Law of Moses — 1 Kings 19

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to think like an ancient Hebrew in order to get a better picture of what the text of the Bible is telling us. For example, it’s not necessary to envision Moses directly on the one and only Mount Sinai. The Hebrew language was never meant to be that precise, so it could have been any of several high peaks in that area. Nor is it necessary to assume that Horeb and Sinai are the exact same peak, but rather the same general place where several mountains run together.

Somewhere in this general vicinity was the Burning Bush and the stone Moses struck to bring forth water. Today there are shrines all over the area claiming to mark each of these features. Personally, I’m convinced that God avoided that kind of precision because it takes a small mind to be like that, and small minded people would idolize the place instead of the God who made the place. If you went out there today, it’s for sure you could hike up every peak in the area and experience God’s Presence pretty much the same on each one. What’s important is to realize that God called people there to meet with them, and in our lesson this time, it’s Elijah the Prophet who hiked down into the area.

So after Elijah had outrun Ahab to the city gates at Jezreel to testify to the triumph of Jehovah on Mount Sinai, I’m sure he basked in the celebration of those who were yet faithful to the one true God of Israel. Meanwhile, Ahab came home and reported everything to his wife and high priestess. It mattered to her not a whit what God had done. For her, this was a hard-driven commitment to destroy the worship of Jehovah in Israel. So she sent a messenger to Elijah with a very real threat to treat him the way he had treated her acolytes. Nobody, man or deity, would stand in the way of her plan to enslave the Northern Kingdom to the worship of her chosen deities.

Given Jezebel’s known behavior, Elijah decided it was time to get out of her jurisdiction. He fled to Judah. Not just Judah, but he fled to far southern edge of civilization in Judah, to the well and village at Beersheba. He left his attendant there in town and moved a day’s hike off into the wilderness to protect the man from being seen with him by any of Jezebel’s spies searching for the prophet. He camped out under a broom tree, a bush that can grow almost tree sized with a thick foliage to protected from the heat of the day.

Elijah had gone from the heights of exultation to the depths of despair. We can imagine he expected Jezebel to be humbled by his victory on Mount Carmel, but she was not just any woman. She was demon driven, and no evil was beneath her. Truth never was a consideration for her; it was all about the power. Elijah’s expectations were misguided. And to be honest, he should have stayed to face her wrath, for the same God who atomized the offering and altar on Mount Carmel could have protected Elijah. The prophet was about to learn that hard lesson.

So Elijah awoke from his siesta at the touch of an angel. The angel invited him to eat the meal prepared, a big slab of flat bread cooking on a flat stone above a fire. There was a clay jug of water near his head. So Elijah consumed the meal, then feel asleep again. The meal was repeated again, but angel noted the second time that Elijah would need the nourishment for his big journey — a pilgrimage to Mount Horeb where it all began some centuries ago with Moses.

It depends on where you think Mount Horeb is, but the journey was at least 150 miles (240km). Elijah felt no need to eat again, but hiked the whole way and spent a very long time in a cave in that area, perhaps the same one where God kept Moses from being killed as He passed by in all His divine glory. The Lord was about the manifest Himself again.

A Word from the Lord asked Elijah why he was there. His reply was a note of self-pity, but no more hyperbolic than would be typical in the mouth of any other Hebrew. Still, it was not accurate, in that Elijah claimed there was no one else to stand for God in Ahab’s kingdom (Jezebel’s actually). As you can see in later chapters, there are others, and will be many more eager for the training when Elijah starts an academy. But at this point, Elijah comes very close to accusing God of allowing His message to be silenced. Why had God not already taken this evil woman down?

So the Lord called Elijah to come out and stand at the entrance to the cave. Now, what happens next is more a miracle of timing than of the nature of the events. There is a massive string of faultlines running through the Gulf of Aqaba and up the rift valley past the Sea of Galilee. The place was then and still today is notorious for earthquakes. We also know that some earthquakes come right behind a major storm, though we aren’t sure how they relate. And after an earthquake, no one is surprised to see lava being tossed in the air. So all of these events were common enough for Elijah to recognize that there was no particular message from God in them.

It was an exercise of faith to stand in the face of all that threat. However, when the quiet sound like a voice came past the cave, Elijah knew that was a sign of God’s Presence. He therefore covered his face as the proper protocol before a great Lord. It was a confession that he was unfit to gaze upon God’s face.

It’s not obvious from any English translation, but when Elijah was asked again why he was there, his answer was in the same words, but not the same tone. Now he is confessing the truth of the situation, and waiting on God to give the next command.

And that command was to hike around the east side of the Jordan Valley to Damascus, outside of Jezebel’s easy reach. In Damascus he was to anoint Hazael (an established figure) as the future King of Syria. Then he was to find Jehu (a high ranking nobleman serving in Ahab’s army) to become the next King of Israel. Then he was to go and find Elisha and anoint him as his own successor.

It wasn’t disobedience to contact Elisha first. The command to anoint the other two could legitimately be passed on to Elijah’s successor, who did eventually perform the rituals later. The point was not that Elijah had to handle these matters personally, but that they were a part of his office, not simply a discrete mission. Elijah would oversee the prophetic ministry that would declare to the human authorities what God’s plans were for them. God told Elijah that the wicked fools currently reigning would be punished through human agency that He controlled, whether it be Hazael, Jehu or Elisha, and God wanted everyone conscious of His authority to steer things.

But just to get Elijah’s facts straight, God told him there were a good 7000 who still did not worship idols in Israel. That’s a tiny number, when just the able-bodied soldiers alone amounted to over a million under Ahab’s command, never mind the civilian population on top of that. So the number of faithful was small, but it wasn’t just one.

Elisha was from the town of Abel-meholah, just a short way up a wadi from the Jordan Valley, on the West Bank, not too awfully far from the old royal capital of Tirzah in Ephraim. The area includes a wide flat, arable space in the wadi just above the Jordan Valley and eastern end of the Jezreel Valley.

It never required more than two oxen to pull a single plow. The narrative depicts Elisha guiding one of twelve plows, and was likely near the road. Elijah walks by almost unnoticed and drops his cloak on Elisha, without a word. It was a common symbolic act; Elisha was literally “vested” with the symbol of Elijah’s authority. The younger man understood immediately what it all meant, and no one could mistake Elijah — a hairy athletic man who was famous for wearing a camel-hair tunic and wide leather belt holding it down. It was a rather like wool, but a distinctive light brown color and little more coarse, even fuzzy. It was also a common symbol of mourning for sin.

In more practical terms, Elijah was handing Elisha the heavier outer cloak to carry for him, as if the younger man was his personal attendant. Elisha was hardly insulted, but ran after the prophet who was still walking along the road as if nothing had happened. Elisha begged for a chance to celebrate his new appointment with his family, something that might easily take a week or two. It was a tacit invitation for Elijah to come and stay for the festivities. Elijah’s answer was something along the lines of warning Elisha this was hardly a social promotion. It was an invitation to accept a harsh service with a man who was known for austere habits.

As a part of this exchange, we should assume the prophet told Elisha where he was headed. The younger man went back and, as son of the owner of the field and equipment, slaughtered his oxen team and used the wood of the plow to boil up a large stew. It was common to have a lean-to field kitchen out there somewhere, so he cooked up a celebratory meal that was also somewhat an offering to God. Once he had shared it out, he took off in the direction Elijah had gone. The narrative says he became Elijah’s personal attendant.

Part of the reason for the austerity in Elijah’s manner was a tacit declaration he did not profit from this ministry. He lived close to the bone for to make it clear there was no bribery to induce his message. Modern Western scholars quickly reduce a part of this whole thing with Jezebel to mere politics, but her driven demeanor points to something more religious and demonic.

It’s a common depiction of what feminism looked like in the Old Testament. It was consistently condemned as defiling the true God of Israel to have a woman blasphemously equated to Him, in the sense of worshiping female deities. However, the rituals for those female deities were consistently and exceedingly vulgar and depraved. Hebrew Scripture thus paints any hint of feminism and female deities together as a major defilement. Jezebel is a classic archetype of this kind of thing.