When the brook Cherith dries up in the long drought, the prophet goes, under divine direction, to Zarephath, a city of heathen Tyre (17*), where he is hospitably received by a poor widow whom the famine has reduced to her last meal (v.'^). The prophet finds a well-spring of kindness in the heart of a heathen ccuntry. He learns to sym- pathize with one of another race and a strange religion, and his stem nature is in some degree softened by contact with human sufl'ering. He rewards the widow's charity first by miraculously increasing her small store of meal and oU, and later by restoring her child to life (w."'"). His experience begins to prepare him for a higher revelation, which he is in due time to receive.
Meanwhile the king, in his rage against the prophet of evil, sends messengers into all nations (1 K IS'") to search for E., but they report that their quest has been fruitless. For three years there falls no rain or dew in Israel. The famine is so severe that the king and his chamberlain, Obadiah, have to scour the country in search of provender for the royal stables (v."). While they are engaged in this quest, E. suddenly appears before Obadiah and bids him summon his master (v.'*). The meeting of the prophet and the king is very dramatic. Ahab has never been able to stifle the conscience of an Israelite, and cannot witlihold his respect from the prophet of J". He bitterly accuses E. of being the troubler of Israel ; but when the prophet flings back the charge, the king is silenced (v."*). E. challenges, or rather commands, him to summon the pronliets of Baal to a contest between J" and Baal on Alount Carmel. The worshippers of Baal sliall sacrifice to their God ; E. himself will sacrifice to J" : the god v^ho answers by fire, he shall be the God. Ihe king consents (v.™-). The narrative of the contest (1 K I8-"') is one of the grandest in the OT. Apart from its historical value, it is precious a« ao ideal representation of the conflict which is always being waged between true and false religion, and of combatants who are always meeting. On the appointed day the king and the 400 prophets of Baal, E. and 'all the people,' assemble on Carmel. The propliets of Baal, ha\-i»g built an altar and laid their sacrifice, pray to tlieir god from morning till evening, and are excited to a frenw by their fruitless ellbrts and the biting sarcasm of E. In the evening E. rebuilds the ancient altar of J" — thrown down in these times of persecution — and utters a few calm words of prayer to J". The lightning falls and consumes not only the sacrifice, out tlie altar and the water poured into trenches around it. The people fall on their faces, and with loud voices acknowledge that J* is God. Then, in an access of irrepressible zeal, thev fall upon the 400 propliets who have deceived the nation, and put them all to the sword. E. prays that the drought may cease, and before nightfall there is a tempest
ELIJAH
ELIJAH
«R9
of rain, in the midst of wliich tlie strange prophet, eeizcd by a sudden impulse, carried away by the emotion of triumph, rolla his mantle together and runs like an avant -courier in front of the royal chariot all the sixteen miles from Carmel to the gates of Jezreel (w.*^"").
E. imagines that the battle for truth has been fought and won, and that his task is virtually accomplished. But his triumph is brief. When he receives a message that Jezebel has sworn to have his life (19^), his sanguine hope for the re- storation of the true religion is changed in a moment into blank despair. He feels with a sink- ing heart that he has laboured for naught and in vain. God Himself has contended in vain with human folly. Nothing can be made of a king whom miracles will not convince, but who is tamed round the finger of a woman. The apos- tate nation will remain apostate. Seeing all this (the LXX and other ancient versions, instead of ' and he saw it,' read ' and he was afraid,' \9), E. flees for his life to Judsea, and, leaving his servant at Beersheba, plunges into the desert, where he is alone with J". Weary, famished, and heavy of heart, he lies down under a desert broom [80 RVm ; see Juniper], and is willing to die. He feels that his life has been a failure. He has been worsted in the battle of life, and something tells him that he has deserved to be. He is no better than his fathers. He has now nothing more to live for. It is vain to continue the unequal strug^'le. All men have forsaken him. He has no friend but J ", and he prays that He would release him from his fruitless t,a.sk (vv.'-*).
God is very kind to his servant, first satisfj'ing his bodily wants, and then givin" him a new revelation such as his soul needs. As the prophet sleeps under the desert bush, he is awakened by the touch of an angel, who sets meat and drink before him, and on the strength of that food he goes a forty days' journey (forty bein^, as usual, a round number) to Horeb (vv.'-"). It is not diffi- cult to understand what the prophet seeks at that mountain sanctuary. He desires to meet J". Men have failed him : he wants to make sure of God. He goes to Horeb to stand where Moses stood. His heart cries out for the vindication of the moral law. Finding a cave, he lodges there (v.*). (In the Heb. it is the cave, either as already a place to which pilgrims resorted, or from the f.ame of^tliis single visit: the traditional cave is in a secluded plain under the highest peak of Jebel Mftsa; see SiNAI.) The narrative which follows (w."-W) is spiritually one of the profoundest in the OT. J" represents to E., by a magnificent acted parable, the contrast between law and grace, judg- ment and mercy. As the prophet of J", E. has been nsing the weapon of force. He has never con- ceived it possible to defeat the enemies of God by my other weapon. He has magnified God's strict- ness with a zeal He will not own. And he has failed. Force has left men hard and indiU'erent. J" here makes experiment upon E. with his own weapon. He visits the mountain with a hurri- cane, with an earthquake, and with a fire. The prophet's wounded spirit is not moved by any of these. J" is not in them. But in the calm which follows the tumult he hears a still small roice (UVtn 'a sound of gentle stillness') which thrills his inmost being; he feels that God is there ; self-abased, he wraps his face in his mantle and waits to receive the divine communications, lie is tlius taught the meaning of his failure. Ho is shown in a parable 'a more excellent way.' In the heart of Sinai he learns the gentleness of God. Others like him.self may be won by grace, whom might and wrath have failed to move. The kingdom of God comes not so much by startling