Who was Elijah in the Bible?

Upon this scene of complete departure of God, when Ahab and his heathen wife worshipped Baal and all the vileness connected with that cult flourished in Israel, there appeared suddenly one of the greatest of God's prophets, Elijah (my God is Jehovah) the Tishbite. "A grander figure never stood out even against the Old Testament sky than that of Elijah. As Israel 's apostasy had reached its highest point in the time of Ahab, so the Old Testament antagonism to it in the person and mission of Elijah."--"He was the impersonation of the Old Testament in one of its aspects: that of grandeur and judgment" (A. Edersheim). His miracles, like those of Moses, have a judicial character. Heaven is shut in answer to his prayer and fire falls from heaven at his word. The last promise in the Old Testament is concerning Elijah the prophet who is to appear before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, to turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers (Mal. 4:5-6). See also the Lord's words concerning the coming of Elijah (Matt. 17:10-13). He appeared with Moses on the transfiguration mountain. In the book of Revelation two witnesses are mentioned who witness among Israel before the great day of the Lord comes. Though their names are not given, the miracles they perform clearly show that these witnesses will be like Moses and Elijah. "These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy (Elijah), and have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will (Moses)." "And if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies (Elijah)" Rev. 11:5-6. James speaks of Elijah also and tells us he was a great man of prayer.

He appeared suddenly upon the scene and said to wicked Ahab, "As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." He had, no doubt, like other great servants of God, his training in secret.

This remarkable prophet is introduced abruptly in scripture in the midst of the apostasy of the kingdom of Israel, which was brought to a head in the reign of Ahab. The object of his ministry was to recover the people to the God they had forsaken. This will explain the miraculous displays accompanying his testimony, by which the people were left without excuse. It may be noted however that the miracles had a judicial character. He shut heaven that it did not rain, and he called fire down on the captains and their fifties. They were intended to recall the people to their allegiance and responsibility to God.

He is called "Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead" (1 Kings 17:1), and with no further introduction he delivered a message to Ahab of fearful import to Israel, that there should be no rain or dew these years but according to his word. In the Epistle of James we learn that what was pronounced so boldly in public was the outcome of inward exercise and earnest prayer. He forthwith retired from the public eye, and was miraculously cared for at the brook Cherith, being fed with bread and flesh morning and evening by ravens. The brook at length becoming dry, he went to Zarephath belonging to Zidon at the commandment of the Lord, where he lodged with a poor widow, whose faith was tested at the outset by the prophet's request that she should provide for his need first from her slender store of meal and oil, on the assurance of the Lord God of Israel that her barrel of meal and cruse of oil should not waste till He sent rain on the earth. She was further tested by the death of her son, upon which the power of God in resurrection was taught her through the instrumentality of the prophet. The soul of the child came again into him and he revived. This widow is referred to in Luke's Gospel along with the case of Naaman the Syrian, as illustrating the abounding of the grace of God beyond the limits of Israel. 1 Kings 17.

In the third year the time had at length arrived for the rights of Jehovah to be vindicated before all Israel, to the confusion of the followers of Baal. Elijah under the full direction of the Lord came forth from his mysterious retreat, and showed himself to Obadiah, the governor of Ahab's house, who was engaged in searching the land for provender. This man, though in such apostate surroundings, was truly pious, and had befriended Jehovah's prophets when Jezebel had sought to slay them. Assured by Elijah that he was ready to show himself to Ahab (though this latter had in vain sought him in many kingdoms to wreak vengeance on him for the prolonged drought), he reported Elijah's appearance, and the prophet and king were soon face to face. Charged with troubling Israel, the prophet in the power of God rejoined that the guilt of this lay on Ahab and on his house, in forsaking Jehovah for Baal. He directed him to call all the prophets of Baal together to mount Carmel, and there before the assembled throng of Israel he stood alone for God. Nothing can exceed the interest of this moment when the question raised was whether Jehovah or Baal was the God. Sustained by the mighty power of Jehovah, His faithful servant directed everything. The issue is presented: the prophets of Baal offered their sacrifice, and from morning till noon in vain implored the intervention of their god. There was no voice nor any that regarded. Their failure being patent to all, Elijah then invited the people to draw near. He repaired Jehovah's altar that was broken down, building it of twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, he offered his sacrifice, deluged three times with water the altar, wood, and victim, till the trench around the altar was full; then offered up in the hearing of Israel an affecting prayer to the "Jehovah God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel," upon which the fire of the Lord fell, and all was consumed, the sacrifice, wood, stones, dust, and water. "Jehovah, He is the God" was the twice repeated cry of Israel in view of these things; and, controlled by the power of God in the prophet, they, at his bidding, seized the prophets of Baal, who were to a man slain by him. Upon this he told Ahab that there was a sound of abundance of rain, while he himself retired to the top of Carmel to note the first indications of the approaching blessing; and then, still in the power of God, he ran before Ahab's chariot to the entrance of Jezreel. 1 Kings 18.

Jezebel let him know that her vengeance was at hand; and at the threat of this terrible woman, the prophet, lately so bold, fled the country. We now see Elijah in the wilderness, a weak and timid man, weary of the conflict, occupied with himself rather than the Lord, and asking to be allowed to die. Sustained by miraculous food, he went in the strength of it for forty days and nights to Horeb, the mount of God. Here the Lord dealt most graciously with his poor and feeble servant, who is found pleading his own jealousy for God while interceding against Israel. Wind, earthquake, and fire would have well suited the prophet in his frame of mind, but the still small voice was that of the Lord, and Elijah had to learn that He had not given up His people. He had yet 7000 whose knees had not bowed to Baal. But Elijah was to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, Jehu to be king over Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in his room. Judgement should be executed where necessary and by instruments prepared of God. Elijah thereupon departed, and finding Elisha threw upon him his mantle. 1 Kings 29.

God's Word here introduces the first great prophet of Israel. As we have said previously, all the other prophets had come from Judah or had begun their ministry before the separation of the ten tribes. Elijah was "of the inhabitants of Gilead." He comes on the scene in the most evil days of Israel's history when the falling away is universal and the worship of Baal, patronized by Ahab and Jezebel, had become the national religion. Under this government the servants of the Lord are obliged to hide in order to save their lives, and those still seen are silent. Thus to all appearance Elijah is all alone before this formidable apostasy. His name is characteristic: Elijah means "Whose God is Jehovah," and each of us can read this name in this man's words and in all his conduct. His God is the one whom Israel had abandoned. His testimony is just as characteristic: he is completely separated from the general apostasy. He is the witness of the truth in the midst of evil, and the truth always separates us for God. "Sanctify them by the truth," the Lord said. This truth here consists above all in the judgments of God. In a broad general way Elijah is the prophet of judgment just as, on the other hand Elisha is the prophet of grace. Nonetheless, as we shall see in the very course of this chapter and of the next, Elijah's mission is not accomplished without the accompaniment of grace and deliverance, and this at the very time God's judgments are being prepared and running their course.

Ahab was suddenly confronted by a prophet who had never been mentioned before, Elijah the Tishbite, the first prophet of God spoken of as arising from among the ten tribes. He came from Gilead and in God's name announced that for some years there would be neither dew nor rain in Israel until Elijah gave the word. James 5:17 tells us that Elijah had prayed earnestly that it might not rain. Why? Because of the gross evil of Ahab that infected all Israel. Elijah evidently realized it would require drastic measures to turn Israel back to the Lord.

But the prophet himself must suffer on account of the drought, as well as the people. The Lord told him to leave and hide himself by the Brook Cherith. He was not to remain to boast in the fact that his prophecy came true. God knows how to teach the messenger that the messenger is not important, but his message is. He provided for Elijah, however, with water from the brook and food brought by ravens. Israel was in no condition to care for a prophet of God, and God used the unclean birds for this. Ravens, as their name suggests, are ravenous, so that it was a miracle of God that they would bring food to the prophet, both in the morning and the evening. Thus Elijah learned literally not to worry about his life as to what to eat and drink (Mt.6:25).

Of Elijah's antecedents nothing is told us. Concerning his parentage, his age, and his upbringing nothing is stated, unless his name, which means "Whose God is Jehovah," is meant to indicate a pious father who named his son in faith. God is silent also concerning other prophets. Of Haggai and Malachi for example, we know nothing beyond their bare names. But what matters? The object of the Spirit of God is not to occupy us with men, but with the messages they carried, and which will continue to have spiritual value until the world's end. Let us remember this when we have to listen to men speaking in the name of the Lord in the assembly or elsewhere. We may conceivably get something very definite from God, even though but "five words" (1. Cor: 14:19), from a speaker quite unknown to us, and whose attainments may not favourably impress us. Look not at the messenger but at the message. Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesyings; but prove all things, hold fast that which is good." (1. Thess: 5:19-21).

Elijah's abrupt appearance in public, with his terrible announcement to king and people, calls for some explanation. Walking boldly into the king's court, he said, "As Jehovah the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. (1 Kings 17:1). What a message from the God who at another time said, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt" (Hosea 11:1). What was the meaning of the fearful chastisement, probably without precedent in the world's history, which was thus announced by Elijah? Ahab was apparently stunned by the boldness of the messenger, and the terribleness of the message, for he attempted nothing against Elijah at that moment. Yet Ahab had no scruples about shedding innocent blood! In order to understand the situation, it is necessary to consider how Israel stood in relation to God.

Jehovah could no longer forbear; He could not allow the tide of evil to rise any higher, and He therefore sent forth from His quiver a polished shaft to pierce the conscience of Israel, if haply He might bring them back to their place of happy allegiance to Himself. This shaft was none other than Elijah the Tishbite — the bold and uncompromising witness for God who stood in the breach at a moment when every one seemed to have fled from the field of conflict, unable to stem the overwhelming torrent.

The first notice we have of Elijah is in 1 Kings 17, when he appears as a herald of judgment to Ahab. But though his public career commenced here, it was by no means the beginning of his private exercises, for we learn from James 5:17 that the judgment here so confidently announced was granted in direct answer to his own prayer. "As the Lord liveth," says Elijah, "before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." And why had he prayed for this? Ahab's wickedness had, in the sight of the Lord, surpassed all who had preceded him. He had married Jezebel, the daughter of the King of the Zidonians, and had reared up an altar to Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. Elijah, "a man of like passions with us," but a righteous man, and one whose dependence was on God, could not witness these abominations in the midst of God's people with indifference; and he earnestly entreats that God would thus speak to the nation in judgment, and vindicate His own name. His trust was in God, and he looked to Him to correct His people, and lead them to understand that dependence which he himself had learnt. Suspension of usual mercies was the way of all others to effect this: the loss of dew and rain for three years and a half was fitted to make them feel and remember the source from which their blessings flowed. The deprivation of natural mercies by superhuman means has always the effect of impressing man with a sense that he must look to the Creator. The course of nature has been suspended by a power unknown to him; and though, while he enjoyed the usual blessings, he little thought of God, the moment they are suspended, he is made to feel that he has no remedy but in appealing to Him whom heretofore he had abandoned and disobeyed. Elijah, grieved and oppressed by the apostasy of Israel, finds relief for his heart in prayer, and thus obtains from God the remedy for recalling His people, and Ahab their king, to a sense of how they owed every mercy they had to the will of God. What a striking and interesting light is this in which his history opens to our view! Having prayed in secret, he comes forth for the first time to declare the result of it, and is thus a blessed and prepared witness for such evil and disastrous times, and a witness, too (as the Holy Ghost, ages afterwards, testified), that every soul thus disciplined to wait on God in any emergency will obtain the same result. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." What peculiar dignity and assured power does the man taught of God stand forth to testify against the corruption of his day! Witness his first meeting with Ahab. (1 Kings 17:1) How instructive to see a lone and hitherto obscure man rise up in the power of God, and tell the king of Israel, "Thus saith the Lord, There shall not be rain or dew these years, but according to my word!" Elijah takes the supreme place which Ahab had forfeited; for Israel's king ought to have been God's most distinguished servant; but having so grievously departed from God's way, the Lord now sends His own servant, disciplined in secret, to deliver a message and testimony which asserted His supreme control of everything. The rain, on which depended the fruits of the earth, should not fall but according to His servant's word.

In instituting the worship of Baal and the Asherah in Israel, Ahab had defied God and troubled Israel. Elijah, a prophet from east of the Jordan, had prayed earnestly that God would withhold rain and dew from the land until the people would acknowledge Jehovah to be God. He had then boldly confronted Ahab with this pronouncement. Thereupon at God's command he had gone into hiding. God had miraculously preserved him during the 3½ years of drought and now sent him to again confront this wicked king.

"The righteous are bold as a lion," Proverbs 28:1 tells us. We see this verse well illustrated as Elijah meets King Ahab head-on. This prophet who had boldly asserted, "As Jehovah liveth, before whom I stand" (1 Ki. 17:1), once again fearlessly stands before the king. At Elijah's summons, the king goes to meet him. Elijah refuses the charge of troubling Israel, hurling it right back into the wicked king's face with convicting evidence for its appropriateness. Then he tells the king to gather all Israel to him, and specifically the 850 idolatrous prophets of Baal and the Asherah under Queen Jezebel's patronage. He, Jehovah's prophet, takes full command of the entire situation and by faith, obedience, and prayer gains a glorious victory.

In the midst of this scene of darkness and moral degradation, there appears upon the scene, with dramatic suddenness, a solitary but striking witness to the living God. Elijah the Tishbite publicly confronts the king with a message of coming judgment: "As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." The first words of the prophet inform the king that he has to do with the living God, and moreover he is faced by a man who has no fear of him, king though he be. Elijah is called to deliver a most obnoxious message to the most powerful man in the land. Standing consciously before the living God, he is delivered from all fear when standing before the apostate king.

But God, who did not wink at Ahab's or the nation's wickedness, would yet seek to turn them back from their folly by sore discipline, and sent to them His servant Elijah. "And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." Jehovah, not Baal, was Israel's God, in spite of Jezebel's seemingly successful attempt to foist her Canaanitish gods upon them; and Ahab should be made to know it. God uses a millennial form of discipline to teach him this. See Zech. 14:17. And for three and one half years the land lay under the divine interdict of drought and famine. This drought appears to have extended even to Gentile lands; for it is mentioned in the annals of the Greek historian Menander. See Josephus, Ant. viii. 13, § 2.

"And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor (steward, N.Tr.) of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly; for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself." Ahab, as some one has said, cared more for the beasts of his stables than for his poor, starving subjects.