A Hundred Prophets in Two Caves
When Izevel set out to kill the prophets of Hashem, the steward of her own husband's palace hid a hundred of them and fed them through the famine.
Izevel, the queen of Israel, set out to wipe out the prophets of Hashem, and one after another they were hunted down and killed. In the very palace where the order was given, the king's steward, Ovadiah, quietly gathered a hundred of the prophets and hid them away.
He did not put them all in one place. He hid fifty men in one cave and fifty in another. Rebbi Elazar taught that Ovadiah learned this from Yaakov Avinu, who divided his camp in two before meeting Esav, saying: if Esav strikes one camp, the other will escape. Rav Abbahu explained more simply that no cave could hold more than fifty.
Then he kept them alive with bread and water, through a famine so severe that the king himself went searching the land for grass for his horses. The Midrash relates that Ovadiah spent his whole fortune feeding them. When it ran out, he borrowed, even at interest from Achav's own son, rather than let them go hungry. The Targum adds that he would not feed them from the king's property, since it had been gathered by force; the bread of Hashem's prophets had to be clean.
He did all this at the risk of his life, as he later reminded Eliyahu: surely my lord has been told what I did when Izevel killed the prophets of Hashem, how I hid a hundred of them, fifty to a cave, and fed them bread and water. Rav Yitzchak taught that for this kindness Ovadiah merited to become a navi himself.
Source: Melachim I 18:2–5, 13 with Rashi on 18:4; Gemara, Sanhedrin 39b (Talmud Bavli); Midrash Shemos Rabbah 31:4; Targum Yonasan on Melachim II 4:1. English: The JPS Tanakh (Gender-Sensitive Edition); The Metsudah Tanach; The William Davidson Talmud (Koren–Steinsaltz); The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022).
Ovadiah's kindness was hidden in caves, and no one thanked him in public. This week, support someone's Torah or avodas Hashem without being seen. Leave groceries for a kollel family, pay for a sefer a bochur cannot afford, or send a meal to a new mother without signing your name. If money is tight, give time instead: cover a shift so a friend can make his shiur. Let the kindness stay hidden, and notice how it feels to give with no audience but Hashem.