Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
I Kings 19:1-10 relate that Jezebel seeking the death of Elijah. It relates the self-disclosure of the Lord in a situation of hopelessness.[1] The setting is the 800’s BC reigns of Ahab and his son Ahaziah. However, the life, work, and teaching of Elijah provide the unity that binds originally separate legends. The stories share the common theme of the struggle for the soul of the northern kingdom of Israel. The stories show the faithful prophet of Yahweh versus the religious innovations surrounding Baal. The present story is one of the climactic moments in that struggle.
Elijah will flee from Ahab and Jezebel and go to Judah and receive a revelation at Mount Horeb. 1Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. The text begins with a reference to another story, Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (18:20-40). In that encounter, Elijah challenged 450 prophets of the Canaanite storm god Baal to a contest of divine power, in which a sacrificial altar was erected and the prophets of the respective deities — Baal or Yahweh — would invoke their divine patron to consume the offering. Baal’s prophets, despite histrionics, failed to produce evidence of Baal’s presence, whereas Elijah, the sole prophet of Yahweh, was able to summon fire from heaven, which “consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench” (18:38). The tables of popular loyalty having been turned by this proof of Yahweh’s superiority over his Canaanite rival, Elijah then had the prophets of Baal taken to the Wadi Kishon and executed (18:40). Jezebel (meaning, “Where is the Prince?”) is the patron of the prophets of Baal, and Ahab is combining Yahweh and Baal. Omri arranged this political marriage with a princess of the city-state of Tyre. This marriage, like Solomon’s numerous political marriages, brought the worship of foreign deities into the court of Israel. However, fragments of inscribed pottery found at Samaria, the capital of Israel established by Ahab’s father, contain names compounded with both Yahweh and Baal, suggesting that the religious syncretism for which Ahab was condemned by the Deuteronomistic editors of Kings was well under way prior to his reign. Jezebel, whose name has become synonymous with the powerful, ruthless seductress, was the wife of one of Israel’s kings (Ahab), the mother of two others (Ahaziah and Jehoram), and the mother of the only ruling queen in Judah (Athaliah, II Kings 8:18). One cannot overstate her influence on Israelite religion and history of the ninth century B.C., as royal patroness of the cult of Baal and Asherah (I Kings 18:19). Her father, Ethball (“Baal is with him”), was king of the Sidonians. Later tradition came to epitomize her unfaithfulness (see, e.g., Revelation 2:20-23). Ahab introduced the Baal cult alongside Yahwism in Samaria (I Kings 16:31-33). For this profound breach of fidelity to the religious tradition of Israel, subsequent generations regarded Ahab as among the most notorious of Israel’s kings (1 Kings 16:30, 21:25-26). His rule was a period of stability and growth for the northern kingdom, as far as the archaeological and historical records tell us, but a period of religious degeneracy as far as the writers of the Bible were concerned. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, in formulaic language,[2]“So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”Ruth 1:17, II Samuel 3:35, 19:13, I Kings 2:23 have the form of the oath in its Yahwistic form. She accompanied this oath by a cutting or crushing gesture indicating annihilation. Such a gesture symbolically reinforces the threat contained in her words. Jezebel was not able to put Elijah to death in summary fashion, for we may expect her to have acted first and talked afterward if she was in a position to do so. However, she may be acting imperiously, warning Elijah of her plan to avenge the deaths of her companions in the worship of Baal. She is making a diplomatic proposal that offers both parties a way out. Elijah could escape her intention by running away; she would then be relieved of having to follow through on her threat.[3] 3 Then, very bluntly reporting, he was afraid;[4] he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. Elijah joined the ranks of the Yahwistic prophets who had become refugees in the face of Jezebel’s attempt to exterminate them (I Kings 18:13). The power of Jezebel was such that even Elijah, a formidable figure in his own right and the chief advocate for Israel’s covenant with the Lord, feared her. She managed to scare Elijah out of the country. Given the story of the vineyard of Naboth in I Kings 21, we know she did not give idle threats. The flight of Elijah so far south suggests temporary victory at Carmel. Beer-sheba was an important and ancient city in Israel’s history and was one of the two traditional markers of Israel’s borders (“from Dan [in the north] to Beer-sheba,” Judges 20:1; I Samuel 3:20; II Samuel 3:10; 24:2; etc.). This dates the text at least before 722 BC.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. This bush sometimes grows to a height of as much as ten feet and is common in the desert wadies of the south. It provides no great amount of shade against the desert sun, but it is the best shade there is. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” The extermination of those faithful to the covenant was staring him in the face is the reason for the despair of Elijah. This is weakness at its weakest.[5] We have here a moment of psychological realism in a text that only infrequently depicts characters with such literary roundedness. This theme appears elsewhere, notably in the traditions about Moses (e.g., Numbers 11:11-15), and in the book of Jonah, whose closing scene (4:1-11) may be an echo of this passage. Life came from God, so it was up to God to take it as well. Suicide is not an option. He is clearly experiencing internal torment. Such assaults are an important aspect of integrating faith with life. We have no experience of the depth of faith needed in life apart from them. Such afflictions guard one against pride and deepen our life of faith. In our sorrow and despair, we may be closer than we know. Elijah is not just weary of life; he is weary of God.[6] The extermination of the pure worship of Yahweh is the real reason for his despair. Showing weakness at its weakest, the prophet contemplates suicide. Elijah is utterly at the end of his own courage and his own strength, and dejectedly confesses that despite all he has done at Carmel he is no better than his ancestors were. His despondency exaggerates the admittedly grim reality, as the only evidence to suggest systematic persecution of Yahwistic prophets is the aside in I Kings 18:4, 13, attributing the murder of Yahweh's prophets directly to Jezebel. Rather than overt hostility toward the national faith of Israel, the apostasy of Israel's kings more commonly took the form of religious syncretism, that is, a toleration or even incorporation of foreign religious elements into Mosaic Yahwism. This certainly is the case with Ahab. 5 Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him. Like Genesis 16:7, we have a theophany, a manifestation of the divine in human form. The connection between the “E” tradition of the Patriarchs and Elijah suggest closeness in their date of composition. The angel of the Lord said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. The cakes were a round and flat bread that is one people in the region still bake. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you,” as in 17:6, though Elijah is hiding far from food sources, the Lord provides for him. Another parallel to this story is that of Hagar in Genesis 21:14-19. 8 He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights (12-15 miles a day) a conventional folklore number recalling Moses (Exodus 34:27-28), to Horeb (the preferred name in the Deuteronomic History for Sinai, often identified with Jebel Musa, a peak deep in the southern mountains of the Sinai Peninsula) the mount of God. This suggests 600-1000 miles south, east, or west of Beer-sheba. Elijah continues in the wilderness, tracing in reverse the path the Israelites (and his prophetic predecessor, Moses) took from Egypt. He goes to the home of the ancient Hebrew people and the religion of Moses. Note that Horeb is the mountain in Deuteronomic text and the Elohistic text, while Sinai is the mountain Jahwist and Priestly traditions. In Ex 3:1, Moses received his call at Horeb. The journeys of Moses and Elijah reach their climax at Horeb. Horeb was another name for Mount Sinai, where the preeminent revelation of God to the Hebrew people occurred (Exodus 19-34), and Elijah receives on that same mountain another theophany — divine appearance — from the God of the Hebrews. 9 At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. One can compare the account of the fast of forty days and forty nights in Exod. 34:28 and the "passing across" (M.T. rb[ in each case) of God. On the other hand, Moses stood in a cleft of the rock, while Elijah stood in the mouth of a cave; or again, the hand of God covers Moses’ face, whereas Elijah wraps his face in his mantle. In another echo of the Moses tradition (Exodus 33:17-23), Elijah encounters the divine in the cave. The allusions of Moses help to establish him as a prophet like Moses, as described in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18). Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, using the oblique third-person address to God, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. Talk of zealousness is disappearing from our language. Zeal is disruptive. A zealot will be resolute and display courage regardless of the challenges. Most of us prefer some detachment. The zealot abandons any notion that he or she is in possession of a private life to do with as one chooses. The zealot comes across to the impartial as a destroyer. The zealot has a fearful burden.[7] He uses an ancient and common designation for Israel’s God (especially in the Psalter, e.g., 59:5; 69:6; 80:4, 7, 14, 19). From its heavy concentration in the Psalter, the designation was a liturgical one, and referred to Yahweh as the God of the heavenly armies (or “host”). Although the epithet "Yahweh the God of hosts" is a common designation of the God of Israel (whose "hosts" are heavenly armies), it is rarely encountered outside the prophetic corpus or the book of Psalms; the epithet occurs only in this passage and in II Samuel 5:10. The language of an embattled deity is entirely appropriate for the context of internecine religious warfare. Moses hid his face at the bush because he was afraid to look upon God (Exod. 3:6). Elijah has been zealous for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, (many altars to Yahweh is against the Deuteronomic History’s emphasis upon one shrine in Jerusalem) and killed your prophets with the sword (I Kings 18:13, as Jezebel attempted to exterminate them). I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”Elijah does not attribute his distress to Jezebel, the immediate cause of his flight, but to the apostasy of the Israelites as a nation. That Yahweh was a warrior God is well attested in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Exodus 15:3; Isaiah 42:13; Zephaniah 3:17), which is one of the reasons the conflict between his followers and the devotees of Baal, another warrior god, was so sharp. It was the similarities, rather than the differences, between Yahweh and Baal that provided the greatest source of confusion in the religious struggles between Israelites and Canaanites. The verse suggests enthusiasm of exclusive devotion, a fanatical intolerance.
I Kings 19:11-18 relate the meeting between God and Elijah at Horeb. 11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”[8] Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. Like God's revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai, earthquake and fire accompanied God's revelation to Elijah on Horeb (Exodus 19:16; 20:18; Judges 5:4-5; Isaiah 30:27). The wind, the earthquake, and the fire are the outrunners (cf. II Sam. 15:1) that herald the coming of the king. Such phenomena as these are the regular O.T. accompaniments of a theophany (Exod. 19:16, 18; Ps. 18:7-15). After the fire a sound of sheer silence (qol demamah daqqah). This disclosure of the Lord is in direct contrast to the experience of Moses on Sinai/Horeb. Such silence can be frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our lives. The Deuteronomistic theologians took pains to distinguish the wind, earthquake, and fire from the “sound of sheer silence.” The Hebrew phrase has been variously translated (the traditional "still small voice," "a faint murmuring sound" [Revised English Bible], "a tiny whispering sound" [New American Bible] and "sound of fine silence" [J. T. Walsh in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary] are only a few of the proposals). It can mean anything from a low whisper to a high-pitched whine. The traditional rendering is a still small voice, but the Hebrew is "a sound of a gentle stillness" (ASV mg.; cf. Job 4:16). The writer thinks of an eerie stillness, so still that one can hear it. The contrast between earthquake, storm, and fire on the one hand and the voice of a thin silence is strange and effective. The powers of nature lying in the foreground of the story should make us aware of another world lying behind them. The representation of the manifestation of Yahweh in air or breath, though still in the natural realm, represents the extreme limit of apprehension by the senses. The result increases the tension in Elijah.[9] 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah is on Mount Horeb, a sacred place. Moses saw the burning bush here. He received the Ten Commandments here. He asked the see the glory of the Lord here. Elijah may have wanted the Lord to intervene in a dramatic way. Instead, Elijah will not hear the Lord in the dramatic and powerful. He will not hear the Lord in nature at all. He will simply hear the voice of the Lord.[10] We need to heighten our awareness of the dangerous possibility contained in turning the word of the Lord into something sensational. The circus artist tries to hold the audience spellbound. The preacher, prophet, priest, or teacher must be careful here. The word of the Lord is not for us to draw attention to the performer, leaving the human spirit untouched.[11] 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” This repetition is less urgent. The revelation demonstrated that Elijah was not alone and restored a sense of proportion. 15 Then the Lordsaid to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus (the Syrian Desert).[12] Yahweh takes little notice of Elijah's spiritual distress - no word of comfort appears in the entire episode - and responds to Elijah's description of Israel's calamitous state by instructing the prophet to take action. However, the Lord addresses the weariness and sense of isolation Elijah is experiencing. Elijah accepts a new policy from the Lord and starts putting it into practice. The text suggests that there was no revelation of the Lord at all in any of the natural phenomena — not in the wind, earthquake, fire, or silence — but only through Elijah’s direct audition of the Lord’s voice. The point being made is that whereas Baal’s presence was evidenced in natural phenomena (the stormy, fructifying rains), Yahweh’s presence, although it could be experienced in parallel natural phenomena (thus the contest on Mount Carmel), was direct and unmediated through the forces of nature. Although such a distinction is a reasonable inference from an uncertain text, one should not press this distinction too hard.
Clearly, the Lord is not finished with Israel. The divine intention shows itself in specific forms of divine activity. One recognizable shift in perspective occurs in the memorable story of Elijah and his encounter with God at Horeb. Yahweh is not in the storm, earthquake, or fire, as the people of the Tribal Federation came to know Yahweh, but in the soft, gentle breeze. It suggests the closest proximity of one whispering, as over against terrifying distance. The focus of the story is that Elijah should not expect the spectacular in-breaking of the Lord into history, as the traditional liturgy said, in storm, earthquake, and fire. See Ps 18:12, Judges 5:4f, Hab 3:3f, Ps 68:8. Rather, he should expect to find God's direction in the ordinary course of daily life. This direction will come regularly and constructively. The Horeb theophany may reflect an inner conflict that he interpreted to his successor, Elisha. Previously, God's will was discerned in dream, in lot, ephod. Now, the consulting of Yahweh would be direct and intelligible in the context of human experience.
Moses would become a model for later prophet figures. For parallels with Jesus, for example, see Matthew 4:2, 8, 11; 5:1-7:29; 8:1-9:34; 14:13-21; Luke 8:40-56. Numerous parallels between Elijah and Moses, Israel’s greatest prophetic figure, give structure and coherence to the Elijah stories: the solitary prophet in conflict with oppressive and corrupt rulers, the flight of the prophet into the wilderness, the appearance of the Lord on a mountain to the fleeing prophet, etc. Like Moses (see Exodus 34:27-28), Elijah spends 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, without food, and receives a revelation at the end of his isolation. Like Moses, Elijah receives protection during God's manifestation by a rock enclosure (a cleft, in Moses' case, Exodus 33:17-23). “What are you doing here?” The construction is similar in part to that in 17:18, where the person addressed is outside his province, where he had no business to be. Like Moses, Elijah discovers that religious leadership of the Israelites is far from an assured task, which is what he means by declaring himself to be no better than his (prophetic) ancestors (see Moses’ frustration in Numbers 11:11-15).
After this revelation, Yahweh is done with Elijah, even though he knows that Yahweh will continue to bless Israel and that out of a remnant a new Israel will emerge. The concept of remnant arose out of civil life, in which ancient warfare often called for the total annihilation of the defeated. Yet, a remnant often survived, which normally indicated the wretched and poor life of the remnant. J used the concept to show the paradoxical designs of Yahweh on history, as in Noah's family as a remnant preserved after the flood, Lot had his family as a remnant escaped from Sodom, and even the story of Joseph celebrates the escape of a remnant. What is new here is that the remnant experiences preservation from calamities still to come. Further, Yahweh will cause them. Thus, the concept of remnant is not peculiar to the prophets.[13]
I have long had an interest in studies of the brain. Some might remember studies that suggested the right and left sides of the brain performed distinct functions, one being logical and analytical, the other being creative and imaginative. I have read other studies that modify this notion. The brain is a fascinating set of neurons firing off all the time. Now, I come across studies that suggest you re-train your brain to work better, even as we can retrain other muscles.
Shower with your eyes closed. Take a different route to work. Learn the Braille numbers in the elevator for the floors. Hold your nose and taste different foods to explore how the taste changes. You will be surprised at what you experience. These are "neurobic" exercises, recommended by a noted neurobiologist in 1999. Now, people call it “cognitive training.” These neurobic drills involve one or more of your senses in a novel way. They engage your attention, break routine activities in unexpected fashions and result in what one can best describe as "brain training."
It is a neuro-psychological way of saying you can teach an old dog some new tricks. Yes, even you can retrain your brain. Try using your nondominant hand to go through your morning routine of combing your hair and brushing your teeth. Share a meal in silence and seeing how it affects your sensory experience of the food. Take a whiff of cloves when you dial a certain phone number and see if it helps you remember the number. Try closing your eyes as you get into your car and keeping them closed as you find the keys and start the car.
These are among 83 neurobic exercises advocated by Duke Medical Center neurobiologist Lawrence Katz. Of course, brains do age, and in time, the connections the neurons that branch out like a tree may thin out. However, Katz recommends mental exercise as a way to enrich those connections, exercise that use not only the five usual senses - vision, taste, smell, touch and hearing - but also what he calls the "sixth sense" of emotion. This use of the full range of the senses has potential to forge new connections among different sensory structures, and in the process retrain the human brain.
The science of such activities is a bit ambiguous. Can you really re-train the brain to keep it operating at its most full potential? It will not hurt to try.
My point is that people often lock themselves into patterns of thinking out of which their emotions and actions will arise. Some of the patterns will be helpful in many situations. We need to become intentional and aware enough to perceive that a pattern of thinking we possess may not be useful in a particular situation.
Thus, some of us need to consider re-training the brain by learning the lesson of silence. When the heart speaks, we need to take good notes. The spiritual discipline of discernment confirms that advice. The “heart,” in the spiritual tradition is the center of physical and spiritual life, including thinking, emotion, desire, will, and moral decision. We know that scientifically the reference to the brain. We may well need to re-train the brain to listen with the ear of our hearts. We need to notice what God may be seeking to reveal through heightened awareness. Such interior listening has a critical role in the process of discernment. Of course, the heart has its reasons of which rational analysis does not know. [14]
The story of Elijah in I Kings 18-19 is a reminder of the multiple emotional reactions we can have to life. By looking at Elijah, we can learn much about us. After Elijah has experienced a great victory, demonstrating the weakness of the god Baal and the power of Yahweh, the queen of the land, Jezebel, threatens his life. At one point, Elijah even asks God to take his life. God did not answer that prayer. Instead, God knew the true prayer of his heart. Given the dramatic victory, one would think he would be fearless. Yet, when faced with a crisis, he runs. That is often the response of when we are scared. We want to run away, or we actually do, physically or emotionally. In some ways, at least, this story is one that shows what not to do when faced with crisis. We should not make it a catastrophe, making it bigger in our minds than it actually is. We should not give up. We should not isolate ourselves from our sources of strength, both in other people and from God. Fortunately, the story ends well, largely because God was persistent and finally got through to Elijah. At this point in his life, powerful means did not impress him. What did get through to him was the sound of silence. He needed a gentler word to get through to him. He needs a personal word, addressed to his situation. God had a mission for Elijah to fulfill, and he finally “got it.” He listened and obeyed.
[1]
[2] The LXX prefaces Jezebel's message with "As sure as you are Elijah and I am Jezebel."
[3]
[4] (It is best to follow the LXX and Syriac “he was afraid,” a reading that depends on the same consonants but assumes different vowels.)
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8] Verses 9a-11a constitute a repetition, though earlier than the LXX, of verses 13b-14, destroying the dramatic development of the story. The LXX attempts to smooth out the difficulty by inserting "tomorrow," and so does Josephus (Antiquities VIII. 13.7), perhaps influenced by Exod. 34:2.
[9]
[10] Inspired by Mark Noll, The Reformed Journal, Jan 1986.
[11] Inspired by Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Genesee Diary.
[12] "Go" fits the context of the narrative more closely than "return" - as the Greek translation suggests - since the prophet's journey from the northern kingdom of Israel, through Beer-Sheba, into the Negev, and finally to Mt. Horeb did not take him through or even near the Syrian desert, to which he is instructed to "return." Some scholars suggest that the original text indicated either that Elijah was to return to the north by way of Damascus, or that he was to return to the north and then go to Damascus, where he was to anoint Hazael king over Aram (Syria).
[13]
[14] Inspired by Kris Haig, "Listening With the Heart," Presbyterians Today, December 2000, 7, referring to Blaise Pascal, of course.
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