Mount Carmel is a tall promontory, forming the termination of a range of
hills, in the northern part of Palestine, and toward the sea. It is
fifteen hundred feet high, and is famous for its caverns, which are said
to be more than a thousand in number. Most of them are in the western
part of it. Here also was the cave of the prophet Elijah. Both Elijah
and Elisha used to resort to this mountain, and here it was that the
former opposed the prophets of Baal with such success. Here it was, too,
that this prophet went up, when he told his servant to look forth toward
the sea yet seven times, and the seventh time he saw a cloud coming from
the sea “like a man’s hand;” when the prophet knew the promised rain was
at hand, and girded up his loins and ran before Ahab’s chariot even to
the gates of Jezreel. (See 1 Kings xviii. 4-46.)