ELIJAH
147
ELIJAPI
says of him, that he was a man of like passions with us'. His now altered state of mind would seem to have arisen out of an exaggerated expectation of what God designed to effect through the miracles exhibited to, and the judgments poured upon this guilty nation. He seems to have thought that, as comjilete success did not crown the last great effort he had made to re- form Israel, there could not be the slightest use in la- boring for this end any longer. It is almost impossi- ble not to conclude from the terms of the story that lie was entirely without provisions for this or an}' jour- ney. But God, wlio liad brought his servant into this difliculty, provided him with the means of escaping from it. He now, alone in the wilderness and at Mount Horeb, will at once touch his heart and correct Ills petulanc}' by the ministration of his angel, and by a fearful exhibition of his divine power. The prophet, in a fit of despair, laid himself down beneath a lone "juniper-ti"ee" (Hebrew "InX Cri"!, one Rothem-tree). See Juniper. The indented rock opposite the gate of the Greek convent Deir ]Mar-Elyas, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which is now shown to travellers as the spot on whicli the prophet rested on this occasion, appears at an earlier date not to have been so restrict- ed, but was believed to be the place on which he was "accustomed to sleep" (Sandj's, lib. iii, p. 176; Maun- drell. Ear. Trav. p. 456), and the site of the convent as tliat where he was born (Gaj'sforde, lu06, in Bonar, p. 117). Neither the older nor the later story can be be- lieved ; but it is possible that the}' may have origina- ted ill some more trustworthy tradition of his having rested liere on his southward journey, in all probabil- ity talven along this very route. (See a curious state- ment by Quaresmius of the extent to which the rock had been defaced in his own time " by the piet}' or im- piety" of the Christian ■pWgv'ims, Eluridatio, ii, 605; comp. Doubdan,! o^ff^rp, etc. p. 1-14.) In this position the prophet was wakened from his despondent dream beneath the solitarj' busli of the wilderness, was fed with the I)read and the water which to this day are all a Bedouin's requirements, and went forward, "in the strength t>f that food," a journey of fortj' daj's, "to tlie mount of God, even to Horeb." Here, in "the cave" (n"i"53il), one of the numerous caverns in those awful mountains — perhaps some traditional sanctuary of that hallowed region, at any rate well known — he remain- ed for certainly one night ("5^^). In the morning came the "word of Jehovah" — the question, "What doest thou here, Elijah ? Driven bj' what hard neces- sity dost thou seek this spot, on which the gloiy of Je- hovah has in former times been so signally shown?" In answer to this invitation the propliet opens his griefs. He has been very zealous for Jehovah ; but force has been vain ; one cannot stand against a mul- titude ; none follow him, and he is left alone, firing for his life from the sword which has slain his breth- ren. The reply comes in tliat amljiguous and indirect form in which it seems necessary that tlie deepest com- munications with the human mind sliould be couched to be effectual. He is directed to leave the cavern and stand on the mountain in the open air, face to fVice with Jehovah. Then, as before with Moses (Exod. xxxiv, 6), "the Lord passed by;" passed in all the terror of his most appalling manifestations. The fierce wind tore the solid mountains and shivered the granite clifls of Sinai ; the eartliquake crash reverljeratcd through the defiles of those naked vallej's ; the fire burnt in the incessant blaze of Eastern lightning. Like these, in their degree, had been Elijah's own modes of procedure, but the conviction is now forced upon him that in none of these is Jehovah to be known. Then, penetrating the dead silence which fol- lowed these manifestations, came the fourth mysteri- ous syml>ol — "the still small voice." AVhat sound this was — wlietlier articulate voice or not, we cannot determine ; but low and still as it was, it spoke in
louder accents to the wounded heart of Elijah than the roar and blaze wliich had preceded it. To him, no less unmistakably than to Moses centuries before, it was proclaimed that Jehovah was " merciful and gra- cious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." Elijah knew the call, and at once stepping forward and hiding his face in his mantle, stood wait- ing for the divine communication. It is in the same words as l>efore, and so is his answer; but with what different force must the question have fallen on his ears, and the answer left his lips! "Before his en- trance to the cave he was comparatively a novice ; when he left it he was an initiated man. He had thought that the earthquake, the fire, the wind, must be the great witnesses of the Lord. But He was not in them ; not they, but the still small voice had that awe in it which forced the prophet to cover his face with his luantle. What a conclusion of all the past historj'! What an interpretation of its meaning!" (Maurice, Prophets and Kings, p. 136). Not in the per- secutions of Ahab and Jezebel, nor in the slaughter of the prophets of Baal, but in the 7000 unknown wor- shippers who had not bowed the knee to Baal, was the assurance that Elijah was not alone as he had seemed to be.