Redeeming Elijah

Elijah is one of the many Bible figures that I didn't meet until I was in my mid-twenties. My Catholic education strongly emphasized the gospels, but to the neglect of the entire rest of the Bible. Outside of Adam, Eve and Noah with whom I had a passing acquaintance, the bulk of the Bible outside the gospels, including Paul's letters, were virgin territory to my Catholic mind.

Significantly, Elijah, along with Moses, is on the mountain during Christ's transfiguration. He made the short short list.  He's also a harbinger to the Christ .  Malachi proclaimed "See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." (Malachi 4:5). Jesus  told the crowds that John the Baptist "is the Elijah who was to come." (Matthew 11:14).  Why was Elijah selected for such a distinction?  Knowing the Lord, it wasn't anything specifically exceptional about the man himself but more that he was a willing student of His greater plan.  Willing clay.

I think it's best that I start with the Elijah of Kings and Chronicles--to anchor myself in the flesh and blood details of these accounts and work my way forward.   

Elijah appears out of nowhere, fully armed with bold prophetic authority.  He announces to King Ahab, perhaps the worst of the entire line of Israel kings, that his kingdom will suffer famine and drought until he says the word.   Clearly Elijah is fully deluded or fully confident in the power of his Master.

Elijah and Ahab, Harold Copping (1863-1932), lithograph 1908

Elijah is identified as "a Tishbe from Gilead."  

"Elijah came from Tishbe in Gilead, east of the Jordan River, and was thus called a Tishbite. His history is recorded only in Kings. We are told nothing about his background, family, or call to the prophetic ministry." -Believer's Bible Commentary

As is often the case in my studies, someone has gone before me, pondered the scene more deeply and summarized it all much more succinctly and powerfully.  I'm never sad that I wasn't the first to tread this path of though, only thankful for such excellence company on my pilgramage.  It's one of the great priveleges of the Christian faith, to have such sturdy stock behind us, lifting us up on our current travels.

Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847-1929) was an English Bapist pastor, lifelong friend of D.L. Moody, and active in community missionary work throughout his lifetime. Before we explore his commentary on 1 King Here is his commentary on 1 Kings 17, it's work relaying some of his final words to a friend:

"I have just heard, to my great surprise, that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this reaches you, I shall have entered the palace. Don’t trouble to write. We shall meet in the morning."
Isn't that lovely? His commentary on Elijah is below:

"This chapter begins with the conjunction “And”: it is, therefore, an addition to what has gone before; and it is God’s addition. When we have read to the end of the previous chapter—which tells the melancholy story of the rapid spread, and universal prevalence, of idolatry, in the favoured land of the Ten Tribes—we might suppose that that was the end of all; and that the worship of Jehovah would never again acquire its lost prestige and power. And, no doubt, the principal actors in the story thought so too. But they had made an unfortunate omission in their calculations—they had left out Jehovah Himself. He must have something to say at such a crisis. When men have done their worst, and finished, it is the time for God to begin. The whole land seemed apostate. Of all the thousands of Israel, only seven thousand remained Who had not bowed the knee or kissed the hand to Baal. But they were paralysed with fear; and kept so still, that their very existence was unknown by Elijah in the hour of his greatest loneliness. 

Egg tempera and gold leaf on sculpted panel, 11 x 14 inches, 2002
Based on an icon in the Byzantine Museum, Athens

Such times have often come, fraught with woe: false religions have gained the upper hand; iniquity has abounded; and the love of many has waxed cold. So was it when the Turk swept over the Christian communities of Asia Minor, and replaced the Cross by the crescent. So was it when, over Europe, Roman Catholicism spread as a pall of darkness that grew denser as the dawn of the Reformation was on the point of breaking. So was it in the last century, when Moderatism reigned in Scotland, and apathy in England. But God is never at a loss. 

The land may be overrun with sin; the lamps of witness may seem all extinguished; the whole force of the popular current may run counter to His truth; and the plot may threaten to be within a hair s breadth of entire success; but, all the time, He will be preparing a weak man in some obscure highland village; and in the moment of greatest need will send him forth, as His all-sufficient answer to the worst plottings of His foes. 

Elijah grew up like the other lads of his age. In his early years he would probably do the work of a shepherd on those wild hills. As he grew in years, he became characterised by an intense religious earnestness. He was “very jealous for the Lord God of hosts.” But the question was, How should he act? What could he do, a wild, untutored child of the desert? 

There was only one thing he could do—the resource of all much-tried souls—he could pray; and he did: “he prayed earnestly” (Jas_5:17). “He prayed earnestly that it might not rain.” A terrible prayer indeed! Granted; and yet, was it not more terrible for the people to forget and ignore the God of their fathers, and to give themselves up to the licentious orgies of Baal and Astarte? Physical suffering is a smaller calamity than moral delinquency. And the love of God does not shrink from inflicting such suffering, if, as a result, the plague of sin may be cut out as a cancer, and stayed. Elijah gives us three indications of the source of his strength.

1. “As Jehovah liveth.” To all beside, Jehovah might seem dead; but to him, He was the one supreme reality of life.

2. “Before whom I stand.” He was standing in the presence of Ahab; but he was conscious of the presence of a greater than any earthly monarch, even the presence of Jehovah, before whom angels bow in lowly worship, hearkening to the voice of His word. Gabriel himself could not employ a loftier designation (Luk_1:19). Let us cultivate this habitual recognition of the presence of God; it will lift us above all other fear.

3. The word “Elijah” may be rendered, “Jehovah is my God”; but there is another possible translation, “Jehovah is my strength.” This gives the key to his life. God was the strength of his life; of whom should he be afraid?" (F. B. Meyer, M. A.)

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"Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."  1 Kings 17:1

"It is hard to set the Lord always before us; but it is possible, and in the measure in which we do it we shall not be moved." -Alexander Maclaren

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Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647), circa 1621-24
"Elijah Receiving Bread from the Woman of Zarepheth"

On the widow of Zarepheth (I Kings 17)

"God had apparently revealed to Elijah that He would honor that promise in Elijah’s day. This would have struck at the heart of Baal-ism, for Baal-worshipers believed that their god was the god of rain!"

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"This woman was a Phoenician, of Jezebel’s own race and country, and by birth and training a believer in those very idolatries which the bloody Queen was then establishing in Palestine, and against which it was the chief part of the prophet’s burden to witness."


"What a world of suggestion lies in the picture of Hebrew Prophet and Phoenician widow, Jehovah’s champion and Jezebel’s countrywoman, under the same roof, sharing the same meal, in friendship and fellowship! The sternest anti-idolater of history by the side of an idolater, blessed and blessing! It is a forecast and prophecy, amid the world’s enmities and hates, of the reconciliation of the future to be wrought out by a greater than Elijah."

"The point to which he here calls attention, and which was so distasteful to the Jews, is that the prophet was not sent to any of those within the circle of the visible Church, but to one living outside, in the darkness of a heathen land. And in her, the child of disprivilege, he found that faith which he found not among the children of privilege." -G.M. Grant

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"This miracle of God’s continually supplying flour and olive oil was another polemic (protest) against Baal, just as was the drought. Baal-worshipers believed he was a fertility god, giving rain to make crops grow."  -BKC