the widow part, 7b, 8 and 9?
From James 5:17-18
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
When Elijah prayed that it wouldn’t rain, he knew what that entailed. He knew rain was essential to the people's existence and that without it there would be suffering. He knew crops might fail and in so doing the subsistence farmers would suffer. The villagers would suffer. He knew people could die. The Kings Court would suffer and eventually the King and Queen themselves might be deprived of certain luxuries.
But this would also hit at the heart of the problem with God's people at this time. The god that the Israelites were tempted to follow was a fertility God who they thought governed the rains that fell upon the earth.
It should be remembered that the Lord gives us what to pray for. If it was Elijah’s idea to do this then the Lord certainly approved; he was 'asking aright.'
D&C 75: 10 Calling on the name of the Lord for the Comforter, which shall teach them all things that are expedient for them--
11 Praying always that they faint not; and inasmuch as they do this, I will be with them even unto the end.
Had Elijah lived through periods of drought before this momentous occurrence? This is quite possible considering the area of the world he lived in. Knowing what drought can do, it was very brave of Elijah to pray for the rain to cease. He would surely know how that would affect him. So maybe it was because he was full of love for the people that he was willing to suffer for them and with them.
The Widow and Prayer
Help Lord – Lord, bow thine ear to our prayer:
The famine has caused some of the people to once again turn their hearts. Famine is usually of food stuffs, brought on by a drought of water. Famine in the Old Testament is often in conjunction with famine of hearing the word of the Lord (e.g Amos 8:11).
First, Mendelssohn teaches us how to approach the Lord in prayer through the character of Obadiah.
No3: Recitative, Ye People, Rend Your Hearts.
Ye people rend your hearts and not your garments. (Put off the earthly show of ripping your clothes but rather examine your heart and rip out the parts that keep you from God.)
For your transgressions the prophet Elijah hath sealed the heavens, through the word of God. (Elijah was obedient to the direction of God.)
I therefore say unto ye, Forsake your idols, return to god, for He is slow to anger, and merciful, and kind, and gracious, and repenteth Him of the evil.
This connects us to the Lord's prayer in the New Testament, Matthew 6:9-13:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. They will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
No.4 Aria: If with all your hearts (sung by Obadiah)
If with all your heart ye truly seek me
Ye shall ever surely find me, thus saith our God.
Oh that I knew where I might find Him
That I might even come before His presence.
If with all your heart ye truly seek me
Ye shall ever surely find me, thus saith our God.
The people, the chorus, is still vascillating. They can’t make up their minds. (No.5 Yet doth the Lord) The chorus begins with the people singing that the Lord is mocking them, then an awakening to their own negligence in following God as they sing, He visiteth all the Father's sins on the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and then a realization of hope - His mercies on thousands fall.
But there is at least one person who does still follow the Lord, and that is a widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17).
Mendelssohn shows us how the Lord is an integral part of our lives, and that He answers prayers. He does this by presenting several stories from Elijah’s life.
The story of Elijah and the widow illustrates this. The first half of the story has an honourable mention in No. 7b Recitative: Now Cherith's Brook is dried up.
In 1 Kings 17: I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
What faith - faith of the widow woman who does give her last meal to the prophet!
Faith from Elijah that the Lord will look after the woman and her son if she gives him her last meal!
Mendelssohn doesn't detail this event, but focuses on the second half of the widow story (No. 8 Aria: What have I to do with thee). The son of the widow becomes so sick that there was no breath left in him (1 Kings 17:17). This was not in the deal. The command was about giving Elijah food. The widow is, understandably, very distressed.
Elijah prays: Turn unto her, Lord my God. Then 3 x he petitions, “O let the spirit of this child return that he again may live.” Upon the revival of the child, the widow exclaims, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God (1 Kings 17:24). She testifies that Elijah is a prophet.
Mendelssohn adds in a fascinating response from the widow. She wonders what she can do for the Lord to show her gratitude for all the blessings she has received. Elijah responds by suggesting, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might. By using these particular words Mendelssohn brings together verses from the Old and the New Testaments, bringing together Judaism and Christianity in quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 or Luke 10:27.
Further togetherness is in the concluding chorus of this scene, No. 9 Blessed are the men who fear Him, they ever walk in the ways of peace. This is the backwards version of the beatitude, Blessed are the the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God (Matthew 5:9). In Elijah, the prophet is working with a people who are referred to as the 'Children of God.' In the New Testament it taught that all can be called children of God if they are peacemakers.
