Ishodad of Merv, on 1Kgs 17:6

“And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of tile torrent.”

“It is taught: When the priests, his brothers, saw that he had escaped the anger of Ahab, they saved for him a part of the food and bread reserved [to them], and a raven brought it to him through divine intervention.The Schools say, A raven stole the [food] from houses, inns, markets and peasants, since it is an impudent, wild and merciless bird by nature. It has no natural love for its young and does not feed them, but another bird adopts them and feeds them. Through this [the Scripture] shows that animals of such a nature performed what God ordered them to do and provided for the necessities of the prophet, whereas the children of Israel, even though they were endowed with reason, did not want to observe the law of God. At the same time, the fact that [Elijah] was nourished by ravens, and then that the "wadi dried up," occurred through the mercy of God in order to induce the prophet to pity and compassion toward the people, so that his spirit might relent and he might pray God to send rain. But when, in spite of this, his anger against the people was not appeased, [God] ordered him to go among the nations, in order to show him that the plague of famine has spread among them as well, and that he had at least to show compassion for the nations, if he could show any for the people; but [this happened] also because there was nobody among the people who was worthy of receiving Elijah. Other [authors] say, The bread and the food were made from the elements every day through an angelic operation, just like the manna had been made from air and the quails from the sea, and just like the half cake was brought to Paul the anchorite, and the bunch of dates was brought by a lion to the anchorite of the desert of Sodom. But [the food was not brought to Elijah] by an angel, as it was to John, nor by a man, as Daniel received it by Habakkuk, but by a raven, in order to show that there is nothing impure in the creation of God—just as God gave to Samson water to drink from the jaw of a donkey23—and in order to signify, at the same time, the abrogation of the prescriptions of the Law. According to other authors, the angels were disguised as ravens.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.