1 Kings 18

1. AND it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah, in the 2 third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth. And 3 Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And the famine was sore in Samaria. And Ahab 4 called Obadiah, which was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly; 5 for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred 6 prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab 7 said unto Obadiah, Go through the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto all the 8 brooks: peradventure we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, that we lose 9 not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab 10 went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. And as Obadiah 11 was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, 12 Is it thou, my lord Elijah? And he answered him, It is I: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah 13 is here. And he said, Wherein have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into 14 the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, 15 whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not here, he took 16 an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, Go, tell 17 thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, 18 that the spirit of the LORD shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell 19 Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me; but I thy servant fear the LORD from my 20 youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the LORD, 21 how I hid an hundred men of the LORD’s prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with 22 bread and water? And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he 23 shall slay me. And Elijah said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will

16 surely shew myself unto him to-day. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and 17 Ahab went to meet Elijah. And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said 18 unto him, Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, 19 and thou hast followed the Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the 20 Asherah four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of 21 Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long-halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow 22 him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets 23 are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, and put no 24 fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well 25 spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under. 26 And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no 27 voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped about the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must 28 be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and 29 lances, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it was so, when midday was past, that they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening oblation; but there was neither voice, 30 nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me; and all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD 31 that was thrown down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be 32 thy name. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD; and he made a 33 trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the 34 wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time; and they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time; and 35 they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench 36 also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening oblation, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, O LORD, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I 37 have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may 38 know that thou, LORD, art God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the 39 dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they 40 fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took 41 them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of 42 rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; 43 and he bowed himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, 44 There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a cloud out of the sea, as small as a man’s hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Make ready thy chariot, and get thee down, that the 45 rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in a little while, that the heaven grew black with 46 clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

Introductory. The preparatory work of the famine had now been accomplished in the hearts of king and people. Ample proof had been afforded in their fearful experience. They had abundant reason now to know that Jehovah, the God of their fathers, incontestably and absolutely controlled the clouds of heaven and all the processes of nature. They might have inferred that to Him, and not to Baal, pertained all creative, sustaining and reproductive might; that He made the sun to shine, and that as and when He would He gathered the clouds and bade them dispense the rain. In the thought of the thoughtful among the people there must have been some realization of their grave offence against this living omnipotent God; an offence of which their protracted suffering was the consequence and the punishment. Ahab, too, beside the terrible experience in which he and his court had shared, in addition to these lessons that the people had learned, had been further prepared for coming events. His search for the prophet, even through all neighboring kingdoms, had been vain. He had been utterly foiled in his murderous purpose against Elijah. Meanwhile the prophet’s word had been unvaryingly fulfilled season after season and year after year. It must now have impressed even his haughty heart that Jehovah had indeed spoken by Elijah, and that Jehovah had protected his brave, true servant. So the purposed preparative work of the famine was now complete. B.

History is a record of great epochs. An individual, a nation, or a church is estimated by what it is at its greatest. We judge Greece by the age of Pericles, Rome by the age of Augustus; they are not the common acts of a life, or the common lives of a nation, but their greatest acts and lives, which determine its place and power. The age of Elijah was such an epoch in the history of Israel; it was part of a manifold development of which itself was the crown. His personality is as distinct, as great, and as influential as that of any character in the history of Israel, Moses only excepted. His individuality is so marked and unique that while there is but little in common between him and Samuel and David, he claims equal rank with both, and there is no other to be named with them. The dramatic character and conditions of his appearance and work make him in some respects a more remarkable personage than either. By his individual prophetic power he arrested the idolatrous course and revolutionized the religious character of the entire nation. He found Ahab and Jezebel bent upon the establishment of idolatry, and the theistic feeling of the people so utterly decayed that he thought it extinct. By his single word, lofty, uncompromising, and authoritative, he defeated the strenuous policy of the weak king and his able, subtle, and unscrupulous wife, and turned the entire tide of national feeling, recalling the people for the time to repentance, and to the renewed acknowledgment of Jehovah. The entire conception of the man, his grandeur of character, his heroic achievements, his dauntless fidelity, and the dramatic form and romantic coloring of his history, have no parallel in literature. We have only to recall the equally detailed histories of Samuel and Elisha to realize how much deeper and more vivid the impression which Elijah makes, how much more heroic and potent his prophetic force. Allon.

1-4. Three years and a half had elapsed since the sudden appearance and startling prediction of Elijah to Ahab. God’s time had come to send rain upon the dry and barren soil of Israel. We have already learned (from James 5:17) what part Elijah’s intercession had in the sending, as his prayer had in the withholding. But God will put honor on the prophet by making good his word in the presence of the king and people. Therefore the command, “Go, show thyself to Ahab.” Always obedient, the prophet leaves his quiet home at Sarepta, and fearlessly goes to find the king. Readily and speedily is Ahab found through another of those divinely ordered coincidences of which the Bible history and every personal life is full. B.

3. Over the household.** It is scarcely less strange to find Ahab employing Obadiah than to find Obadiah serving under Ahab. Whether he knew of Obadiah’s faith may be uncertain, but we may be sure that he had proved his fidelity. It was because Obadiah was “faithful in all his house” that he was retained in this position. It was not to Ahab’s interest to have a Baal-worshipper at the head of his retainers. Bad men do not care to be served by their kind. They pay piety and probity the compliment—such as it is—of encouraging it in their dependents and children.

4. Only the power of God could keep men holy in Ahab’s or Nero’s palace.** Coleridge has somewhere said that there are two classes of Christian evidences—Christianity and Christendom; the system in itself, its pure morality, its beneficent teachings, and its results, its conquests, and achievements in the world. For it is altogether beyond the power of human nature to work the moral changes which Christianity has wrought either to convert men or to preserve them from falling.

If men could be saints in Ahab’s and Nero’s palace, they may be saints anywhere. How constantly do men plead the adverse circumstances in which they are placed as a reason why they cannot serve God! Sometimes it is a godless street or wicked hamlet; sometimes it is an irreligious household or infidel workshop; or their trade is such, their employers or associates are such, that they cannot live a godly life. But the example of Obadiah, the example of those saints of the Praetorium, convicts them of untruth and of cowardice. They cannot have greater temptations or fiercer persecutions than befell those Roman Christians. If they proved steadfast and lived in sweetness and purity, which of us cannot do the same wherever we may be placed? Hammond.

Take history through and through, and it will be found that the men and women who have most devoutly and honestly feared God have done most to defend and save the countries in which they lived. They have made little noise, but their influence has silently penetrated the national life, and secured for the land the loving and mighty care of God. Where the spiritual life is profound and real, the social and political influence is correspondingly vital and beneficent. A hidden work is continually going on; the people in the shade are strengthening the social foundation. J. P.

5, 6. The search for grass throughout the land by Ahab and Obadiah. They had divided the land in an endeavor to “find grass to save” the remnant of the king’s horses and mules. Obadiah was the chief steward in charge of the royal household, and, as his name purports, was a servant of Jehovah. Him only, it would seem, Ahab could trust to share with himself in making careful and thorough search for this greatly needed food. They had departed probably from Jezreel, where Ahab had built a palace, in which he spent much of his time.

7-16. The meeting and interview of Elijah with Obadiah. This must have occurred soon after the parting of Obadiah from Ahab, and not far from Jezreel. For on the same day Obadiah overtook Ahab, and the king returned to meet Elijah, who had awaited his coming. The meeting of the prophet with the steward was not an accident, but a prearranged providence. So is every minute conjunction of events through which the casual every-day meetings of men are brought about. This is the true idea and meaning of providence. It is

God’s purpose carried out in all actual events. Obadiah at once recognized Elijah; partly perhaps by his strange mantle of skins, but more by the lofty demeanor of the prophet of God. With a reverence befitting a kingly presence, he salutes him with a kingly title. “Art thou here, my lord Elijah?” In his reply the prophet transfers the title to Ahab. “Tell him who is thy lord that Elijah awaits him here.”

The main point of the steward’s rejoinder (verses 9-14) is the fear lest Elijah might not remain there to be found of Ahab, and so the king’s wrath would be turned against Obadiah, for failing to apprehend the prophet. For well he knew how intense was Ahab’s desire to find Elijah. This he declares to the prophet. He tells him how Ahab has caused search for him to be made among the neighboring kingdoms of Tyre and Moab, and even in Judah. To bring Ahab there to be disappointed was to ensure his own destruction. Obadiah did not doubt Elijah’s word, but simply thought that God might direct him to go elsewhere, so that Ahab would not find him. For this had been the case already, in his sudden appearance at and disappearance from the palace. But to assure Elijah that his hesitation in bearing the message to Ahab did not come from unwillingness to serve Jehovah or His prophet even at great personal risk, Obadiah affirms his life-long loyalty to the God of Israel. And he simply states how, at the hazard of his own life, he had rescued a hundred of the Lord’s prophets from the murderous pursuit of the fierce, vindictive Jezebel.

The prophets here referred to were men whom God had raised up in considerable numbers from time to time, as successors of those originally trained in the schools of Samuel. They did not, like Samuel, prophesy or offer sacrifice, nor were they entrusted with special messages or errands from Jehovah. Their office was of a more private nature. They read and expounded the law and the ways of the Lord to individuals and families who retained their integrity and loyalty to Him. And it was through their fidelity to this trust that even in these times of universal and aggravated wickedness there remained yet in Israel seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. These faithful ministers Jezebel sought to destroy, and many of them she had slaughtered. A hundred of them, Obadiah, who knew them well and had been taught by them, had saved from the slaughter. Obadiah’s present fear, though standing out in such marked contrast with Elijah’s fearlessness, argues nothing against the reality of his faith. The crisis of peril was so great that, like Peter in the high priest’s hall, his courage was for the time overcome by it. He needed only the assurance, which Elijah gave him at once, confirming it with an oath, to convince him that the prophet’s direction was the Lord’s will. And instantly, without another word, he went to overtake Ahab, and bear the message of Elijah. “And Ahab went to meet Elijah.”

The form of oath (verse 15) used by Elijah, As the Lord of Hosts liveth, frequently repeated in the subsequent Old Testament history, enfolds truths of exceeding sublimity and comfort. Transcendently incomparable with the armies of earth, the Hosts of heaven are ever in array before their King, and ever ready for the protection or deliverance of those who represent Him and His cause among men. This was the thought that inspired and sustained the soul of Elijah, the thought that may well inspire and sustain the heart of every true and faithful servitor of the Lord of the heavenly Hosts. As He liveth, said the devoted prophet, expressing an assurance that needed no evidence, that admitted no question. To our hearts, cherishing the same comforting assurance, comes in later times that more cheering and satisfying utterance of Jehovah Jesus, Because I live, ye shall live also! The further phrase, “before whom I stand,” repeated in verse 15, well expresses the prophet’s habitual attitude of soul. Ever consciously in Jehovah’s presence, ever mindful of that presence, ever desiring and seeking to know His will, and ever ready and glad to execute that will, this was Elijah’s habit of mind and heart. And this is the true abiding state of every faithful believer and trustful follower of the sustaining, faithful Jehovah Jesus, our God and Saviour. B.

10. Whatever may have been the case with the people, there is every reason to believe that no salutary result had been produced in the mind of the king. None knew so well as he why the suffering had been sent; but he closed his heart against conviction, and with the vain folly of persecutors in every age, he sought to wreak his vengeance upon those who had warned him of approaching punishment instead of repenting of the sin by which the punishment had been provoked. He made every effort to discover the hiding-place of Elijah. W. M.

12. One sentence which Ahab’s chamberlain uttered to Elijah helps us in a measure to ununderstand Obadiah’s constancy to the ancient religion of Israel, “I, thy servant, fear the Lord from my youth.” Ahab and his fellow-idolaters had much to contend against ere Obadiah could be perverted. The earliest impressions are commonly the most lasting. Principles firmly rooted in childhood or early youth will be torn up by no ordinary tempest, and may even withstand the violence of an extraordinary storm. M. J.

15. The distinctive inspiration of Elijah was religious conviction and sentiment, and not mere patriotism. Against all the organized powers and social forces of his age he stands in the simple might of his religious convictions. Through all history no inspiration has been so mighty. The impelling and sustaining force of patriotism, of natural affection even, gives place to that of religion. The sense of Divine supremacy, the depth and sanctity of religious feeling, and the strength of religious conviction, together with the consciousness of a Divine commission, and the involuntary reverence inspired by it, have over and over again made weak and solitary men revolutionary powers in society. Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Peter, Paul, are among the instances in sacred story; Athanasius, Ambrose, Mahomet, Huss, Wycliffe, Savonarola, Luther, “the solitary monk that shook the world,” Calvin, John Knox, are among those of later religious history. Among them Elijah, although not the first, is perhaps the supreme instance. No man ever fought the battle of God against greater odds or under more arduous conditions, or achieved a more signal and momentous victory. No inspiration that human experience knows is so noble and strong and irresistible as religious inspiration, and the purer the religious faith the greater is its power.

16. It is to be noted that it is Elijah who summons Ahab to the interview which follows; and that under the pressure of terrible necessity, as well as of the awe which the prophetic and religious character of Elijah produced upon him, and urged by Obadiah, he at once complies. Elijah’s lofty message is, “Behold, Elijah is here.” “And Ahab went to meet Elijah.” Allon.

17, 18. The meeting of the false-hearted king and the true-hearted prophet. It was a meeting of two strong-willed spirits, the one hardened by his own multiplied iniquities, the other girded by the might of truth and of unswerving devotion to the will of Jehovah. Yet the guilty king dares to assume the side of right in charging evil upon God’s prophet. Is it thou, he asks, thou troubler of Israel? His question shows an utterly unhumble heart, a persistent strength of rebellious will that indicates great natural force of character. Ahab was not the pliant man, the wife-ruled monarch, so often mistakenly represented. The tremendous charge involved in his bold question to the prophet was the natural utterance of a stern, haughty, thoroughly self-willed man. But Elijah’s answer reveals a nature of even sterner structure—a will of even greater strength, re-enforced by a Divine power and sustained by a conscious Divine inspiration. Sharply, without any form of deference, in the name of Jehovah he hurls back the infamous charge upon the conscience of the man. As with the voice and authority of God, the King of kings, he denounces this royal blasphemer as the Achan, the real troubler of God’s people, Israel. Thou and thy father’s house have brought these terrible calamities upon the nation! And as distinctly he denounces the stupendous sin of sins, because of which these fearful judgments had been wrought. Ye have forsaken the Commandments of the Lord, and THOU (concentrating the whole crime upon Ahab himself) hast followed Baalim! As Samuel with Saul, Nathan with David, John with Herod, and Paul with Felix, so Elijah deals personally with the man, the royal sinner, Ahab. Thou hast overthrown the altars and worship of the Lord thy God, the God of Israel! Thou hast defiled the heart of thy people by bringing in the abominations and corruptions of Baal-worship! Conscious guilt seals the monarch’s lips. No word of reply does he utter then or afterward. Admitting the truth of Elijah’s burning words, and knowing that all hope of help for himself and his people must come through this prophet of Jehovah, he silently listens to the command that follows. And without word of demur, he proceeds to obey it. B.

18. Yes, here was the arch-sinner and true troubler of Israel, and not he who was the mere voice of the Divine rebuke and judgment. Elijah denounced the sin, but Ahab committed it; Elijah announced the coming drought, but Ahab provoked the scourge; Elijah pronounced the Divine curse, but Ahab’s crimes deserved and compelled it. There are many who falsely conceive the source of trouble, and many more who falsely represent it. Pierson.

19-29. For sublime heroism of trust and deed, nothing in human history can match this prophet of God in this ever-memorable scene. Among the grander triumphs of faith recounted in the pean of Heb. 11 none can surpass the story of this intense, unfaltering, mighty spirit. Few can equal his entireness of consecration to Jehovah, and his complete devotion to his strange, great mission. Remember the burdening conviction resting on his heart, that he alone was left of all the Lord’s ministers; and that there were none of all the people who would avow themselves on the Lord’s side. Jealous, he was, for the Lord of Hosts; yet grieving over the guilt and peril of Israel. Thus alone and thus burdened, he yet quietly confronts an angry king, a hating priesthood, and an unfriendly people. Panoplied only with truth and fealty to God, he stands before the vast host with a calmness, a dignity, and an undaunted courage that evinced true royalty of soul, and the most absolute, sublime trust in Jehovah. And he stands avowedly for God. Jehovah’s controversy with His people, in mercy prolonged from age to age, Elijah conducts in this eventful issue as the divinely appointed advocate and champion.

19,20. Israel convened at Carmel by Ahab, at Elijah’s direction. Mount Carmel is a high ridge, running sixteen miles southeast from the sea, with an elevation of six hundred to seventeen hundred feet. It forms the principal western boundary of the great plain of Esdraelon. About four miles from the eastern extremity near its highest summit, and not far from the river Kishon flowing along its base, was the place of gathering. The conformation of the ground was suited to the purpose, and had been used for worship by the adjacent tribes before the Temple had been erected. The foundation of an altar to Jehovah still remained. The place, if not central, was convenient and easy of access to the people of the ten tribes. For all lines of travel east and west of the Jordan converged upon the great thoroughfare traversing the plain.

As one having authority from the King of kings, proven to be God’s vicegerent by the accomplishment of his previous prediction of long drought to Ahab, Elijah explicitly commands Ahab to gather all Israel with the idolatrous prophets to a meeting with him. And the strong heart of the angry king, being in God’s hands and turned as He would, quailed before the might of truth and of God manifest in the prophet. As if Elijah were the sovereign and he the subject, Ahab obeys the command. He was so far convinced that Elijah was a Divine messenger, and so desirous that the interdict might be removed, that both fear and hope constrained his unquestioning obedience.

So a vast multitude from all the land were gathered together with Ahab and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. But not the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who were supported by Jezebel, as the priests of her own palace-worship. The Asherah refers to a pillar-shaped image upon which was concentrated the worship of Ashtaroth, the female deity, as Baal was the male. Intense abhorrence is attached in the Bible to the meaning and the rites of this most abominable worship. Jezebel suffered not these to go with Ahab; nor did she go herself. B.—Jezebel had introduced the female as well as the male divinity, so that nothing might be wanting to the complete observance of the worship to which she had been trained at home. The staff of priests, eight hundred and fifty for the two divinities, shows what an outlay was made for the perfection of the idolatrous rites. Lumby.

20. The range of Carmel is about sixteen miles long, stretching back from the Mediterranean Sea in a southeast direction. The range rises as it recedes into the interior, being only some five or six hundred feet high at the lighthouse and convent on its western extremity, and perhaps seventeen hundred feet high near its eastern extremity, where it commands a view of the sea on the one side and the plain of Esdraelon on the other. A little to the east of the loftiest point of the ridge, high on the declivity looking toward Esdraelon and commanding the view of Jezreel, seems to have been the exact place of the contest. At the Kishon, which here flows by the mountain’s base, Elijah slew the discomfited prophets of Baal, and then, from the place of the contest, near the mountain’s summit, he prayed for rain—his servant climbing, in the intervals of prayer, to the outlook above, from which the prospect opened on the sea. N. C. B.

On the promontory running into the sea stands the convent from which the celebrated order of Carmelites sprung, but the point of chief interest is the shapeless ruin at the eastern end of the ridge called by the Arabs “El Maharrakah” (the sacrifice), where in all probability stood “the altar of the Lord that was broken down,” and which was repaired by Elijah on the occasion of his memorable conflict with the priests of Baal. Not far distant is a well which may have furnished water for the trenches round the altar, and in the plains below winds the Kishon, to which Elijah “brought down” the false prophets “and slew them there.” Wilson.

Carmel, one of the historical mountains of Palestine, is also one of its most striking natural ral features. Not a peak, like Hermon, nor a rounded hill, as Tabor: Carmel is a long ridge branching off from the mountains of Samaria, and running for sixteen miles southeast and northwest, forming a bold headland, the one indentation of the long straight coast-line of Palestine. It forms by its projection the Bay of Acre to the north, and runs out with a bold bluff, almost as precipitous as its eastern end, into the sea itself, leaving but a narrow strip of sand at its base. It thus stands as a wall between the maritime plain of Sharon on the south, and the more inland plain of Esdraelon on the north. It is nearly eighteen hundred feet high, but gently descends toward the western front of the bluff, which is not more than six hundred feet in height, while the eastern end is sixteen hundred feet above the sea. To the summit, at the very edge of the cliff, must have come Elijah’s servant, while his master prayed on the terrace a hundred feet or more below, and sometimes returned to gaze, till over the distant Cyprus the little cloud at length arose portending the coming rain, exactly as it does now. From this spot a slippery path descends three hundred feet lower down to the Mohrakah, the “burning” or “the sacrifice.” There is no village, no house, only a shapeless ruin; yet here the spot has a name, and the recollection of the miracle is imbedded in the Arabic nomenclature. It is a glade overlooking the plain, somewhat in the shape of an amphitheatre, and completely shut in on the north by the well-wooded cliffs. No place can be conceived more adapted by nature to be that wondrous battle-field of truth, where Elijah appealed to Israel, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” In front of the principal actors in the scene, with the king and his courtiers by their side, the thousands of Israel might have been gathered on the lower slopes, witnesses of the whole struggle to its stupendous result.

The whole view from the summit of Carmel burst grandly upon us in a moment. We were standing on the edge of a cliff, from the base of which the mountain sank steeply down one thousand feet into the plain of Esdraelon, the battle-field of Israel. We looked down on a map of Central Palestine. The hewn stones among which we stood mark the site of the altar of the Lord which Jezebel overthrew and Elijah repaired. To this spot came Elijah’s servant to look for the little cloud, which at length rose to the prophet’s prayer, and portended the coming rain exactly as it does now. No site in Palestine is more indisputable than that of the little hollow in the knoll below us, where the Lord God of Elijah manifested His Divinity before Ahab and assembled Israel. The plain beneath us, though slightly inclining westward, appeared a dead flat, bounded on the north by the hills of Galilee, generally bare and woodless, and on the south by those of Samaria; with Mount Tabor rising proudly behind in the east and seeming almost to span the distance across from Galilee to Gilboa. We were overlooking the sites of the old cities of Jezreel, Megiddo, Shunem, Nain, and many others. Immediately below, on the banks of the Kishon, was a small flat-topped green knoll, “the mound of the priests,” marking in its name the spot where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal, when he had brought them down to the “brook Kishon.” For twenty miles the eye could follow the vast expanse. Behind us, on the one side of Carmel, stretched the sea, whence rose the little cloud like a man’s hand; and a long strip of Sharon; on the other side we had a peep of the plain of Acre and the sea washing its edge. Tristram.

21. Elijah’s earnest expostulation with the people.** Before he utters the prayer which will bring back the long withheld blessing to the people, their minds and hearts must be wrought upon to induce a sense of guilt and feeling of repentance. They must be turned back to God, before He will turn with restored favors to them. And this expostulation is the first means to stir their sluggish souls. Plain and conclusive is this sharp question and charge. Directly it applied to their religious condition and practice. They really believed in no God, neither in Jehovah nor Baal. They would not believe in the one, and could not (against the many strong counter influences of their history) believe in the other. They were therefore utterly unsettled in their actual worship; to make sure, attempting to mix the worship of God with that of Baal. Conscience constrained them to formally recognize the true God, while their natural selfish lusts seduced them into the vile practices of Baal’s temple and ritual. Assuming their guilt, Elijah breaks forth abruptly with the rebuking question, How long will ye hesitate and practice this indecision? Assuming, too, that there can be but one supreme sovereign Deity, he sharply presses the conclusive charge to follow Him who is the God. Not himself asserting, but urging them to determine for themselves which is the true God. But they are silent; and their silence is a confession of the truth of the rebuke. It also intimates their ignorance and inability to decide between Je-

Jehovah and Baal. Therefore it is that Elijah proposes a method of decision, which, while appealing to their judgments, was suited to their ignorance and deadness of heart. B.—His words have the ring of authority as he rebukes indecision, and calls for a clear adhesion to Baal or Jehovah. If the people had answered, the trial by fire would have been needless. But their silence shows that they waver, and therefore he makes his proposal to them. Note that the priests are not consulted, nor is Ahab. The former would have had some excuse for shirking the sharp issue; but the people’s assent forced them to accept the ordeal, reluctantly enough, no doubt. A. M.

Elijah was habitually a man of the fewest words; but these few words were always full of power, and produced effect. He spoke from God, he spoke from his own heart to the hearts of others. His words here were not aimed at the apostasy, but at the hesitancy of the people—not at their idolatry, but at their indecision. Under the old dispensation, as under the new, nothing is more abhorrent to God than a profane neutrality in matters of vital moment—than the lukewarmness which admits not of decided opinions. He likes decision. He likes something real. Be hot; be cold; be something. Instead of a tirade against Baal and his worshippers, here is a simple alternative of choice. His simple cry is—“Decide!” Kitto.

“If the Lord be God, follow Him; if Baal, then follow him.” If this world be the only good, the fit and proper object of your affections, if this world can satisfy your immortal desires, if it can support under trials, give you peace of conscience, if it can cheer you in death and bless you through eternity, then fix your heart upon it, pursue it as your chief good, resolutely and to the end; cast off the fear of God, silence the voice of conscience, and make the most of this object of your choice. But if the Lord be God—if He is the eternal, self-existent, glorious being whose claims upon your heart no tongue can describe, if He is the only object that can fill the soul, if you are immortal, if there is a judgment to come on whose throne He will sit, if there is a heaven which His mercy hath prepared, if there is a hell kindled by His justice, if there is a God, follow Him. N. W. Taylor.

22-24. The question of Divine power to be submitted to actual test of miracle.** Elijah appeals to the ordeal of sacrifice because it was a rite common to all religions, and divinely instituted at first as the great symbol of expiation.

Other nations had kept its form and something of the religious awe attached to the rite, although its true meaning had been almost universally lost. T. Lewis.—In presenting our sacrifice, Elijah said to the people, Let us who here represent Jehovah and Baal, I alone and these four hundred and fifty, try the question of power by actual appeal to these respective deities! “And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God!” In former days of their history the true God had thus testified His acceptance of the sacrifices of Moses and Gideon, of David and Solomon. And on behalf of Baal, it was claimed that he, being the Sungod, had sovereign control over all natural elements and forces. If the claim was a just one, it would be an easy thing for him to send down fire to consume the sacrifice. No other form of appeal was adequate to the case. The people were in no condition to understand or to heed the teachings of the past; either the statutes or the wonderful acts of God as revealed through Moses, Joshua, or Samuel. He therefore puts the issue of authority upon the present power of God. He rests God’s right in demanding their obedience upon the only ground they can comprehend, the only proof they will heed, the open miraculous exhibition of a Divine might. Instantly and loudly the people recognize the fitness and approve the fairness of Elijah’s proposition. Ahab is, at least, silenced. And the priests of Baal dare interpose no hindrance to the trial to which they are now to be challenged. B.

The act of sacrifice was Elijah’s chosen test, as affording occasion for the most demonstrative result. The consuming of the flooded victim by fire from heaven was a miracle that could not be mistaken; and inasmuch as Baal was the sun or fire-god, the test was obviously congruous and conclusive. All that depended upon preference was somewhat scornfully conceded by Elijah. The scene described is one of the most dramatic and magnificent representations of lofty defiance, withering sarcasm, and tragic result, to be found in literature. Baal resisted not merely the entreaties but the blood-invoking power of his own priests; and as their raving was intensified into mania, the scoffing provocation of Elijah was increased, until the excitement of the entire scene becomes altogether unimaginable. The calm, sublime simplicity of the offering of Elijah which followed must have been in the highest degree impressive. Allon.

On the one side were arrayed Ahab, Baal, and Israel; on the other stood Jehovah. It was a question of reality and of power; and Elijah was to be, so to speak, the embodiment of the Divine Power, the Minister of the Living and True God. We might almost say, that in his prophetic capacity Elijah was an impersonal being—the mere medium of the Divine. Throughout his history other prophets also were employed on various occasions: he only to do what none other had ever done or could do. His path was alone, such as none other had trodden nor could tread. He was the impersonation of the Old Testament in one of its aspects, that of grandeur and judgment—the living realization of the topmost height of the mount, which burned with fire, around which lightnings played and thunder rolled, and from out of whose terrible glory spake the voice of Jehovah, the God of Israel. 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. The analogy and parallelism between his history and that of Moses, even to minute details, is obvious on comparison of the two; and accordingly we find him, significantly, along with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. A. E.

23. The Baal prophets are given every advantage in priority of action. Error is best unmasked by being allowed free opportunity to do its best; for the more favorable the circumstances of trial, the more signal the defeat. God’s servants must never be suspected of unfair tricks in their controversy with error. They can afford to let it try first. Notice the substitution of “your god,” in the Revised Version, for “your gods” in the Authorized Version. That is obviously right; for the only question was about one god—namely, Baal. A. M.

24. He that answereth by fire, let him be God.** It is no random choice of a test; but precisely the test to recall to these apostate Israelites the glorious truths of the past. “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” It was the ancient sign of Jehovah’s presence to accept the true worship of His saints. So had He accepted Abel’s sacrifice, so had He appeared to Abraham in his offering. So had He shot forth the fire from His throne on the Ark of the Covenant, to consume the first sacrifice at the dedication of the tabernacle, and again at the dedication of the Temple. While, therefore, the prophet seeks a sign, he will have a sign which shall hold forth the truth of God to the minds of the people as the instrument of converting them from their apostasy. S. R.

Israel cannot but approve it; the prophets of Baal cannot refuse it; they had the appearance of the advantage in their number, in the favor of king and people. That God commanded Elijah this trial, who meant confusion to the authors of idolatry, victory to the truth. His terror shall be approved both by fire and by water; first by fire, then by water. There was no less terror in the fire than mercy in the rain. It was fit they should first be humbled by His terrors, that they might be made capable of His mercy; and by both might be won to repentance. Thus still, the fears of the law make way for the influences of grace; neither do those sweet and heavenly dews descend upon the soul, till way be made for them by the terrible flashes of the law. Bp. II.

25-29. Trial of the issue on the part of the prophets of Baal. As the challenging party, Elijah gives them all possible advantage. He assigns them the honor of precedency, allows them full time for their utmost efforts, and accepts the greater peril for himself in the event of their success. He simply insists that they adhere to the terms of the trial; that they appeal to their gods, and attempt no deceit by kindling their own sacrifice. Thus compelled to honest dealing, the prophets of Baal prepare their bullock for sacrifice, lay it upon the wood, and call upon the name of Baal. From morning until noon they reiterate their senseless cry—a prayer without any plea for its basis. And the result is strikingly stated in the narrative: No voice, nor any that answered! There was none to hear or answer. They addressed no being, and there could be no answer. The noon arrived. Patiently, yet with holy indignation, Elijah had borne with their repetitious blasphemy through the long morning hours. Now when the sun was hottest and their hope the strongest, with righteous irony he mocks at their vain appeal. “Perhaps your god has pleasant company, or is engaged in the chase, or journeying at a distance, or he is sleeping. Cry more loudly, if possibly he may hear and answer.” But he speaks thus in no unseemly spirit of boasting or triumph at their discomfiture. He does not seek to anger these men, but to incite them to the utmost exertion so that their failure may be the more complete. His purpose is to impress the people with the absurdity as well as wickedness of such worship. He seeks to expose the deceits and break down the power of this false priesthood by his scornful derision, and by his own open braving of their assumed divinity. For these were the men by whom the people were misled, and this the god the people worshipped. Exasperated by his sarcasm into frenzy, they shout the more vehemently. After their custom, in keeping with those of all idolatrous heathen worship in every age and country, under the strange notion of propitiating the divine favor by extreme self-torture, they wound and disfigure their bodies until the blood gushed out upon them. Thus unwittingly they deepened the impression of Elijah’s deriding words. And thus unavailingly they protracted the trial for nearly three hours longer. But, the narrative repeats, “there was neither voice, nor any answer, nor any that regarded!” The being and power of Baal had been openly tested, and the people saw both utterly disproved by the appeal. B.

28. What a scene to call worship! That is what millions of men are ready to practise today. And all the while there is no voice, no answer, no care for them, in the pitiless sky. The very genius of idolatry is set before us in that tumultuous crowd on Carmel. A. M.

29. The scene of Elijah quietly waiting, and in perfect confidence looking forward to the ultimate display of Jehovah’s power, should be one to stimulate the confidence of the disciple of the nineteenth century. We are not without our false prophets today. True, they do not bow down to Baal; but they do revere Nature as the grandest divinity in existence. Or, they enthrone humanity, whatever that may mean. They cry aloud in reviews and magazine articles, and expect the regeneration of man through their false religions. They are never done announcing the decay and downfall of the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. The world and the Church have watched for years for the descent of fire upon the unbelievers’ altars. But there is no fire there. Meantime, some godly man or woman, working away in the Seven Dials, or the Five Points, or the North End, finds the fire of God descending in answer to his prayer, and sees the flame of Christian love springing up in human hearts and the warmth of Christian zeal awakened where before it was absolutely dead. Can there, then, be any doubt as to which call upon the true God? Schaeffler.

30-35. The natural features of the mount exactly correspond with the details of this narrative. The conspicuous summit, 1635 feet above the sea, on which the altars were placed, presents an esplanade spacious enough for the king and the priests of Baal to stand on the one side, and Elijah on the other. It is a rocky soil, on which there is abundance of loose stones, to furnish the twelve stones of which the altar was built—a bed of thick earth in which a trench could be dug; and yet the earth not so loose that the water poured into it would be absorbed. Two hundred and fifty feet beneath the altar-plateau there is a perennial fountain, which, being close to the altar of the Lord, might not have been accessible to the people, and whence, therefore, even in that season of severe drought, Elijah could procure those copious supplies of water which he poured over the altar. The distance between this spring and the site of the altar is so short as to make it perfectly possible to go thrice thither and back again. Van De Velde.

The prophets of Baal were utterly discomfited. Six hours had they vainly spent in senseless supplication. Now the long-appointed time of the evening sacrifice (three o’clock) drew nigh, and Elijah proceeds to prepare the altar and sacrifice. Standing amid the ruins of the ancient altar to Jehovah, he bids the people come nearer, that the truth and depth of their impression may be increased. With twelve stones he rebuilds the altar. By this number he symbolizes the twelve tribes, whom as God’s elect and favored people, he thus recognizes as still one, though now for years divided. By this act he boldly reaffirms the unity of the nation as originally established in fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham and Jacob. As boldly does he protest against the separate existence of the ten tribes, and their assumption of the name of Israel. Around the altar a broad trench is excavated. The wood he lays in order, and the prepared sacrifice he places upon the wood. Then at his command water is brought and poured upon the sacrifice, the wood, and stones of the altar, and the trench is filled to the brim. This he did that the miracle might be made the more convincing. With no excitement in act or word, but calmly and with dignity, his preparation is speedily made.

36,37. The prayer of Elijah at the hour of the evening sacrifice. His supplication is simple, appropriate, intelligent, and quietly fervent. He utters no loud cry nor vain reiteration. He addresses a personal Being, who has sustained personal covenant relations with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, the acknowledged progenitors of the nation. He thus reminds them that Jehovah is still the God of Israel. He asks something definite. “Let it be known that Thou art God!” This was the point in trial. “And that I am Thy servant, and have done these things at Thy word!” This, too, was involved in the pending issue. And he pleads with God for hearing and answer. His plea is “that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again.” He asks that God would reveal Himself by this miracle: first, that His own glory might be manifest; next, that Elijah’s acts might be seen to come from His inspiration; and last, that the people might be convinced of the present power and the rightful claim of God, and so their hearts be drawn back to Him. A mediator and intercessor, pleading in the interest of this guilty people, he here joins together the two always inseparable things, God’s glory and the people’s welfare. B.

36. At the time of the offering of the evening oblation. This moment was selected for Elijah’s sacrifice, in order to testify his loyalty to the Mosaic law, and to the Temple of God at Jerusalem. At the very time when the daily sacrifice was presented there, his offering on Carmel was made. Elijah the prophet came near: This was the technical phrase in the law for the priest’s coming to the altar to offer a sacrifice (Ex. 28:43; 30:20; Lev. 21:21, 23). Elijah was not of the seed of Aaron, and was not therefore a priest. But the Levitical priests had been deposed by Jeroboam, and illegitimate priests had been substituted in their stead for the maintenance of his idolatrous worship. In the absence of a lawful priesthood, Elijah, as the immediate representative of the Most High, and acting under His direction and by His authority, offered this sacrifice. W. H. G.

At Thy word. Clearly we must suppose that in all the ordering of this sublime trial by fire, Elijah had been acting “at Thy word,” even though we have no other record of the fact. Therefore he could ask God to vindicate his action and to prove that he was God’s servant. His last petition is beautiful, both in its consciousness of power with God and recognition of his place as a prophet, and in its lowly subordination of all personal aims to the restoration of Israel to the true worship. He asks, with reiteration which is earnestness and faith, and therefore the sharpest contrast to the mechanical repetition by Baal’s priests, that God would hear him; but his sole object in that prayer is that the blinded eyes may be opened, and the hearts that have been so sadly led astray be brought back to the worship of their fathers’ God. The whole brief prayer, in its calm confidence, its adoring recognition of the name and past dealings of Jehovah as the ground of trust, its throbbing of earnest desire for the manifestation of his character before men, its consciousness of personal relation to God, which humbles rather than puffs up, its beseeching for an answer, and its closing petition which comes round again to its first, that men may know God and fasten their hearts on Him, may well stand as a pattern of prayer for us. The short prayer of faith does in a moment what all the long day of crying could not do. A. M.

38. The answer by fire. Sublimely simple are the words of the sacred record. Instantly, while yet the heavens were without a cloud and while no conditions of lightning existed, the fire fell in the sight of the people. Different from all previous similar miracles was the effect of this descending fire. At the dedication of the Temple and at other times, only the sacrifice and the wood had been consumed. Here was superadded the turning of the altar stones, and even the intermixed earth itself, to ashes, and the instant exhalation of the water in the trench. Altar and sacrifice had disappeared, and their place left bare. Other altars, of Moses and David and Solomon, were consecrated by fire, but preserved for use, and in token of God’s mercy. This one was utterly destroyed, because no more to be used, and as a symbol to the witnessing people of God’s devouring wrath. B.

The whole assembly were clearly to understand what Being it was on whom he called for the demonstrative sign, which had irradiated the cloud before the camp of Israel. The fire, if it came, was to second that which had flamed on Sinai, and which had descended on Sodom. It was to be a fire of intelligence as well as power. It was to be Elijah’s prayer converted and returned in flame. The prophet’s prayer was that the very TRUTH might lighten on the scene, and consume all question, doubt, and subterfuge. The Invisible Presence was there; the thunderbolt was ready; and as soon as he had ended, “it fell.” And neither sacrifice, nor altar, nor water, remained! The whole materials of the testimony were consumed. J. Foster.

39. The instant unanimous verdict of the astounded and convicted people. Without word or question or appeal from Elijah, constrained by an intense and overwhelming conviction to recognize a Divine and supernatural force in the consuming fire, the people bowed themselves to the earth, and cried, Jehovah, He is the God! Convinced, terrified, and for the time humbled by the fearful demonstration, they were; but not converted. B.—The people were—for the time, at all events—swept away by the miracle, and by the force of the prophet’s example and authority. Short-lived their faith may have been, as certainly it was superficial. The faith that is founded on miracle may be deepened into something better; but unless it is, it speedily dies away. The faith that is due to the influence of some strong personality may lead on to an independent faith, based on personal experience; but, unless it does, it too will perish. We may find a modern reproduction of the test of Carmel in the impotence of all other schemes and methods of social and spiritual reformation and the power of the Gospel. In it and its effects God answers by fire. Let the opposers, who are so glib in demonstrating the failure of Christianity, do the same with their enchantments, if they can. A. M.

If the miracle of the answer by fire be denied, there is absolutely nothing to account for the extraordinary and undeniable effect produced by the day on Carmel. Clearly the people believed in its occurrence, as clearly deception was impossible. The whole national movement demands its recognition. Either it really occurred as the history narrates it, or in some inconceivable way Elijah achieved a supreme imposture, which is a psychological as well as a physical impossibility. Allon.

40. The execution of Baal’s prophets. “I have done this thing at Thy word,” the Lord’s prophet might have said again. By direction of Elijah, whose Divine commission had been so manifestly vindicated, the prophets of Baal were seized by the multitude and borne down to the gorge of the Kishon at the mountain’s base. There, as Phinehas and Samuel before him, Elijah participated in and directed this Divinely ordered slaying. It was Jehovah’s sentence that he was commissioned to enact. Before they were permitted to behold the goodness of Jehovah, Ahab and the people were to be taught the needed lesson of His severity. The punishment of the false prophets must precede mercy to the misled suffering people. Never was doom more richly merited. For these men were Israelites, intelligent perverters of the law, teachers and exemplars of all that was corrupting and destructive to the people. Furthermore, they were knowing usurpers of an office that Jehovah had expressly instituted, which only His true worshippers could fill. They were no prophets, as Baal was no god; their worship was defilement. Conscious and wilful impostors, they knowingly blasphemed and defied the God of Israel. They virtually challenged Jehovah to a defence and deliverance of the people they had sought to make vile and to pollute. Was there not cause for use of “the sword of the Lord” in a crisis so supreme as this, when these shameless apostates sought to keep the people away from their God? Not only are they punished according to the express law of God (De. 13:1-11), but their punishment vividly suggests to the people their own desert of similar death. It sharply impresses God’s warning against idolatry in the only way that they will heed. Even Ahab, who has followed and witnessed the execution of the idolatrous prophets, seems to share in the conviction and fear of the people. For he interposes no hindrance to Elijah’s slaying sword. B.

40. Take the prophets of Baal.** Elijah, as an extraordinary minister of God’s vengeance upon sinners, executed the sentence of death passed upon the false prophets by the Lord of life and death, as perverters of the law and teachers of idolatry, as authors of cruelty and inciters of Jezebel to murder the prophets of the Lord, and as cheats and impostors, to whose execution the people concurred, their princes gave their consent, and their king (as astonished at the late stupendous miracle) could make no opposition. Stackhouse.—Elijah’s action needs no apologies. As the Lord’s prophet, as the vindicator and restorer of the law, there was no other course open to him. If the Mosaic law was then written, and this very incident is one of the proofs that it was then written; if it was still binding upon Israel; and if Elijah was justified in executing its provisions, and was required to execute them, however repugnant they might be to his inclinations, then he could not have done otherwise than he did. For it was an essential part of that law, it was an obligation that was laid, not once or twice, but on three separate occasions (Ex. 22:20; De. 13:17:2-7), on the Jewish people, it was a duty they were to perform, however distressing and harrowing it might be (De. 13:6-9), to provide that the worshipper of false gods, and especially the teacher of such worship, should be put to death. The execution of this law could not be expected from the king. It must be executed, if at all, in spite of him, and in disregard of his protests. Only Elijah, therefore, could put it into force, and Elijah only in the hour of his triumph. And he held a commission, higher than the king’s, as the prophet of the Most High. He had just proved that the Lord He was God. It was now for him to prove that God’s law was no dead letter. It was for him to cut off the men who had corrupted his countrymen, and threatened the very existence of the true religion. It is necessary, therefore, for those who challenge his conduct in this respect, who call him sanguinary and vindictive, to settle their account with the law which he obeyed, and, indeed, with Him who has approved this deed, and has forewarned us that He too will act in like manner (Luke 19:27). For this terrible retribution is by no means an exceptional or isolated act, in contrast to the general spirit of that dispensation; on the contrary, it is in thorough accord with the system out of which it sprung. For clearly it was allowed and approved of God, who otherwise would hardly have answered the prayer which Elijah presently offered, and other similar acts have distinctly received Divine commendation (Ex. 32:25-28; Num. 25:7-13; 2 K. 1:9). Hammond.

41-44. With a final direction to Ahab, Elijah retires to pray. Turning from the fulfilled judgment of Jehovah, the prophet directs Ahab to go up from the brook and to eat and drink, with the assurance of speedy and abundant rain. While the king obeys his direction, Elijah seeks in a still higher part of the mountain a solitary place where he may plead with God. And in this act we read a most instructive lesson. If ever one might withhold prayer, it would seem that Elijah could have done so here. God had declared that He was about to send rain. By a quickened spiritual sense Elijah had already heard “a sound of abundance of rain.” But he knew that God had made the actual descent of the rain to depend upon his prayer. Therefore did he plead so earnestly that “the heavens might give rain.” Thus decisively he solves the so-called problems respecting the need and utility of prayer for God’s proposed and promised blessings. Of these blessings, Christ assures us, there is no receiving without asking, no finding without seeking, no entrance into large possession without persistently knocking. Elijah believed God’s Word. He set himself to seek its fulfilment. He expected the answer, looked and waited until it came. And in all this he is our example, to teach and prompt us to like faith and seeking and certain expectation of answer. Seven times his servant went to a view point toward the sea, while the prophet remained cast down on the earth with “his face between his knees.” He who had been in the crisis of trial sternly bold before king and people, now, in the hour of success, utterly abases himself before God. But his humility stays not his importunity. And the answer is foreshadowed with the seventh return of his servant. Upon the sea-verge of the fleckless heavens a little cloud has appeared. The sign is assurance that his prayer is answered, and the prophet sends to Ahab a hastening message of instant return to Jezreel. B.

44. A cloud as small as a man’s hand.** Geographers and travellers often tell us of those great storms of wind and rain which are thus indicated in the Levant, so that, while all around their ship there is calm and sunshine, that little speck in the sky near the horizon is so sure a symptom of the coming gale that, as quickly as possible, the sails are furled and every preparation made for the tempest that is at hand. W. M.

45. Palestine is still visited by those sudden storms which are so frequently alluded to in the Bible, as on the occasion of the battle of Beth-horon, and that of Barak’s victory over Jabin, king of Hazor, in the plain of Esdraelon; the storm which caught the disciples on the Lake of Galilee, and that which followed the discomfiture of the priests of Baal beneath Mount Carmel, when Elijah “girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.” The writer was once caught in one of these storms in the plains of Galilee. Leaving camp one bright cloudless morning with a party of Arabs, his attention was called by his companions to a small cloud in the west no larger than a man’s hand, which, rising rapidly, soon overspread the heavens and burst upon the party. Wilson.

“It is useless to pray for rain, since that is under the control of physical laws,” is the doctrine of a noted physicist of our time. “Elijah prayed to God, and it rained not for three years and six months, and he prayed again and the heaven gave rain,” is the counter statement of Scripture. Which is the more truthful or scientific statement, or is there some truth in both? The Bible takes quite as strong ground as the physicist on the side of law. The weather is not with it a matter of chance, or the sport of capricious demons. God arranged it all far back in the work of creation. His laws are impartial also; for He sends His rain on the evil and the good. But the Bible knows a Law giver beyond the law, and one who sympathizes with the spiritual condition of His people, and can so, in the complex adjustments of His work, order the times and seasons as to correlate fruitful seasons or drought and barrenness with their obedience or their backsliding. Dawson.

45, 46. Through the falling rain Elijah runs before Ahab’s chariot to Jezreel. Rapidly gathering clouds soon followed upon Elijah’s message; and “according to his word,” as three years before he had said to Ahab, the rain began to fall. Homeward with speed drove the king, while the prophet, girded with superhuman strength, ran before the chariot seventeen miles to Jezreel. Though the Lord’s prophet, even through the storm he thus preceded the king as a servant. This he did to show that he willingly honored Ahab, now that Ahab had outwardly honored God’s authority. And this act of humility, crowning a day of so great distinction and achievement, showed that Elijah had been actuated by higher than mere human motives. It proved that he was not lifted up by the signal triumph he had won, or by the miraculous favor which God had vouchsafed. By this humble and deferential spirit he transferred the king’s thought from himself to Jehovah as the real actor in the scenes that had transpired. Thus he impressed the more deeply on Ahab’s mind the warning lesson of the day. B.

This day on Carmel was the culminating point of Elijah’s career. Baal-worship received that day a fatal blow, and the worship of Jehovah its most signal triumph. Next to the law-giving at Sinai it is the most signal epoch in the history of Jehovah-worship that the Old Testament records. Allon.

46. Carmel to Jezreel.** The great central plain of Palestine may be said almost to bisect the country from east to west. It is a wide rent, scooped out for about twelve miles in width, in its narrowest parts, from northwest to southeast. It is, however, not one even plain, but, though always open, has slight undulations. Its watershed, which is a mere imperceptible rise, is at an irregular line drawn a little to the west of Mount Tabor and Gilboa. It may be divided into three parts: 1. The coast plain, known as the plain of Acre, which has always been distinguished from the rest, cut off by the bold ridge of Carmel from the plain of Sharon, and on the northeast off from the Phoenician plain by a bold headland which pushes right into the sea from the Galilean hills, called Rās en Nakūra. Eastward, it is separated from the great central plain by a low, sparsely wooded ridge, through an opening at the south end of which, under Mount Carmel, the Kishon winds its tortuous way, and creeps to the sea. This part of the plain is also drained by the little classic stream of the Belus, and by the Wady Kurn. 2. The central plain, more strictly that of Jezreel or Esdraelon, sometimes also the valley of Megiddo, stretches to the southeast, commanded on its southern edge by Jokneam, Megiddo, Taanach, and En-Gannim or Jenin, where it narrows to a point, and there is flanked on the east by the spurs of Mount Gilboa, Jezreel, and Little Hermon, or Jebel Duhy, and on the north by Tabor, the hills of Nazareth, and Sefurch, or Diocassarea. 3. To the east three branches of the plain slope gently toward the Jordan, separated by nearly isolated ranges, rising out of the plain itself; the southern portion lying between Jenin and Mount Gilboa, but not extending down to the Jordan valley. The central portion, which is the true plain of Jezreel, is a fine rolling slope of the greatest fertility, fenced on the south by Gilboa, at the eastern end of which Bethshean, Beisan, commands the Jordan valley, into which this plain imperceptibly blends, while it is separated from the northern branch by the oblong ridge of Jebel Duhy, or Little Hermon. To the north of this again a third branch of the plain stretches eastward, opening to the west between Little Hermon and Mount Tabor, and drained toward the Jordan by Wady Birch. On its southern skirt, on the edge of Little Hermon, or Jebel Duhy, the Hill of Moreh, hang the villages of Nain and Endor. Tristram (see vol. iii., pp. 184, 211, 218, 353).

Suggested Truths.

God protects His servants in divers ways. Obadiah was kept as safely in the court of Ahab, preserved as easily from the malice of Jezebel, as Elijah in his retreats at Cherith and Zarephath.

The infirmities of a weak faith should be dealt with gently, and in the way of instruction and encouragement. Elijah assured Obadiah—he did not reproach him—in his hesitation through fear. And Christ’s look was one of love—not of upbraiding—when Peter had denied Him, through a like sudden fear for himself.

In one particular, Elijah, like his antitype John the Baptist, is a model preacher. He never generalizes about “our common sinfulness.” His charge of guilt is directly and sharply personal. And as it was with Elijah and John, such preaching, if from a heart constrained by the love of Christ, is always received without offence or excusing reply.

But one issue stands before the race of men. One alternative of consecration and service, before each individual of the race. God or Self! worship and service of one absolutely excludes that of the other. One master must be supreme. An intermitting half-time service is impossible, since the soul cannot toss its supremely mastering affections to and fro from hour to hour. It is further impossible, because God will not accept such dishonoring attempts at service. The undivided devotion, the love and consecration of all the mind and soul and strength, is His single and exalting condition of acceptance, and such whole-souled service alone stands every test of life and death. It finds a responsive voice to the call of need, sustaining help and cheer in the experience of trial. And indecision respecting the demand of God for trust and service is decision against that demand. It is the choice of its rejection; the actual determination to distrust disobey, and forsake Him.

The whole incident furnishes a vivid suggestion of God’s condescending patience with persistent transgressors. Though he visited judgment upon a few of the foremost offenders, he continued to spare the guilty king and people. And how emphatically does the whole previous and subsequent history of this favored nation illustrate the amazing patience and long suffering of God!

The spirit that directed and actuated Elijah in the arrest and execution of the false prophets has been sometimes contrasted with the spirit manifested by Christ, as though the one was utterly antagonistic to the other. And the contrast has been extended to the two great dispensations of the Old and New Testaments. A deeper and more careful study would have disclosed the truth that no such contrast or antagonism exists. The Jehovah who inspired the judgment-deed of Elijah was Jehovah Jesus, the same who inspired the like judgment-word of Peter in the doom of Ananias and Sapphira. Whatever the differences that may be traced in the methods of the Divine ordering and action, before and after the incarnation of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Ghost, there are no differences in the spirit of the one Jehovah Jesus who sought and directed alike all the agents He has employed in every dispensation. Love ever has been, is now, and ever shall be the basis of Divine judgment; and though they mean it not, good men dishonor God by the intimation of any essential antagonism between the elder and later dispensation on this vital matter. They know not “what spirit they are of.”

In the constancy, closeness, and fervor of his communion with God we find the secret of Elijah’s intrepidity, and the source of his strength.

In closing the fountains of heaven, in restoring the widow’s dead child, in evoking the fire upon the sacrifice, in restoring the rain to the parched infertile earth, and in bringing down the destroying flame upon the bands sent for his arrest, all these signal and wondrous events were preceded by his intensely fervent prayer. All these miraculous interpositions simply prove the significant assertion of James: The effectual (energetic) fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Explicitly referring to the miracle before us, the same Apostle declares that “Elijah was but a man, subject to like passions as we are;” thus intimating that like power with God may be attained by every believing importunate suppliant. So clearly and forcibly are we encouraged to continue instant in prayer, and to ask whatsoever we will! B.

This scene on Mount Carmel is a grand representative picture of things that are, wherever the Gospel is preached. This congregation on Carmel is a representative congregation; and seldom does a Sabbath congregation gather in the land, that, if analyzed, will not be found to consist of the same four classes of men as this on Mount Carmel. First, a very small minority, more or less bold to confess it, decided for Jehovah. Second, a larger minority thoroughly decided for Baal. Third, a much larger minority that do not know whether Jehovah is God or not. Fourth, the majority of all who do not care whether Jehovah be God or not. S. R.