The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 453

larity between this theophany and that not to be identified with the II still smo.11 which Moses saw in the same place, or o.t voice" of ver. 12], and said, What doest no great distance from it, must not be over- thou here, El!Jah? [As in ver. 9.J looked, for this constitutes another liuk Ver. 14.-And he said, I have been very between law-giver and law-restorer. The jealous for the Lord God of hosts : bocauss proclamation of Exod. xxxiv. 3, 7 is the the children of Israel have forsaken thy best exponent of the pamble of vers. 11, 12. covenant, thrown down thine altars, and To each was the vision of God granted after slain thy prophets with the sword ; and I, e. faithful witness against idolatry, and after even I only, am left; and they seek my a slaughter of idolatsrs; each was in a clift llfe, to take it away. [Verbatim as in ver. of the rock ; in either case the Lord passed 10. Who.t are we to understand from this by; the one was taught by words, the other repetition of the former answer ? Has the rather by signs, but the message in each lesson of this theophany been lost upon case was the same-that judgment is God's him P Has he failed to grasp its signi- str~,nge work, but that He will by no means ficance? It is probable that he only par- clear the guilty (cf. ver. 17).] tin.lly understood its meaning, and it cer- Ver. 13.-And it was so, when Elijah tainly looks as if he still felt himself an heard it, that he wrapped his face 1n his injured and disappointed man; as if the mantle [Like Moses, Exod. iii. 6 ; cf. recollection of the way in which his work xniii. 20; xxxiv. 33; 2 Cor. iii 13; Isa. had been frustrated still rankled in his soul, vi. 1, 2. This mantle (see note on eh. But though the words are the same, it is xrui. 46) was probably a sheepskin. The possible, and indeed probable, that the tone LXX. calls it µ,71\wrf, (cf. Heb. xi. 37). In was entirely different ; the.t instead of speak- Zech. xiii. 4 we find that the prophets wore ing, as he had spoken before, querulously and a m[:.ntle of hair], and went out, and stood elmost defiantly, he now, catching his inspi- [Same words as in ver. 11. It was the still ration from the still small voice, speaks with small voice, apparently, that first bronght bated breath and profonnd self-humiliation. him to obey the command there given. He The facts are the same, He repeats them, would perhaps be afraid to issue from the because they and they a.lone explain why he shelter of his cave during the tempest and is there, and because he cannot see as yet the earthquake, which may have followed how they a.re to be remedied. But be is directly after the instruction to go forth now conscious of a. misgiving as to the was given. Possibly there was e. lesson for wisdom and piety of his course. He feels him here also, viz., that amid the din and he has acted hastily and faithlessly, and excitement and torture of drought and has wanted to do God's work in his own famine and fire and blood the commands rough way. He will go back, if it be God's of God a.re less likely to be heard in the soul will ; he will be content to we.it God's time, :i.nd obeyed, than in the hour of peace and and to follow His leading. The commission stillness. The drought and famine and which is straightwe.y given him almost sword have their work to do, even as the tem- proves that he ha~ experienced a. ~han_ge. pest and the earthquake have theirs ; but it It implies that he 1s now fitted for his high is by the voice of mercy and love that the ministry.] hearts of men are turned be.ck age.in. "Not Ver. 15.--And the Lord said unto him, in the strong east wind th.e.t parted the Red Go, return on thy way [Heh. to thy way, Sea, or the fire the.t swept the top of Sinai, as in Gen. xix. 2; :xx.x.ii. 2; Num. xxiv. 25, or the earthquake that shook down the &c. J to the wilderness of Damascus [The walls of Jericho would God be brought so construct case with n local. Keil refers to near to man as in the still sme.11 voice of the Deut. iv. 41; Josh. xii. 1; and Ewald 216 b. child of Bethlehem" (Stanley)] 1n the This cannot mean II through the desert to entering in of the cave. [He hardly obeyed Damascus," for he could not possibly go the letter of the command of ver. 11 even any other way, nor yet II to the desert then. Does not this point to a. rebellious (through whioh he had just come) to and unsnbdued heart? Is it not a confirma- Damascus," for he was then in the heart tion of the view ta.ken e.boTe, that he fled to of the desert. He was to find e. hiding-place Horeb, full of bitter disappointment and -we find the king of Damascus at war with murmuring against God ; and that the pur- Ahab, eh. xx.--or possibly a. sphere for work, pose of this revelation was not only to teach -he wonld be near He.ze.el-in the rugged him as to God's dealings with men, but also desert which stretches south and eo.st of tho to school and subdue his own rebellious Syrian co.pita.I. (See Stanley, "Sino.i o.nd heart?] And, behold, there ea.me a voice unto Palestine," p. 410; Porter's II Five Years in him [The expression is difierent from that Damascus," vol. ii. p. 254sqq.) Here, too, tho of ver. 9. There we read of the " word of prophet would be e.t no groat dist~nce from the Lord," here of a" voioe." But this is his own country. See on oh. xvu. 3]: anll Clll, XIX, i-21.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 468