Reading: 1 Kings 17-19, Psalm 99
Today we are introduced to the great prophet of the Hebrew Scriptures, Elijah the Tishbite. Tishbe is not a significant place, and it is in Gilead, east of the Jordan, which by this time is basically foreign territory. Elijah is from the sticks, distant from the centers of power. The divided kingdom of Israel and Judah has shrunk from the huge territory under the sway of David and Solomon. During the reign of Ahab’s father Omri, the northern kingdom had stabilized after a era of confusion and continuous assassinations of kings. Omri built a new capital city and gave the nation of Israel a new identity. Ahab was heir to a kingdom that thought it knew what it was- a nation like Sidon and Syria and Moab. The problem was they were not who they thought they were. Elijah is about to let them know it.
Elijah’s message to Ahab is rather bold, but it is in total alignment with the curses of Deuteronomy for a disobedient Israel. As we will see, Elijah’s prophetic career, like the prophets after him, is as the prosecuting attorney for the covenant law of the God of Israel. Elijah is the instrument of curses. He appears without fanfare or origin story. It seems the author assumes the reader is expecting him, and if we’ve been paying attention so far, we really should be. The people of Israel have been acting against the covenant law, and the only surprise with Elijah is that he doesn’t show up earlier.
Today’s reading covers the major activities of Elijah’s “active” career. He appears before king Ahab and curses the land with drought. He wanders into the wilderness, where God provides for him. God sends him out of Israel entirely to a Sidonian city, Zaraphath. Here he is taken into the house of a widow who is near starvation. She displays great obedience and hospitality to the wandering prophet, and God miraculously provides for her household. When her son dies, Elijah prays for resurrection, and God grants his request. Then God sends him back to confront Ahab.
We get a little scene showing the division in the land of Israel. Ahab’s household manager, Obadiah (not the prophet), is a follower of the God of Israel. Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, has chased the prophets of the God of Israel out of the land or into hiding. Ahab appears to be playing the middle road, not fully committing to either Jezebel’s Baal worship or the God of Israel. Elijah shows up to put an end to this half and half situation. In one of the most fantastic stories in the Scriptures, Elijah alone confronts 450 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. He openly mocks the prophet’s of Baal’s inability to get their god to respond to them, then takes his turn. He soaks his altar in water before praying a short prayer asking God to set the offering on fire, and God responds by fireballing the altar. Elijah, knowing he has the people’s attention now, tells them to slaughter the prophet’s of Baal. Then he turns to Ahab and basically tells him to get lost. Elijah waits a bit for a cloud to appear in the northwest, then outruns Ahab’s chariots to the city of Jezreel.
Okay, at this point you would think two things would happen. Ahab, it being proven that the God of Israel was superior to Baal, would repent. Elijah, having been vindicated in all he has done, would claim victory. Neither is what happens. Ahab does nothing but what his wife tells him to do, and she threatens to have Elijah killed. And Elijah, who has been the subject of miraculous provision and has carried out miracles like raising a boy from the dead and calling fire from heaven, freaks out. This is not the story one would think should happen. But Ahab is, as we have been told, worse than all who came before him. So he does nothing. Elijah, on the other hand, you might expect to go and do some even more fantastic sign, but instead he runs away to Horeb.
Elijah is a bit of an iconoclast. He has no problem confronting the prophets of Baal, and even openly mocks them. He has no problem telling off the king of Israel to his face, and claiming responsibility for a drought that persists for three years. But when his impressive and irrefutable activities fail to bring Israel back to the worship of their God, he despairs. He turns to God and complains that the people are turned away, and that he alone is faithful. God responds that there are other faithful worshipers in Israel. Then he gives Elijah a series of signs. He sends a storm, then an earthquake, then a fire. But God is not speaking to Elijah in any of them. These are Elijah’s way of understanding God. Impressive. Dangerous. Irresistible.
He is not wrong. The God of Israel we have seen in the story so far is all those things, and more. But he is more than this, as Elijah is about to learn. God speaks to Elijah in a small and still way. This is not the way Elijah understands God. And this is not how the reader of the story so far has understood God. For much of the story onward, God’s voice to Israel will be the still and small one, punctuated by moments of the fire, earthquake, and storm. God is giving Elijah a new way of understanding him.
Elijah is given marching orders. He is to go and anoint some kings, and another prophet. Interestingly, one of the kings is not even a king of Israel, but of Syria! Elijah, the great prophet of the God of Israel, has raised a foreign boy from the dead and is anointing a foreign king. His successor, Elisha, will be equally international. Israel was to be a light to the nations, a witness by separating the common and the holy. They have failed. But God’s people are carrying the knowledge of the God of Israel to foreign people anyway. God is speaking through the prophets in new and different ways.