ELIJAH.
Elijah means “Jehovah is my God.” There is often much in a name. It is a history, sometimes—the summing up of generations; it is sometimes an inspiration, recalling memories that stir the soul to high daring.
There are two places called Tishbi—one in Gilead and the other in Galilee. Elijah belonged to the former. Sometimes character is mysteriously and very deeply affected by country. Gilead was a wild and mountainous district, bordering on Arabia, and consequently half Arab in its customs. There was a wonderful similarity between the man and the region; stern, bleak, grand, majestic and awful were they both. John the Baptist seemed to bring the wilderness with him when he came into the city. Children born in luxury are apt to be themselves luxurious. Children born in slavery will hardly ever be free, though slavery has been abolished. To the end of life we carry the color which first impressed itself on our vision.
All revelations seem to us to be sudden. Look at the suddenness of the appearance of Ahijah to Jeroboam, and look at the instance before us: “Elijah, the Tishbite, said unto Ahab.” The total apostasy of the Ten Tribes (Israel) was now almost accomplished, and yet a faithful prophet of the Lord stands up in the degenerate land and declares that Jehovah is his God, and in sacred solitariness protests against the abominations of Israel and her king.
No mild man would have been equal to the occasion. God adapts His ministry to circumstances. He sends a nurse to the sick room and a soldier to the battle field. The son of consolation and the son of thunder can not change places. You are right when you say that the dew and the light and the soft breeze are God’s; but you may not, therefore, suppose that the thunder and the hurricane and the flood belong to a meaner lord.
Imagine the two men standing face to face—Ahab, the dissolute king, and Elijah, the faithful prophet. Probably there is no finer picture in ancient history. Terrible indeed is the national crisis when king and prophet come into collision. There is not a combat between two men. Mark that very closely. It is Right against Wrong, Faithfulness against Treachery, Purity against Corruption. Look at them—Ahab and Elijah—as they face one another! Consider the boldness of the prophet. Religion is never to be ashamed of its own testimony.
As we look at the scene, not wanting in the elements of the highest tragedy, we see the value of one noble witness in the midst of public corruption and decay, and the grandeur as well as necessity of a distinct personal profession of godliness. It is not enough to be godly; we must avow it in open conduct and articulate confession.
Let us now observe how Elijah proceeds to deal with Ahab. “There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Here is physical punishment for moral transgression. So it is; and that is just what a parent does when he uses the rod upon his child for falsehood. You can only punish people according to their nature. The garroter can submit to any number of censures and lectures, but he dreads the cat-o’-nine-tails.
Physical punishment for moral transgression is the law of society. So the liar is thrown out of his situation; the ill-tempered child is whipped; the dishonorable man is expelled from social confidence.
With regard to the particular punishment denounced against Ahab, it is to be remembered that drought is one of the punishments threatened by the law if Israel forsook Jehovah and turned after other gods.
This, then, was the brief communication which the prophet addressed to the king. God’s threatenings are terrible in their conciseness. He leaves no room in a multitude of works for ambiguity and verbal wriggling. The soul that sinneth shall die. “The wages of sin is death.” “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.”
And as He can be concise in threatening, so He can be concise in promise: “I will give you rest.” “I will give you living water.” “He that believeth shall be saved.” “Ask, and it shall be given you.”
Thus great things can be said in few words: “God is light.” “God is love.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “Ye must be born again.”
At the bidding of the word of the Lord, Elijah turned eastward and hid himself by the brook Cherith, a place nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and “no place like it has as yet been discovered in Palestine.” It was a torrent-course facing the Jordan, “but whether it was one of those which seam Mount Ephraim or of those on the opposite side of Jordan, in the prophet’s own country, is uncertain.”
But what is the meaning of the extraordinary expression: “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee”? By omitting the points, which are generally allowed to have no authority, the Hebrew letters may signify Arabians. Then the passage would read: “I have commanded the Arabians to feed thee.” Or, if we retain the present pointing, the word may be translated “merchants,” according to “The Speaker’s Commentary.” But it is better to allow the word “ravens” to stand. It implies a miracle; but the whole Bible is a miracle, and so is our own daily life, could we but see the inner movement and look beyond all symbols to the spiritual reality.
But Elijah’s brook dried up. Prophets may be overtaken by the operation of their own prophecies. The great laws are impartial, yet wonderful is the scope within which exceptions may be established. This incident gives an instance in point.
“Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” This place is called Sarepta in the New Testament. It lay upon the great public road which connected the two towns. A little village called Sarafend now occupies the situation.
But how did it come about that Elijah was sent to a place so near the city of Jezebel’s father? It has been suggested that it would be the last place that he would be suspected of having chosen as a retreat. When Elijah came to the gate of the city the widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he asked her for a little water in a vessel, that he might drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he asked her to bring also a morsel of bread in her hand. But she had no bread—not so much as a cake—only a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse.
She was just going to dress this little food for herself and her son, “that we may eat it and die.” But Elijah claimed it in the name of the Lord, and gave to her in return the gracious promise: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the Earth.”
We may here admire and imitate one of the finest instances of ancient faith. The woman was asked for all she had, and she gave it. But mark, she was put in possession of a promise. This is God’s law. He gives the promise first, and then asks for the faith of man. It was so in the ease of Abraham. It is so with ourselves today.
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.” This is the continual miracle of nature; this is the security of life. We are puzzled by it, but what of that? Are possibilities to be determined by our weakness or by God’s strength? We could have increased the flour had we sown the seed, reaped the grain and called in the aid of the miller. Now let us venture on the supposition that Almighty God is able to do just a little more than we can do, and the whole difficulty is gone. The air wastes not, nor the light, nor the force of nature; what if God can touch points which happen to lie beyond the range of our short fingers? We must allow something for Deity.
And now sorrow fell upon the poor woman’s house. Her only child died, and her heart was lacerated even to torment and agony. But the Lord was merciful. Elijah took the dead child away into a loft—the upper chamber, which was often the best part of an Eastern house—and cried unto the Lord, and stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried again and again unto the Lord, and the child’s life returned. Then the glad mother hailed Elijah as a man, and one in whose mouth was the word of the Lord.
Elijah had put himself beyond the reach of Ahab—not because he feared him or distrusted the power of God in critical circumstances—but because God’s providence or government is a great scheme with innumerable sides, and requires time for its full disclosure and accomplishment. We are not to hasten the march of God. To every thing there is a season. Everywhere we see this idea of time observed and honored. Though there is famine in the land, we can not urge the seasons forward. The child, too, must have years of growth, though his father be disabled and there be none to earn the household bread but himself.
So in the case before us. Ahab must be wearied out with searching for Elijah. He must be made to see how fruitless may be the efforts even of a king. And at last, when success does come, it must come not from his side at all.
We have said that Ahab was a speculative idolater rather than a cruel persecutor. Jezebel acted the part of cruelty; Ahab acted the part of unbeliever and spiritual rebel generally. A proof of the probable correctness of this view is found in the incident before us, for when Ahab met Elijah he did not show a spirit of cruelty. He said unto the prophet: “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” He did not threaten Elijah with the sword; he did not demand his immediate surrender and arrest. He seems rather to have looked upon Elijah with wonder—perhaps not unmixed with admiration of a figure so independent and audacious.
The tone of the king’s mind may be inferred from the kind of challenge which he accepted. It exactly suited his speculative genius. Elijah proposed a trial between himself and the idolatrous prophets, 850 in number—proposing that the god who answered by fire should be God. The idea instantly commended itself to Ahab as excellent. He liked the high and practical speculation. He was fond of intellectual combat, and he warmed at the notion of a holy fray. The man who could accept a notion of this kind was not cruel, wild or fond of human blood. Ahab was even wickedly religious; the more altars and groves the better—yea, altar upon altar, until the pile reached to Heaven; and grove after grove, until the line met itself again and formed a cordon around the world. If he had started from a right center, Ahab had been the foremost evangelist in the ancient Church.
Let us now look at the controversy itself.
This plan was proposed by the prophet of the Lord, and not by the servants of Baal. Truth addresses a perpetual challenge to all false religions and all wicked and incompetent workers. Its challenges have heightened and broadened in tone from the first ages until now.
Moses challenged the necromancers of Egypt; Elijah challenged the priests of Baal; Christ challenges the world.
At first the challenge was more strictly physical; but now it is intensely spiritual. What religion produces the highest and finest type of character? That is the challenging question.
That sane men should prefer a display of physical power or skill to a spiritual contest is an illustration of the infancy and rudeness of their minds, and not a proof of the best form of competition. Where, in Christian or in pagan lands, have we the finest men, the purest character, the most sensitive honor? Where are schools, hospitals, asylums and charities of every kind most abundant?
That Christian countries are disgraced by some of the foulest crimes possible in human life, may but show that their very foulness and atrocity never could have been so vividly seen and so cruelly felt but for the enlightenment and culture furnished by Christianity. In any other countries they would have been matters of course; but in Christian lands their abomination is seen by the help of Christian light.
The appeal or challenge was forced upon the prophets of Baal; it was not spontaneously accepted by them. This should be made very clear, as it is a point apt to be overlooked.
Perhaps the common impression is that Elijah challenged the prophets directly, standing face to face with them, without any medium of communication.
Nothing of the kind. Elijah first challenged King Ahab, who snatched eagerly at the sensational chance, little knowing what he was snatching at. Having spoken first to the king, Elijah spoke next to the people, and demanded why they hesitated between two opinions, insisting that they should make a choice between Jehovah and Baal. Then Elijah made his grand appeal to the people of Israel, and they answered and said: “It is well spoken.” Having secured the approval of the king and the people, Elijah called upon the prophets to proceed to trial.
Today Christianity appeals not to a few sectarian prophets, nor to a few bewildered speculators, nor to a few scientists who are wild with boy-like joy because they have found a bird’s nest, though they have never seen the bird that built it; but Christianity makes its appeal to the great and broad heart of human nature, to the common sufferings of the race, to the indestructible sentiments of mankind. In Elijah’s day the people said: “It is well spoken.” Of Christ it is said: “The common people heard him gladly.”
Every assault upon truth must bring mockery and death upon the assailants. Elijah mocked the prophets on Carmel and slew them at Kishon.
Elijah was a prophet of truth, but of sternness and terror. He lived in a tempestuous atmosphere. Lightning seemed to play around his temples, and his voice was as thunder.
Van de Velde gives a vivid delineation of the precise locality of the Carmel contest. He was, it is believed, the first traveler who identified the site of the “Burning.” The rock shoots up in an almost perpendicular wall, more than two hundred feet in height on the side of the vale of Esdrelon. This wall made the burning visible over the whole plain and from all the surrounding heights, so that even those left behind and who had not ascended Carmel would still have been able to witness, at no great distance, the fire from Heaven that descended on the altar. Here the place must have been, for it is the only point of all Carmel where Elijah could have been so close to the brook Kishon as to take thither the priests of Baal and slay them, return again to the mountain and pray for rain, all in the short space of the same afternoon. Down 250 feet beneath the altar plateau is a vaulted and very abundant fountain. While all other fountains were dried up, one can well understand that there might have been found here that superabundance of water which Elijah poured so profusely over the altar.