'And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had
slain all the prophets with the sword. 2. Then Jezebel sent a messenger
unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make
not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time.
3. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to
Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. 4. But
he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat
down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might
die; and said, It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am
not better than my fathers. 5. And as he lay and slept under a juniper
tree, behold, then, an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and
eat. 6. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the
coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and
laid him down again. 7. And the angel of the Lord came again the second
time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is
too great for thee. 8. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in
the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the
mount of God. 9. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there,
and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him,
What doest thou here, Elijah? 10. And he said, I have been very jealous
for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy
covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the
sword; and I, even I only, am left: and they seek my life, to take it
away. 11. And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the
Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent
the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the
Lord was not In the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the
Lord was not in the earthquake: 12. And after the earthquake a fire,
but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small
voice. 13. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his
face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the
cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him and said, What doest
then here, Elijah! 14. And he said, I have been very jealous for the
Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken Thy
covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the
sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it
away. 15. And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the
wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king
over Syria: 16. And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king
over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou
anoint to be prophet in thy room. 17. And it shall come to pass, that
him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that
escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. 18. Yet I have left
me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto
Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.'--1 KINGS xix. 1-18.
The miracle on Carmel cowed, if it did not convince, Ahab, so that he
did not oppose the slaughter of the Baal prophets; but Jezebel was made
of sterner stuff, and her passionate idolatry was proof against even a
sign from heaven. Obstinacy in error is often a rebuke to tremulous
faith in God. She fiercely puts her back to the wall, and defies Elijah
and his God. Her threat to the prophet has a certain audacity of
frankness almost approaching generosity. She will give her victim fair
play. This woman is 'magnificent in sin.' The Septuagint prefixes to
her oath, 'As surely as thou art Elijah and I Jezebel,' which adds
force to it. It also reads, by a very slight change in the Hebrew, in
verse 3, 'he was afraid,' for 'he saw,'--which is possibly right, as
giving his motive for escape more distinctly.
I. We may note, first, the prophet's flight (verses 3-8). Beersheba, on
the southern border of the kingdom of Judah, was eloquent of memories
of the patriarchs, but though it was nearly a hundred miles from
Jezreel, Jezebel's arm was long enough to reach the fugitive there, and
therefore he plunged deeper into the dreary southern desert. He left
behind him his servant, his 'young man,' as the original has it, whom
Rabbinical tradition identified with the miraculously resuscitated son
of the widow of Zarephath, and supposed to become afterwards the
prophet Jonah. Thus alone but for the company of his own gloomy
thoughts, and wearied with toilsome travel in the sun-smitten waste, he
took shelter under the shadow of a solitary shrub (the Hebrew
emphatically calls it '_one_ juniper,' or rather 'broom-plant'), and
there the waves of depression went over him.
His complaint is not to be wondered at, though it was wrong. The very
overstrain of the scene on Carmel brought reaction. The height of the
crest of one wave measures the depth of the trough of the next, and no
mortal spirit can keep itself at the sublime elevation reached by
Elijah when alone he fronted and converted a nation. The supposed
necessity for flight, coming so immediately after apparent victory,
showed him how hollow the change in the people was. What had become of
all the fervency of their shout, 'The Lord, He is the God!' if they
could leave Jezebel the power to carry out her threat? Solitude and the
awful desert increased his gloom. The strong man had become weak, and
it was ebb-tide with him. His prayer was petulant, impatient,
presumptuous. What right had he to settle what was 'enough'? If he
really wished to die, he could have found death at Jezreel, and had no
need to travel a hundred miles to seek a grave. He was weary of his
work, and profoundly disappointed by what he hastily concluded was its
failure, and in a fit of faithless despondency he forgot reverence,
submission, and obedience.
If Elijah can become weak, and his courage die out, and his zeal become
torpid apathy and cowardly wish to shuffle off responsibility and shirk
work, who shall stand? The lessons of self-distrust, of the nearness to
one another of the most opposite emotions in our weak natures, of the
depth of gloom into which the boldest and brightest servant of God may
fall as soon as he loses hold of God's hand, never had a more striking
instance to point them than that mighty prophet, sitting huddled
together in utter despondency below the solitary retem bush, praying
his foolish prayer for death.
The meal to which an angel twice waked him was God's answer to his
prayer, telling him both that his life was still needful and that God
cared for him. Perhaps one of Elijah's reasons for taking to the desert
was the thought that he might starve there, and so find death. At all
events, God for the third time miraculously provides his food. The
ravens, the widow of Zarephath, an angel, were his caterers; and,
instead of taking away his life, God Himself sends the bread and water
to preserve it. The revelation of a watchful, tender Providence often
rebukes gloomy unbelief and shames us back to faith. We are not told
whether the journey to Horeb was commanded, or, like the flight from
Jezreel, was Elijah's own doing; but, in any case, he must have
wandered in the desert, to have taken forty days to reach it.
II. The second stage is the vision at Horeb (verses 9-14). The history
of Israel has never touched Horeb since Moses left it, and it is not
without significance that we are once more on that sacred ground. The
parallel between Moses and Elijah is very real. These two names stand
out above all others in the history of the theocracy, the one as its
founder, the other as its restorer; both distinguished by special
revelations, both endowed with exceptional force of character and power
of the Spirit; the one the lawgiver, the other the head of the
prophetic order; both having something peculiar in their departure, and
both standing together, in witness of their supremacy in the past, and
of their inferiority in the future, by Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration. The associations of the place are marked by the use of
the definite article, which is missed in the Authorised Version,--'the
cave,' that same cleft in the rock where Moses had stood. Note, too,
that the word rendered 'lodged' is literally 'passed the night,' and
that therefore we may suppose that the vision came to Elijah in the
darkness.
That question, 'What doest thou here?' can scarcely be freed from a
tone of rebuke; but, like Christ's to the travellers to Emmaus, and
many another interrogation from God, it is also put in order to allow
of the loaded heart's relieving itself by pouring out all its griefs.
God's questions are the assurance of His listening ear and sympathising
heart. This one is like a little key which opens a great sluice. Out
gushes a full stream. His forty days' solitude have done little for
him. A true answer would have been, 'I was afraid of Jezebel.' He takes
credit for zeal, and seems to insinuate that he had been more zealous
for God than God had been for Himself. He forgets the national
acknowledgment of Jehovah at Carmel, and the hundred prophets protected
by good Obadiah. Despondency has the knack of picking its facts. It is
colour-blind, and can only see dark tints. He accuses his countrymen,
as if he would stir up God to take vengeance.
How different this weak and sinful wail over his solitude from the
heroic mention of it on Carmel, when it only nerved his courage I
(verse 22). The divine manifestation which followed is evidently meant
to recall that granted to Moses on the same spot. 'The Lord passed by'
is all but verbally quoted from Exodus xxxiv. 6, and the truth that had
been proclaimed in words to Moses was enforced by symbol to Elijah. If
the vision was in the night, as verse 9 suggests, it becomes still more
impressive. The fierce wind that roared among the savage peaks, the
shock that made the mountains reel, and the flashing flames that
lighted up the wild landscape, were all phenomena of one kind, and at
once expressed God's lordship over all destructive agencies of nature,
and symbolised the more vehement and disturbing forms of energy, used
by Him for the furtherance of His purposes in the field of history or
of revelation. Elijah's ministry was of such a sort, and he had now to
learn the limitations of his work, and the superiority of another type,
represented by the 'sound of gentle stillness.'
It is the same lesson which Moses learned there, when he heard that the
Lord is 'a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and
plenteous in mercy and truth.' It was exemplified in the gentle Elisha,
the successor of Elijah. It reached far beyond the time then present,
and was indeed a Messianic prophecy, declaring the inmost character of
Him in whom 'the Lord is,' in an altogether special sense. Elijah as a
prophet brought no new knowledge, and uttered no far-reaching
predictions; but he received one of the deepest and clearest prophecies
of the gentleness of God's highest Messenger, and on Horeb saw afar off
what he saw fulfilled on the Mountain of Transfiguration. Nor is his
vision exhausted by its Messianic reference. It contains an eternal
truth for all God's servants. Storm, earthquake, and fire may be God's
precursors, and needed sometimes to prepare His way; but gentleness is
'the habitation of His throne,' and they serve Him best, and are
nearest Him whom they serve, who are meek in heart and gentle among
enemies, 'as a nurse cherisheth her children.' Love is the victor, and
the sharpest weapons of the Christian are love and lowliness.
The lesson was not at first grasped by Elijah, as his repetition of his
complaint, word for word, with almost dogged obstinacy, shows. The best
of us are slow to learn God's lessons, and a habit of faithless gloom
is not soon overcome. It is much easier to get down into the pit than
to struggle out of it.
III. The commission for further service, which closes the scene, is a
further rebuke to the prophet. He is bidden to retrace his way and to
take refuge in the desert lying to the south and east of Damascus,
where he would be safe from Jezebel, and still not far from the scene
of his activity. The instructions given to anoint a king of Syria and
one of Israel were not fulfilled by Elijah, but by his successor; and
we have to suppose that further commands were given to him on that
subject. The third injunction, to anoint his successor, was obeyed at
once on his journey, though Ahelmeholah, on Gilboa, was dangerously
near Jezreel. The designation of these future instruments of God's
purpose was at once a sign to Elijah that his own task was drawing to a
close (having reached its climax on Carmel), and that God had great
designs beyond him and his service. The true conception of our work is
that we sire only links in a chain, and that we can be done without.
'God removes the workers and carries on the work.' To anoint our
successor is often a bitter pill; but self-importance needs to be taken
down, and it is blessed to lose ourselves in gazing into the future of
God's work, when we are gone from the field.
Further, the commissions met Elijah's despondency in another way; for
they assured him of the divine judgments on the house of Ahab, and of
the use of the Syrian king as a rod to chastise Israel. He had thought
God too slow in avenging His dishonoured name, and had been taught the
might of gentleness; but now he also learns the certainty of
punishment, while the enigmatical promise that Elisha should 'slay'
those who escaped the swords of Hazael and Jehu dimly points to the
merciful energy of that prophet's word, his only sword, which shall
slay but to revive, and wound to heal. 'I have hewed them by the ...
words of my mouth.'
Finally, the revelation of the seven thousand--a round number, which
expresses the sacredness as well as the numerousness of the elect,
hidden ones--rebukes the hasty assumption of his being left alone,
'faithful among the faithless.' God has more servants than we know of.
Let us beware of feeding either our self-righteousness or our
narrowness or our faint-heartedness with the fancy that we have a
monopoly of faithfulness, or are left alone to witness for God.