As in 17:2 and 17:8, a word of Yahweh sends Elijah on a journey and thus sets both the prophet and the plot in motion. The word comes to Elijah “in the third year”—in other words, the drought and consequent famine have reached disastrous proportions. In Israelite reckoning, “three years” may mean no more than one full year, plus small portions of the preceding and following years. But in the rain-dependent climate of Palestine, the absence of rain for even this amount of time