If the scene on Carmel is the grandest, that on Horeb is spiritually the most profound in the story of Elijah (xix. 9 sqq.). Not in the strong wind that brake the rocks in pieces, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice that followed the Lord made himself known. A threefold commission was laid upon him: he was to return to Damascus and anoint Hazael king of Syria; he was to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, as king of Israel in place of Ahab; and as his own successor in the prophetic office he was to anoint Elisha (xix. 15-18).[8]
Leaving Horeb and proceeding northwards along the desert route to Damascus, Elijah met Elisha engaged at the plough probably near his native place, Abel-meholah, in the valley of the Jordan, and by the symbolical act of casting his mantle upon him, consecrated him to the prophetic office. This was the only command of the three which he fulfilled in person; the other two were carried out by his successor.[9] After the call of Elisha the narrative contains no notice of Elijah for several years, although the LXX., by placing 1 Kings xxi. before ch. xx., proceeds at once to the tragic story of Naboth’s vineyard (see [Jezebel]). He is now the champion of freedom and purity of life, like Nathan when he confronted David for the murder of Uriah. Without any indication of whence or how he came, he again appeared, as usual with startling abruptness, in the vineyard when Ahab entered to take possession of it, and pronounced upon the king and his house that awful doom (1 Kings xxi. 17-24) which, though deferred for a time, was ultimately fulfilled to the letter (see [Jehu]).
With one more denunciation of the house of Ahab, Elijah’s function as a messenger of wrath was fully discharged (2 Kings i.). When Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, having injured himself by falling through a lattice, sent to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he should recover, the prophet was commanded to appear to the messengers and tell them that, for this resort to a false god, the king should die. The effect of his appearance was such that they turned back without attempting to fulfil their errand. Ahaziah despatched a captain with a band of fifty to arrest him. They came upon Elijah seated on “the mount,”—probably Carmel. The imperious terms in which he was summoned to come down were punished by fire from heaven, which descended at the bidding of Elijah and consumed the whole land. A second captain and fifty were despatched, behaved in a similar way, and met the same fate. The leader of a third troop took a humbler tone, sued for mercy, and obtained it. Elijah then went with them to the king, but only to repeat before his face the doom he had already made known to his messengers, which was almost immediately afterwards fulfilled. The spirit, even the style of this narrative, points unmistakably to its being of late origin. It shocks the moral sense with its sanguinary character more than, perhaps, any other Old Testament story.
The only mention of Elijah’s name in the book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles xxi. 12-15) is where he is represented as sending a letter of rebuke and denunciation to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. The chronological difficulties which are involved suggest that the floating traditions of this great personality were easily attached to well-known names whether strictly contemporary or not. It was before the death of Jehoshaphat that the last grand scene in Elijah’s life occurred (2 Kings ii., see iii. 1). He had taken up his residence with Elisha at one of the prophetic guilds at Gilgal. His approaching end seems to have been known to the guilds at Bethel and Jericho, both of which they visited in their last journey. At the Jordan, Elijah, wrapping his prophet’s mantle together, smote the water with it, and so by a last miracle passed over on dry ground. When they had crossed the master desired the disciple to ask some parting blessing. The request for a double portion (i.e. probably a first-born’s portion, Deut. xxi. 17)[10] of the prophet’s spirit Elijah characterized as a hard thing; but he promised to grant it if Elisha should see him when he was taken away. The end is told in words of simple sublimity: “And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings ii. 11). It is scarcely necessary to point out, however, that through the figure the narrative evidently means to convey as fact that Elijah passed from earth, not by the gates of death, but by miraculous translation. Such a supernatural close is in perfect harmony with a career into every stage of which the supernatural enters as an essential feature. For whatever explanation may be offered of the miraculous element in Elijah’s life, it must obviously be one that accounts not for a few miraculous incidents only, which might be mere excrescences, but for a series of miraculous events so closely connected and so continuous as to form the main thread of the history.
Elijah occupied an altogether peculiar place in later Jewish history and tradition. For the general belief that he should return for the restoration of Israel cf. Mal. iv. 5-6; Matt. xi. 14, xvi. 14; Luke ix. 8; John i. 21, and on the development of the thought see Bousset, Antichrist, s.v., and the Jewish Encyc. vol. v. p. 126. In Mahommedan tradition Elijah is the everlasting youthful el-Khidr or el-Khadir.
Elijah is canonized both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his festival being kept in both on the 20th July—the date of his ascension in the nineteenth year of Jehoshaphat, according to Cornelius a Lapide. The natural and most reliable estimate of the career of Elijah is that which is based upon a critical examination of the narratives; see, in addition to Robertson Smith, Prophets of Israel(²), pp. 75 sqq., Cheyne, Hallowing of Criticism, the articles by Addis in Encyc. Bib., and J. Strachan, Hastings’ Dict. Bib., H. Gunkel, Elias, Yahve u. Baal (Tübingen, 1906), the literature to [Kings, Books of], and the histories referred to in [Jews]. There is difference of opinion as to the historical importance of both Elijah and Elisha; for a useful summary of views, as also for fuller bibliographical information, see W.R. Harper, Amos and Hosea (Internat. Crit. Comm.), pp. xxxiv.-xlix., and article [Hebrew Religion].
(W. R. S.; S. A. C.)
[1] The text is uncertain. According to the LXX., he was a native of Tishbeh in Gilead; a more natural reading. Klostermann’s conjecture that the original name of his home was Jabesh-Gilead is attractive but unnecessary. His appearance in the narrative, like Melchizedek, “without father, without mother” (Heb. vii. 3), gave rise to various rabbinical traditions, such as that he was Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, returned to earth, or that he was an angel in human form.
[2] Its duration is vaguely stated; from Luke iv. 25, James v. 17, we learn that it lasted three years and a half; but according to Phoenician tradition (Jos. Ant. viii. 13. 2) only one year.