Elijah - episode 3

A still small voice

«Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time!” And he was afraid, and he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” He lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat!” He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on the coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” And he got up and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the Mount of God» (1Kgs 19,1-8).



After that new persecution, Elijah is very downhearted and he asks the Lord to die; the Lord gives him a nourishing bread (for the Christian Fathers it is a symbol of the Eucharist) so that he can have the strength to journey to Mount Horeb. This is a very special place: Moses, for the Hebrew people the father and the greatest of the prophets, received there the Lord’s call near the burning bush (see Moses - episode 1 and Moses - episode 2); in addition, in that place the Lord established His Covenant with the people, with Moses’ mediation (see Moses - episode 5). Therefore, we expect that there will be a renovation of Elijah’s call and, as it was for Moses, a special meeting with the Lord.
«And there he came to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” Behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire passed; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. It was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”». Elijah is heartened, full of zeal for the Lord, who surprisingly manifests to him in a “voice of thin whispering” and not in the common powerful ways (see Exod 19,16.18). The Lord can be very delicate when speaking to His messengers.
«The LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. You shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah to be prophet in your place. It shall happen, that he who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet will I leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.” So he departed there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed over to him, and cast his mantle on him. He left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me please kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” He said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” He returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and killed them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave to the people, and they ate. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and served him» (1Kgs 19,15-21). Elijah is no more alone: the mantle symbolizes his person, the act of casting it on someone means the exercise of a right over that person (see the Hebrew matrimonial costume of “spreading the corner of the garment/mantle” over the woman to marry: Ruth 3,9; Ezekiel - episode 3). The Lord chose Elisha, a man who was probably rich (see the «twelve yoke of oxen before him»); after kissing his parents he leaves it all and he follows Elijah as a prophet. In the New Testament Jesus recalls this episode to express the severe requests of his discipleship: they are harder than the ones asked to Elisha. «Another also said, “I want to follow you, Lord, but first allow me to bid farewell to those who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”» (Luke 9,61-62).
In the next posts we will tell the last events of Elijah’s ministry, before the Lord grants (in a very particular way) the prayer of “taking away his life”.