[3] The rationalistic view that the word translated “ravens” should be “Arabians” is improbable. Cheyne’s suggestion that the unknown brook Cherith should be placed to the south of Judah agrees with Josephus (Ant. viii. 13. 2, “he departed into the southern parts”) and with 1 Kings xix. 3, 8; “Jordan” may refer to another river, if it be not a gloss; see Cheyne, Ency. Bib., s.v. “Cherith.”
[4] The sudden introduction of Elijah in xvii. 1 may be accounted for by the supposition that the commencement of the narrative had been omitted by the editor of xvi. 29 sqq. Hence we are not told the cause of Ahab’s hostility towards Elijah, nor is the allusion to Jezebel’s massacre of the prophets (xviii. 3, 13) explained. It would appear from Obadiah’s words in ver. 9 that he himself was in fear of his life. Later tradition supposed he was the captain of 2 Kings i. 13, or that the widow of 2 Kings iv. 1 had been his wife.
[5] The definition of time by the stated oblation (xviii. 29, 36) is very noteworthy (cp. 2 Kings iii. 20).
[6] It is obvious that a purely rationalistic interpretation of the great sign whereby Jahweh manifested himself would be out of place. But there is an interesting parallel in the legend of the kindling of the sacred fire and the igniting of the “thick water” in the time of Nehemiah (2 Macc. i. 18-36). Elsewhere, there were sacred fires kindled by the aid of magical invocations (e.g. Hypaepa, Pausanias v. 27. 3).
[7] Yahweh is here supposed to have his seat on the ancient mountain. “It was the God of the Exodus to whom he appealed, the ancient King of Israel in the journeyings through the wilderness.” For the cave, cp. Ex. xxxiii. 22.
[8] The theophany is clearly no rebuke to an impatient prophet, nor a lesson that the kingdom of heaven was to be built up by the slow and gentle operation of spiritual forces. It expresses the spirituality of Yahweh in a way that indicates a marked advance in the conception of his nature. See Skinner, Century Bible, “Kings,” ad loc.
[9] The geographical indications imply that in one account the journey to Damascus and the anointing of Hazael and Jehu must have intervened, and were omitted because another account ascribed these acts to Elisha (2 Kings viii. ix.). In the latter we possess a more historical account of the anointing of Jehu, and Robertson Smith observes: “When the history in 1 Kings represents Elijah as personally commissioned to inaugurate [the revolution] by anointing Jehu and Hazael as well as Elisha, we see that the author’s design is to gather up the whole contest between Yahweh and Baal in an ideal picture of Elijah and his work” (Ency. Brit. (9) art. Kings, vol. xiv. p. 85).
[10] Understood in Eccles. xlviii. 12 (Heb.) to mean that Elisha was twice as great as Elijah.
ELIJAH WILNA, or Elijah ben Solomon, best known as the Gaon Elijah of Wilna (1720-1797), a noted Talmudist who hovered between the new and the old schools of thought. Orthodox in practice and feeling, his critical treatment of the rabbinic literature prepared the way for the scientific investigations of the 19th century. As a teacher he was one of the first to discriminate between the various strata in rabbinic records; to him was due the revival of interest in the older Midrash (q.v.) and in the Palestinian Talmud (q.v.), interest in which had been weak for some centuries before his time. He was an ascetic, and was a keen opponent of the emotional mysticism which was known as the new Hassidism.