The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 452

Paul speaks of him as pleading with God pass of the u,ind,." Elsewhere we find the against Israel (ivn1yxavu r,ji 9E,ji ,rnra TOV Wady-el-Burk, or "nlley of lightning." '1<1pa,);\. Rom. xi. 2), and certainly repre- These phenomena--the tempest, fire, &c.- sents the X.P1//Ulr111µ6r; he received as a cor- would be all the more o.wful and impressive rection. And the idea which this verse, because of the surrounding desolation and taken in connexion with the prophet's flight fue utter solitude] rent the mountains, (ver. 3) and his prayer (ver. 4), leaves on and bra.11:e 1n pieces the rocks before the the unbiassed mind certainly is that in his Lord; but the Lord was not 1n the Wind zeal for God he resented not only the grow- [Heb. not in the wind Jehovah]: and after ing corruption of the age, but above all the the wtnd an earthquake [Once before frustration of his efforts to stay it. What {Exod. xix. 18) an earthquake accompanied burdened and vexed his righteous soul was the descent of God upon the same moun- that in the very hour of victory, when the tain. The desert of Sinai, with the excep- people had confessed that Jehovah alone tion of the Jiammam Pharoun and other was God, he, the one solitary witness for hot springs, affords no traces of volcanic the truth, should be driven from his post action. " Everywhere there are signs of the to escape as best he might, and to leave the action of water, nowhere of fire" (Stanley). covenant people to the baneful influence of But t::il,11 properly means (compare rauschen, Jezebel and her army of false prophets. It rush) a crashing noise (Job xxxix. 24; Isa. is the cry which we hear over and over ix. 4), and the mysterious sounds of Jebel again in the Old Testament, the complaint Musa have often been remarked (see Stan- of the silence and apparent indifierence of ley, S. and P. pp. 13, 14)]; but the Lord God, of the persecution of the righteous, was not 1n the earthquake : and the impunity of evil-doers.] Ver. 11.-And he said, Go forth [The Ver. 12.-And after the earthquake a. LXX. inserts avp,ov, which, however, is flre [For the association of tempest, earth- destitute of authority, and was probably quake, fire, &c., N? punishments of God, see inserted from Exod. xxxiv. 2, to explain the Isa. xxix. 6, w1• Psa. xviii. 7, 8. "Fire" difficulty which the prophet's apparent dis- may well signif; lightning (Job i. 16; E:rnd. regard of this co=and creates], and stand ix. 23). For a vivid description of a upon the mount before the Lord. And, thunderstorm at Sinai. see Stewart's "Tent behold, the Lord passed by [Heh. passeth and Khan," pp. 139, 140; ap. Stanley, "Jew. lnJ. Only used here and in Exod. xxxiii. Oh.," vol. i. p. 149] : but the Lord w2.s not 22; xxxiv. 6 of the Divine Being. The 1n the flre : and after the flre a still small beatific vision must be transient. An abid- voice. [Heb. a voice of gentle silence. ing presence, a 1::1~, was more than man n99' e.n onomatopoetic word, is e.llied to our word dumb. Very similar expression Job could bear. So Biihr. As Elijah does not iv. 16. What was the object and meaning seem to have gone forth from the cave until of this succession of signs? First, let us he heard the still sme.11 voice (ver. 13), some remember that Elijah was the prophet of would take the participle i:;:!l,I which is prob- deeds. He to.ught his contemporaries not ably employed as more graphic, as a future, by word but by act. He is here taught in i.e., 11 the Lord will pass by," and this is the tum by signs. There passes before him in interpretation of the LXX. ; iiSov 1rape>..ro- the mounto.in hollow, in the black and dark 11Era, ,cvp10,· ,ral loov 1TVEvµa µ,ya. IC,T, >... The night, a procession of naturo.l terrors-of effect of this re-arrangement of the text storm, and earthquake, and fire. But none would bo that the words, 11 And behold the of these things move him ; none speak to Lord passing by," must bo taken as o. part his soul and tell of o. present God. It is the of the message, 11 Go forth," &c., and not as hushed voice, the awful stillness, over- a statement of what happened. That sta.te- powers and enchains him. He is to lea.rn ment would then begin with the next words, hence, first, that the Lord is a God "mer- "And a great and strong wind," &c. Bot ciful and gracious, long-suffering, and o.bun- in that case we might have expected " For dant in goodness and truth" (Exod. xxxiv. behold," &c., or the II And behold" would 6); and secondly, that as it has boen with have come before " a great and strong himself, so it will be with others ; the name wind," &c. It is also to be considered-and of the Lord will be proclaimed in a voice of this seems to me decisive-that the words gentle silence (ib., ver. Ii). The wee.pons of "rent," "break," &c., o.re also participles, His warfare, the instrumon ts of religious which it would be unnatural to divorce from progress, must be spiritual, not carnal. Not the participle preceding], and a great and in fire and sword o.nd slaughter, but by a 1trong wtnd [Such as was not uncommon secret voice speaking to the conscience, will in that region. The approa.ch to Sinai from God regain His sway over the hearts of the weot is known as Nukb-Hawy, "the Israel. (See Homiletics.) The striking simi- 462 THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [oH. XIX, 1-21.