ELIJAH THE TISHBITE has been well entitled
'the grandest and the most romantic character that Israel ever produced.'
Certainly there is no personage in the O. T. whose career is more vividly
portrayed, or who exercises on us a more remarkable fascination. His
rare, sudden, and brief appearances, his undaunted courage and fiery
zeal, the brilliancy of his triumphs, the pathos of his despondency,
the glory of his departure, and the calm beauty of his reappearance
on the Mount of Transfiguration, throw such a halo of brightness around
him as is equaled by none of his compeers in the sacred story. The
ignorance in which we are left of the circumstances and antecedents
of the man who did and who suffered so much, doubtless contributes
to enhance our interest in the story and the character. 'Elijah the
Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead,' is literally all that is given
us to know of his parentage and locality. It is in remarkable contrast
to the detail with which the genealogies of other prophets and leaders
of Israel are stated. Where the place -- if it was a place -- lay,
which gave him this appellation we know not, nor are we likely to know.
It is not again found in the bible, nor has any name answering to it
been discovered since.
The mention of Gilead, however, is the key-note to much that is most
characteristic in the story of the prophet. Gilead was the country
on the further side of the Jordan -- a country of chase and pasture,
of tent-villages, and mountain-castles, inhabited by a people not settled
and civilized like those who formed the communities of Ephraim and
Judah, but of wandering, irregular habits, exposed to the attacks of
the nomad tribes of the desert, and gradually conforming more and more
to the habits of those tribes; making war with the Hagarites, and attacking
the countless thousands of their cattle, and then dwelling in their
stead (1 Chron 5:10,19-22). To an Israelite of the tribes west of Jordan
the title 'Gileadite' must have conveyed a similar impression, though
in a far stronger degree, to that which the title 'Celt' does to us.
What the Highlands were a century ago to the towns in the Lowlands
of Scotland, that, and more than that, must Gilead have been to Samaria
or Jerusalem.
With Elijah, of whom so much is told, and whose part in the history
was so much more important, this is still more necessary. It is seen
at every turn. Of his appearance as he 'stood before' Ahab -- with
the suddenness of motion to this day characteristic of the Bedouins
from his native hills, we can perhaps realize something from the touches,
few, but strong, of the narrative. Of his height little is to be inferred
-- that little is in favor of its being beyond the ordinary size. His
chief characteristic was his hair, long and thick, and hanging down
his back, * and which, if not betokening the immense strength of Samson,
yet accompanied powers of endurance no less remarkable.
* 2 Kings 1:8, 'a hairy man'; literally, 'lord of hair.' This
might be doubtful, even with the support of the LXX and Josephus
and of the Targum Jonathan -- the same word used for Esau in Genesis
27:11. But its application to the hair of his head is corroborated
by the word used by the children of Bethel when mocking Elisha.
'Bald-head' is a peculiar term applied only to want of hair at
the back of the head; and the taunt was called forth by the difference
between the bare shoulders of the new prophet and the shaggy locks
of the old one.
His ordinary clothing consisted of a girdle of skin round his loins,
which he tightened when about to move quickly (1 Kings 18:46). But
in addition to this he occasionally wore the 'mantle,' or cape, of
sheep-skin, which has supplied us with one of our most familiar figures
of speech. *
* Addereth, always used for this garment
of Elijah, but not for that of any prophet before him. It is
perhaps a trace of the permanent impression which he left on
some parts of the Jewish society, that a hairy cloak became
afterwards the recognized garb of a prophet of Jehovah (Zech
13:4; A. V. 'rough garment'; where the Hebrew word is the same
which in Elijah's history is rendered 'mantle').
In this mantle, in moments of emotion, he would hide his face (1
Kings 19:13), or when excited would roll it up as into a kind of
staff. On one occasion we find him bending himself down upon the
ground with his face between his knees. *
* This is generally taken as having been in prayer; but kneeling
apparently was not (certainly is not) an attitude of prayer
in the East. 'When ye stand praying, forgive' (Mark 11:25;
and see Matt 6:5, &c).
Such, so far as the scanty notices of the record will allow us to
conceive it, was the general appearance of the great Prophet, an
appearance which there is no reason to think was other than uncommon
even at that time. *
* This is to be inferred, as we shall see afterwards, from king
Ahaziah's recognition of him by mere description.
The solitary life in which these external peculiarities had been
assumed had also nurtured that fierceness of zeal and that directness
of address which so distinguished him. It was in the wild loneliness
of the hills and ravines of Gilead that the knowledge of Jehovah,
the living God of Israel, had been impressed on his mind, which was
to form the subject of his mission to the idolatrous court and country
of Israel.
The northern kingdom had at this time forsaken almost entirely the
faith in Jehovah. The worship of the calves had been a departure
from him, it was a violation of his command against material resemblances;
but still it would appear that even in the presence of the calves
Jehovah was acknowledged, and they were at any rate a national institution,
not one imported from the idolatries of any of the surrounding countries.
They were announced by Jeroboam as the preservers of the nation during
the great crisis of its existence: 'Behold thy gods, O Israel, that
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt' (1 Kings 12:28). But the
case was quite different when Ahab, not content with the calf-worship
-- 'as if it had been a light thing to walk in the sins of Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat' -- married the daughter of the king of Sidon, and
introduced on the most extensive scale the foreign religion of his
wife's family, the worship of the Phoenician Baal. What this worship
consisted of we are ignorant -- doubtless it was of a gay, splendid,
and festal character, and therefore very opposite to the grave, severe
service of the Mosaic ritual. Attached to it and to the worship of
Asherah (A. V. 'Ashtaroth,' and 'the groves') were licentious and
impure rites, which in earlier times had brought the heaviest judgments
on the nation (Num 25; Judg 2:13,14; 3:7,8). But the most obnoxious
and evil characteristic of the Baal-religion was that it was the
worship of power, of mere strength, as opposed to that of a God of
righteousness and goodness -- a foreign religion, * imported from
nations the hatred of whom was inculcated in every page of the law,
as opposed to the religion of that God who had delivered the nation
from the bondage of Egypt, had 'driven out the heathen with his hand,
and planted them in'; and through whom their forefathers had 'trodden
down their enemies, and destroyed those that rose up against them.'
It is as a witness against these two evils that Elijah comes forward.
* [And the king shall do according to his will;
and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every
god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods,
and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for
that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard
the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard
any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his
estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his
fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and
with precious stones, and pleasant things. Daniel 11:36-38]
What we may call the first Act in his life embraces between three
and four years -- three years and six months for the duration of
the drought, according to the statements of the New Testament (Luke
4:25; James 5:17), and three or four months more for the journey
to Horeb, and the return to Gilead (1 Kings 17:1-19:21). His introduction
is of the most startling description: he suddenly appears before
Ahab, as with the unrestrained freedom of Eastern manners he would
have no difficulty in doing, and proclaims the vengeance of Jehovah
for the apostasy of the king. This he does in the remarkable formula
evidently characteristic of himself, and adopted after his departure
by his follower Elisha -- a formula which includes everything at
issue between himself and the king -- the name of Jehovah, his being
the God of Israel, the Living God, Elijah being his messenger, and
then -- the special lesson of the event -- that the god of power
and of nature should be beaten at his own weapons. 'As Jehovah, God
of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand,' whose constant servant I
am, 'there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to
my word.' What immediate action followed on this we are not told;
but it is plain that Elijah had to fly before some threatened vengeance
either of the king, or more probably of the queen (comp. 19:2). Perhaps
it was at this juncture that Jezebel 'cut off the prophets of Jehovah'
(1 Kings 18:4). He was directed to the brook Cherith, either one
of the torrents which cleave the high table-lands of his native hills,
or on the west of Jordan, more in the neighborhood of Samaria. There
in the hollow of the torrent-bed he remained, supported in the miraculous
manner with which we are all familiar, till the failing of the brook
obliged him to forsake it. How long he remained in the Cherith is
uncertain. The Hebrew expression is simply 'at the end of days,'
nor does Josephus afford us any more information. A vast deal of
ingenuity has been devoted to explaining away Elijah's 'ravens.'
The Hebrew word, Orebim, has been interpreted as 'Arabians,'
as 'merchants,' as inhabitants of some neighboring town of Orbo or Orbi.
By others Elijah has been held to have plundered a raven's nest --
and this twice a day regularly for several months! There is no escape
from the plain meaning of the words -- occurring as they do twice,
in a passage otherwise displaying no tinge of the marvelous -- or
from the unanimity of all the Hebrew MSS, of all the ancient versions,
and of Josephus.
His next refuge was at Zarephath, a Phoenician town lying between
Tyre and Sidon, certainly the last place at which the enemy of Baal
would be looked for. The widow woman in whose house he lived seems,
however, to have been an Israelite, and no Baal-worshipper, if we
may take her adjuration by 'Jehovah thy God' as an indication. Here
Elijah performed the miracles of prolonging the oil and the meal;
and restored the son of the widow to life after his apparent death.
Here the prophet is first addressed by the title, which, although
occasionally before used to others, is so frequently applied to Elijah
as to become the distinguishing appellation of himself and his successor:
'O Thou man of God' -- 'Now I know that thou art a man of God' (1
Kings 17:18,24).
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In this, or some other retreat, an interval of more
than two years must have elapsed. The drought continued, and at last
the full horrors of famine, caused by the failure of the crops, descended
on Samaria. The king and his chief domestic officer divide between
them the mournful duty of ascertaining that neither round the springs,
which are so frequent a feature of central Palestine, nor in the nooks
and crannies of the most shaded torrent-beds, was there any of the
herbage left, which in those countries is so certain an indication
of the presence of moisture. No one short of the two chief persons
of the realm could be trusted with this quest for life or death --
'Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.'
It is the moment for the reappearance of the prophet. He shows himself
first to the minister.
There, suddenly planted in his path, is the man whom
he and his master have been seeking for more than three years. 'There
is no nation or kingdom,' says Obadiah with true Eastern hyperbole,
'whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee'; and now here he stands
when least expected. Before the sudden apparition of that wild figure, and
that stern, unbroken countenance, Obadiah could not but fall on his
face. Elijah, however, soon calms his agitation -- 'As Jehovah of hosts
liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to Ahab'; and
thus relieved of his fear that, as on a former occasion, Elijah would
disappear before he could return with the king, Obadiah departs to
inform Ahab that the man they seek is there. Ahab arrived, Elijah makes his charge -- 'Thou hast
forsaken Jehovah and followed the Baals.' He then commands that all
Israel be collected to Mount Carmel with the four hundred and fifty
prophets of Baal, and the four hundred of Asherah (Ashtaroth), the
latter being under the especial protection of the queen.
There are few more sublime stories in history than this. On the
one hand the solitary servant of Jehovah, accompanied by his one attendant;
with is wild shaggy hair, his scanty garb, and sheep-skin cloak, but
with calm dignity of demeanor and the minutest regularity of procedure,
repairing the ruined altar of Jehovah with twelve stones, according
to the number of the twelve founders of the tribes, and recalling in
his prayer the still greater names of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel --
on the other hand the 850 prophets of Baal and Ashtaroth, doubtless
in all the splendor of their vestments (2 Kings 10:22), with the wild
din of their 'vain repetitions' and the maddened fury of their disappointed
hopes, and the silent people surrounding all -- these things form a
picture with which we are all acquainted, but which brightens into
fresh distinctness every time we consider it. The conclusion of the
long day need only be glanced at. The fire of Jehovah consuming both
sacrifice and altar -- the prophets of Baal killed, it would seem by
Elijah's own hand (18:40) -- the king, with an apathy almost unintelligible,
eating and drinking in the very midst of the carnage of his own adherents
-- the rising storm -- the ride across the plain to Jezreel, a distance
of at least 16 miles: the prophet, with true Bedouin endurance, running
before the chariot, but also with true Bedouin instinct stopping short
of the city, and going no further than the 'entrance of Jezreel.'
So far the triumph had been complete; but the spirit of Jezebel was
not to be so easily overcome, and her first act is a vow of vengeance
against the author of this destruction. 'God do so to me, and more
also,' so ran her exclamation, 'if I make not thy life as the life
of one of them by tomorrow about this time.' It was no duty of Elijah
to expose himself to unnecessary dangers, and, as at his first introduction,
so now, he takes refuge in flight. The danger was great, and the refuge
must be distant. The first stage on the journey was Beer-sheba -- 'Beer-sheba
which belongeth to Judah,' says the narrative, with a touch betraying
its Israelitish origin. Here, at the ancient haunt of those fathers
of his nation whose memory was so dear to him, and on the very confines
of cultivated country, Elijah halted. His servant -- according to Jewish
tradition the boy of Zarephath -- he left in the town; while he himself
set out alone into the wilderness -- the waste uninhabited region which
surrounds the south of Palestine. The labors, anxieties, and excitement
of the last few days had proved too much even for that iron frame and
that stern resolution. His spirit is quite broken, and he wanders forth
over the dreary sweeps of those rocky hills wishing for death -- 'It
is enough! Lord, let me die, for I am not better than my fathers.'
It is almost impossible not to conclude from the terms of the story
that he was entirely without provisions for this or any journey. But
God, who had brought his servant into this difficulty, provided him
with the means of escaping from it. Whether we are to take the expression
of the story literally or not is comparatively of little consequence.
In some way little short of miraculous -- it might well seem to the
narrator that it could be by nothing but an angel -- the prophet was
awakened from his dream of despondency beneath the solitary bush of
the wilderness, was fed with the bread and the water which to this
day are all a Bedouin's requirements, and went forward, 'in the strength
of that food,' a journey of forty days 'to the mount of God, even to
Horeb.' Here, in 'the cave,' one of the numerous caverns in those awful
mountains, perhaps some traditional sanctuary of that hallowed region,
at any rate well known -- he remained for certainly one night. In the
morning came the 'word of Jehovah' -- the question, 'What doest thou
here, Elijah? Driven by what hard necessity dost thou seek this spot
on which the glory of Jehovah has in former times been so signally
shown?" In answer to this invitation the prophet opens his griefs.
He has been very zealous for Jehovah; but force has been vain; one
cannot stand against a multitude; none follow him, and he is left alone,
flying for his life from the sword which has slain his brethren. The
reply comes in that ambiguous and indirect form in which it seems necessary
that the deepest communications with the human mind should be couched,
to be effectual. He is directed to leave the cavern and stand on the
mountain in the open air, face to face with Jehovah. Then, as before
with Moses (Exo 34:6), '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 cliffs of Sinai; the earthquake
crash reverberated through the defiles of those naked valleys; 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 followed these
manifestations, came the fourth mysterious symbol -- the 'still small
voice.' What sound this was, whether articulate voice or not, we cannot
even conjecture; but low and still as it was it spoke in louder accents
to the wounded heart of Elijah than the roar and blaze which had preceded
it. To him no less unmistakably than to Moses, centuries before, it
was proclaimed that Jehovah was 'merciful and gracious, 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 waiting for
the Divine communication. It is in the same words as before, 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 entrance
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 mantle. What a conclusion of
all the past history! What an interpretation of its meaning!" (Maurice, Prophets
and Kings). Not in the persecutions of Ahab and Jezebel, nor in
the slaughter of the prophets of Baal, but in the 7000 unknown worshippers
who had not bowed the knee to Baal, was the assurance that Elijah was
not alone as he had seemed to be.
Three commands were laid on him -- three changes were to be made.
Instead of Ben-hadad, Hazael was to be king of Syria; instead of Ahab,
Jehu the son of Nimshi was to be king of Israel; and Elisha the son
of Shaphat was to be his own successor. Of these three commands the
two first were reserved for Elisha to accomplish, the last only was
executed by Elijah himself.
Ahab and Jezebel now probably believed that their threats had been
effectual, and that they had seen the last of their tormentor. At any
rate this may be inferred from the events of chapter 21. Foiled in
his wish to acquire the ancestral plot of ground of Naboth by the refusal
of that sturdy peasant to alienate the inheritance of his fathers,
Ahab and Jezebel proceed to possess themselves of it by main force,
and by a degree of monstrous injustice which shows clearly enough how
far the elders of Jezreel had forgotten the laws of Jehovah how perfect
was their submission to the will of their mistress. At her orders Naboth
is falsely accused of blaspheming God and the king, is with his sons
stoned and killed, and his vineyard then -- as having belonged to a
criminal -- becomes at once the property of the king.
Ahab loses no time in entering on his new acquisition. Apparently
the very next day after the execution he proceeds in his chariot to
take possession of the coveted vineyard. Behind him, probably in the
back part of the chariot, ride his two pages Jehu and Bidkar (2 Kings
9:26). But the triumph was a short one. Elijah had received an intimation
from Jehovah of what was taking place, and rapidly as the accusation
and death of Naboth had been hurried over, he was there to meet his
ancient enemy, and as an enemy he does meet him -- as David went out
to meet Goliath -- on the very scene of his crime; suddenly, when least
expected and least wished for, he confronts the miserable king. And
then follows the curse, in terms fearful to any Oriental -- peculiarly
terrible to a Jew -- and, most of all, significant to a successor of
the apostate princes of the northern kingdom -- 'I will take away thy
posterity; I will cut off from thee even thy very dogs; I will make
thy house like that of Jeroboam and Baasha; thy blood shall be shed
in the same spot where the blood of thy victims was shed last night;
thy wife and thy children shall be torn in this very garden by the
wild dogs of the city, or as common carrion devoured by the birds of
the sky' -- the large vultures which in eastern climes are always wheeling
along under the clear blue sky, and doubtless suggested the expression
to the prophet.
A space of three or four years now elapses (comp. 1 Kings 22:1,51;
2 Kings 1:17), before we again catch a glimpse of Elijah. The denunciations
uttered in the vineyard of Naboth have been partly fulfilled. Ahab
is dead, and his son and successor, Ahaziah, has met with a fatal accident,
and is on his death-bed, after a short and troubled reign of less than
two years (2 Kings 1:1,2; 1 Kings 22:51). In his extremity he sends
to an oracle or shrine of Baal at the Philistine town of Ekron to ascertain
the issue of his illness. But the oracle is nearer at hand than the
distant Ekron. An intimation is conveyed to the prophet, probably at
that time inhabiting one of the recesses of Carmel, and, as on the
former occasions, he suddenly appears on the path of the messengers,
without preface or inquiry utters his message of death, and as rapidly
disappears. The tone of his words is as national on this as on any
former occasion, and, as before, they are authenticated by the name
of Jehovah -- 'Thus saith Jehovah, Is it because there is no God in
Israel that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, god of Ekron?" The messengers
returned to the king too soon to have accomplished their mission. They
were possibly strangers; at any rate they were ignorant of the name
of the man who had thus interrupted their journey. But his appearance
had fixed itself in their minds, and their description at once told
Ahaziah, who must have seen the prophet about his father's court or
have heard him described in the harem, who it was that had thus reversed
the favorable oracle which he was hoping for from Ekron. The 'hairy
man' -- the 'lord of hair,' so the Hebrew reading runs -- with a belt
of rough skin round his loins, who came and went in this secret manner,
and uttered his fierce words in the name of the God of Israel, could
be no other than the old enemy of his father and mother, Elijah the
Tishbite. But ill as he was this check only roused the wrath of Ahaziah,
and, with the spirit of his mother, he at once seized the opportunity
of possessing himself of the person of the man who had been for so
long the evil genius of his house. A captain was dispatched, with a
party of fifty, to take Elijah prisoner. He was sitting [perhaps-'dwelt']
on the top of 'the mount,' i.e. probably of Carmel (comp. 2 Kings 2:25).
The officer approached and addressed the prophet by the title which,
as before noticed, is most frequently applied to him and Elisha --
'O man of God, the king hath spoken: come down.' 'And Elijah answered
and said, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven
and consume thee and thy fifty! And there came down fire from heaven
and consumed him and his fifty." A second party was sent, only to meet
the same fate. The altered tone of the leader of a third party, and
the assurance of God that his servant need not fear, brought Elijah
down. But the king gained nothing. The message was delivered to his
face in the same words as it had been to the messengers, and Elijah,
so we must conclude, was allowed to go harmless. This was his last
interview with the house of Ahab. It was also his last recorded appearance
in person against the Baal-worshippers.
(Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1872) |
