Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: The final instalment in some tweets on Ahab’s first encounter with Elijah (1 Kgs. 16.29-19.21).

As usual, the aim isn’t to cover/summarise the whole text, but simply to pick out particular (and sometimes overlooked) points of interest.

At the outset of our text (18.40-19.21), a number of different things/people ascend and descend.

Fire falls from heaven,

the people of Israel fall face down in response, and

Elijah marches the prophets of Baal down from the mountain top,

ultimately for them to be brought down to the grave.

Afterwards, Ahab ascends to the highest part of the mountain (at Elijah’s command), and Elijah ascends after him.

As he nears the top of the mountain, Elijah lies prostate on the ground

and tells his servant to go up (to the peak of the mountain) and watch for signs of rain.

Eventually, a cloud ascends from the sea, and rain starts to descend from the heavens,

at which point Ahab and Elijah’s descend from the mountain together.

These vertical movements are significant. They reflect the tumultuous nature of recent events in Israel.

After a long period of drought and stagnancy, Israel has come back into contact with the God of heaven,

and Elijah is about to experience a number of major ups and downs in his life (as is Israel as a whole),

which form the subject matter of ch. 19.

Ch. 19 begins with an enormous anti-climax.

Elijah runs before Ahab’s chariot as he returns to his palace in Jezreel,

as if he is a messenger whose job is to prepare the way for his lord’s arrival (cp. 1.5).

Ahab has seen YHWH’s power and superiority over Baal first hand.

When he arrives back in Jezreel, true reformation can therefore begin.

Jezebel can be ousted from the palace

(or perhaps even be converted), and Yahwistic reform can be put in place.

Or at least so Elijah thinks.

Yet, in reality, the opposite happens.

Ahab tells a devotee of the recently-humiliated Baal (viz. Jezebel) what Elijah has done and lets *her* decide the next steps.

Ahab is clearly a man of great weakness.

When Elijah called the shots (e.g., ‘Gather the people!’, ‘Ascend Mount Carmel!’), he was happy to go along with Elijah’s YHWH-centred agenda.

But, once he gets back to Jezreel, he cedes control to Jezebel.

And, as one might expect, her response to Elijah’s activities is hardly positive.

Rather than repent, Jezebel vows to bring Elijah down to the grave,

in response to which no great coup d’état takes place.

The crowds present at Carmel seem to have faded into the background.

They are an ephemeral and manipulable multitude, much like the ‘crowds’ present in the Gospels,

whose loyalty (חסד) is like the mist at sunrise (cp. Hos. 6.4).

Sadly, the answer to Elijah’s question, ‘How long will you falter between two opinions?’ is ‘A fair bit longer yet’.

Note: Jezebel’s vow--in which she challenges ‘the gods (אלהים) to deal with her’ if she does not kill Elijah soon--is highly ironic, since Jezebel will not kill Elijah, and אלהים will in fact deal with her, though not the אלהים she had in mind.

Indeed, Elijah will pronounce a death sentence on Jezebel, just as she did on him (1 Kgs. 21.23), only Elijah’s will come to pass.

Back to the text: What follows in ch. 19 is not straightforward to unpack or understand.

Here is how the story is sometimes read/understood:

Elijah is terrified by Jezebel’s death-threat,

so he heads southwards and ends up in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba,

where an angel tells him to go to Mount Horeb (viz. Sinai).

There Elijah protests to YHWH about the state of Israel,

but YHWH reveals his great glory to Elijah,

at which point Elijah sees the error of his ways and returns to his prophetic ministry.

But a number of these assumptions are simply statements of what we *expect* to read, and are difficult to support on the basis of our text.

First, Elijah may not actually have been ‘afraid’ of Jezebel’s death threat; he may simply have become aware of it.

True--Elijah left Jezreel in order to preserve his life (וילך אל־נפשו),

but וירא in the phrase וירא וילך אל־נפשו may not denote ‘fear’.

While וירא is vocalised in some MSS as וַיִּרָא = ‘he was afraid’ (so Gr. tr.), it is vocalised as וַיַּרְא = ‘he saw’ in others (so Vulg.).

Second, the angel does not actually tell Elijah to go to Horeb.

The angel simply encounters Elijah in the wilderness & says ‘the journey is too great for you’,

in response to which Elijah does not say ‘What journey?’, but sets off for Horeb (as if it was his intention anyway).

Third, YHWH does not actually ‘reveal his glory’ to Elijah.

Elijah is in fact unable to detect YHWH’s presence in the wind, earthquake, and fire which he sees,

and the ‘still small voice’ he hears is hardly ‘a revelation of YHWH’s glory’ as the phrase is commonly understood.

Fourth, Elijah does not seem to undergo much of a change of heart at Horeb.

When YHWH first appears to Elijah on Mount Horeb, he asks him ‘Why are you here?’,

in response to which Elijah says, ‘I have been very zealous for YHWH...’,

and when YHWH next speaks to Elijah, he asks him exactly the same question (‘Why are you here’) and receives exactly the same answer.

Question: Does YHWH’s question (מה לך פה) involve a play on words? As I prepared to write these tweets, I listened to a recital of 1 Kgs. 19 (mechon-mamre.org/mp3/t09a19.mp3), and heard the phrase מה לך פה = ‘Why are you here?’ as מלכה פה = ‘Is there a queen (e.g., Jezebel) here?’.

Either way, the question remains, What are we to make of all these events?

My suggestion is as follows.

Elijah is downcast, and understandably so.

He has sought to revive Israel,

yet what he took to be the onset of a revival has come to nothing.

His ministry has been no more effective than his fathers’ (19.4 cp. how Elisha refers to Elijah as his ‘father’ in 2 Kgs. 2.12),

and the situation in Israel is hopeless.

If the fire of Carmel cannot change Israel’s heart, then what can?

Elijah therefore decides he needs an audience with YHWH,

so he heads off to the place where YHWH first revealed himself to Israel, namely Mount Sinai.

In light of the exodus-like shape of Elijah’s days, Elijah’s decision makes good sense.

A pagan god has been miraculously humiliated and defeated.

Just as Moses outdid Pharaoh’s magicians, so Elijah has outdone the prophets of Baal.

Just as Moses’s prayer afterwards brought about a wind, thick clouds, and the miraculous movement of water, so too has Elijah’s.

And yet, just as Moses’s people turned back to idolatry in the aftermath of all these things (cf. the golden calf), so too have Elijah’s people,

...hence Elijah’s presence at Horeb = Sinai.

Note: Why Sinai is ref’d to as Horeb here is not clear to me, tho it facilitates a neat play on words, since, just as Jezebel’s destruction (הכרית) of YHWH’s prophets previously drove Elijah to the Cherith (כרית), so now her use of the sword (חרב) drives Elijah to Horeb (חרב).

Back to our text: When Elijah arrives at Horeb, YHWH asks him why he has come there.

Elijah’s answer evades YHWH’s question.

Elijah simply explains his situation, saying, ‘I have been zealous for you, Lord, yet it has all come to nothing!’.

Perhaps Elijah does not know exactly why he has gone to Horeb.

YHWH’s question, however, makes it sound as if Elijah could have gone to Horeb for multiple reasons,

which is true.

Moses ascended the mountain to make atonement for his people.

‘If you will not forgive the people’s sin’, he said to YHWH, ‘then blot me out of your book!’ (Exod. 32.32).

Is that what Elijah has come to Horeb to do?

It *could* have been,

but the text of 19.4 gives us pause for thought, since there Elijah asks to die,

which makes it seem as if he has already discounted Moses’s first option (‘Forgive the people’s sin!’) and instead settled on the second (‘Take my life!’).

That YHWH asks Elijah why he has come to Horeb therefore makes sense.

Is Elijah there to atone for his people, or to complain about them?

I do not think Elijah has decided as yet, so he simply tells YHWH what has happened. (‘I have been very zealous...’)

Note: Elijah’s statement does not answer YHWH’s question, but it is at least a (re)statement of his commitment to YHWH’s cause. Elijah has been loyal to YHWH, and he remains loyal. (‘I alone am left!’)

Thereafter, things unfold very differently to how they did in Moses’s day.

While YHWH revealed his great glory to Moses, YHWH does *not* reveal his glory to Elijah in the same way.

Like Moses, Elijah positions himself in a cave/cleft in the mountain side.

And, in both cases, YHWH ‘passes by’ (עבר).

But Elijah does not discern YHWH’s presence in what he sees (i.e., in the ‘wind, earthquake, and fire’).

Only when Elijah hears a ‘still small voice’ is he drawn forth from the cave and towards the presence of YHWH.

The differences between Moses’s and Elijah’s stories are significant,

and are designed to teach Elijah two important lessons.

First, unlike the days of Moses, Elijah’s will not be days of great covenants or of a united nation under a godly leader.

Second, extraordinary acts of power--fires and earthquakes and the like--are not always what bring about a change of heart in people’s lives.

Just as Elijah’s state of mind was not changed by the fire on Mount Horeb

(Elijah did not perceive YHWH’s presence in it, and was not drawn forth from his cave by it), so too the fire on Mount Carmel had not changed Israel’s state of mind.

YHWH’s message must, therefore, have been a difficult one for Elijah to hear,

yet it contained an important call & encouragement,

which is as follows.

Just as YHWH’s ‘still small voice’ changed Elijah’s state of mind,

so too a small yet persistent prophetic voice can--and in the long run will--change Israel’s,

& Elijah is part of that prophetic voice.

Note: Our text explicitly connects the ‘small voice’ with a ‘prophetic voice’ since Elijah’s response to it is to wrap himself in his mantle (אַדֶּרֶת), which is connected with his prophetic call & ministry (hence Elijah later throws it on Elisha to ‘anoint’ him: 19.19).

Elijah’s ministry has not, therefore, failed, much less has it been wasted.

It will achieve its end; it will simply be part of a longer term plan than Elijah expected.

I therefore take the sense of YHWH’s next question to Elijah (‘Why are you here?’) to be ‘Are you still committed to my cause?’ (19.13b),

which Elijah says he is (19.14).

In response, YHWH reveals to Elijah the next steps in his plan,

which continue the theme of the wind, earthquake, fire, and voice.

The days to come will be shaped by the careers of Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha.

These will be days of רוח = ‘wind’ insofar as Elisha will move in the power of the רוח = ‘Spirit’,

and of ‘earthquakes’ insofar as Jehu will bring about an enormous political upheaval in Israel,

and of ‘fire’ insofar as Hazael will set Israel’s strongholds ablaze (2 Kgs. 8.12),

and yet none of these extraordinary activities will ultimately unite Israel under a godly leader in Elijah and Elisha’s days.

What they *will* do, however--or more precisely what YHWH will do by means of them--, is preserve a faithful testimony in Israel,

...a remnant of 7,000 who will remain loyal to their God, and will not bow their knee to the gods of the nations.

Suffice it to say, what YHWH teaches Elijah in our text is relevant to us today.

Our days as Christians may or may not be great days when our nations are united together under godly leaders.

We may instead be called simply to preserve a small prophetic voice in our world,

yet if that is our call, then:

a] it is an enormous honour and privilege--one beyond anything we deserve,

b] it requires and deserves our full commitment, and

c] it will ultimately be successful, since the voice/word of YHWH is ultimately the most powerful force in all Creation.

To preserve it is to preserve YHWH’s agent for change and salvation in the days to come,

and, happily, the preservation of our faith is not a battle we must fight alone,

for God says of his people, ‘I have preserved them’ (19.18).