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Bible Dictionaries
Elijah
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or ELIJAH . 1. Elijah, the weirdest figure among the prophets of Israel, steps across the threshold of history when Ahab is on the throne ( c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 876 854), and is last seen in the reign of Ahaziah (854 853), although a posthumous activity is attributed to him in 2 Chronicles 21:12 ff. A native of This be in Gilead ( 1 Kings 17:1 ), he appears on the scene unheralded; not a single hint is given as to his birth and parentage. A rugged Bedouin in his hairy mantle ( 2 Kings 1:8 ), Elijah appears as a representative of the nomadic stage of Hebrew civilization. He is a veritable incarnation of the austere morals and the purer religion of an earlier period. His name (‘Jah is God’) may be regarded as the motto of his life, and expresses the aim of his mission as a prophet. Ahab had brought on a religious crisis in Israel by marrying Jezebel, a daughter of the Tyrian king Ethbaal, who, prior to his assuming royal purple, had been a priest of Melkart, the Tyrian Baal, and in order to ascend the throne had stained his hand with his master’s blood. True to her early training and environment, Jezebel not only persuaded her husband to build a temple to Baal in Samaria ( 1 Kings 16:32 ), but became a zealous propagandist, and developed into a cruel persecutor of the prophets and followers of Jehovah. The foreign deity, thus supported by the throne, threatened to crush all allegiance to Israel’s national God in the hearts of the people.
Such was the situation, when Elijah suddenly appears before Ahab as the champion of Jehovah. The hearts of the apostate king and people are to be chastened by a drought (1 Kings 17:3 ). It lasts three years; according to a statement of Menander quoted by Josephus ( Ant . VIII. xiii. 2), in the reign of Ithobal, the Biblical Ethbaal, Phœnicia suffered from a terrible drought, which lasted one year. Providence first guides the stern prophet to the brook Cherith ( Wady Kelt in the vicinity of Jericho), where the ravens supply him with food. Soon the stream becomes a bed of stones, and Elijah flees to Zarephath in the territory of Zidon. As the guest of a poor widow, he brings blessings to the household (cf. Luke 4:25 , James 5:17 ). The barrel of meal did not waste, and the cruse of oil did not fail. Like the Great Prophet of the NT, he brings gladness to the heart of a bereaved mother by restoring her son to life ( 1 Kings 17:8 ff., cf. Luke 7:11 ff.).
The heavens have been like brass for months upon months, and vegetation has disappeared. The hearts of Ahab’s subjects have been mellowed, and many are ready to return to their old allegiance. The time is ripe for action, and Elijah throws down the gauntlet to Baal and his followers. Ahab and his chief steward, Obadiah, a devoted follower of the true God, are traversing the land in different directions in search of grass for the royal stables, when the latter encounters the strange figure of Jehovah’s relentless champion. Obadiah, after considerable hesitation and reluctance, is persuaded by the prophet to announce him to the king (1 Kings 18:7-15 ). As the two meet, we have the first skirmish of the battle. ‘Art thou he that troubleth Israel?’ is the monarch’s greeting; but the prophet’s reply puts the matter in a true light: ‘I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.’ At Elijah’s suggestion the prophets of Baal are summoned to Carmel to a trial by fire. The priests of the Tyrian deity, termed ‘prophets’ because they practised the mantic art, select a bullock and lay it upon an altar without kindling the wood. From morn till noon, and from noon till dewy eve, they cry to Baal for fire, but all in vain. Elijah cuts them to the quick with his biting sarcasm: ‘Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.’ Towards evening a dismantled altar of Jehovah is repaired, and a trench is dug round it. After the sacrificial animal has been prepared, and laid upon the wood, water is poured over it, until every thing about the altar is thoroughly soaked and the trench is full. At the prayer of Elijah, fire falls from heaven, devouring the wood, stone, and water as well as the victim. The people are convinced, and shout, ‘Jehovah, he is God; Jehovah, he is God.’ That evening, Kishon’s flood, as of old ( Judges 5:21 ), is red with the blood of Jehovah’s enemies. The guilt of the land has been atoned for, and the long hoped for rain arrives. Elijah, in spite of his dignified position, runs before the chariot of Ahab, indicating that he is willing to serve the king as well as lead Jehovah’s people ( 1 Kings 18:41-46 ). The fanatical and implacable Jezebel now threatens the life of the prophet who has dared to put her minions to death. Jehovah’s successful champion loses heart, and flees to Beer-sheba on the extreme south of Judah. Leaving his servant, he plunges alone into the desert a day’s journey. Now comes the reaction, so natural after an achievement like that on Carmel, and Elijah prays that he may be permitted to die. Instead of granting his request, God sends an angel who ministers to the prophet’s physical needs. On the strength of that food he journeys forty days until he reaches Horeb, where he receives a new revelation of Jehovah ( 1 Kings 19:1-8 ). Elijah takes refuge in a cave, perhaps the same in which Moses hid ( Exodus 33:22 ), and hears the voice of Jehovah, ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’ The prophet replies, ‘I have been very jealous for Jehovah, God of Hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.’ Then Jehovah reveals His omnipotence in a great wind, earthquake, and fire; but we read that Jehovah was not in these. Then followed a still small voice (Heb. lit. ‘a sound of gentle stillness’), in which God made known His true nature and His real purpose ( 1 Kings 19:9-14 ). After hearing his complaint, Jehovah gives His faithful servant a threefold commission: Hazael is to be anointed king of Syria, Jehu of Israel; and Elisha is to be his successor in the prophetic order. Elijah is further encouraged with information that there are still 7000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal ( 1 Kings 19:15; 1 Kings 19:18 ). As far as we know, only the last of these three commissions was executed by the prophet himself, who, after this sublime incident, made his headquarters in the wilderness of Damascus ( Ki 19: 15); the other two were carried out either by Elisha or by members of the prophetic guilds ( 2 Kings 8:7 ff; 2 Kings 9:2 ).
Elijah is also the champion of that civic righteousness which Jehovah loved and enjoined on His people. Naboth owns a vineyard in the vicinity of Jezreel. In the spirit of the Israelitish law (Leviticus 25:23 , Numbers 36:8 ) he refuses to sell his property to the king. But Jezehel is equal to the occasion; at her suggestion false witnesses are bribed to swear that Naboth has cursed God and the king. The citizens, thus deceived, stone their fellow-townsman to death. Abah, on his way to take possession of his ill-gotten estate, meets his old antagonist, who pronounces the judgment of God upon him: ‘In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine,’ is the prophet’s greeting. For Ahab’s sins, every male child of his house will be swept off by an awful fate ( 1 Kings 21:19; 1 Kings 21:21; 1 Kings 21:24 ). By the ramparts of Jezreel itself, the dogs will devour the body of Jezebel ( 1 Kings 21:23 ). These predictions, although delayed for a time on account of the repentance of Ahab, were all fulfilled ( 1 Kings 22:38 , 2Ki 9:25 f., 2 Kings 9:30 f., 2 Kings 10:7 ff.).
Ahaziah is a true son of Ahab and Jezebel. Meeting with a serious accident, after his fall he sends a messenger to Ekron to inquire of Baal-zebub, the fly-god, concerning his recovery. Elijah intercepts the emissaries of the king, hidding them return to their master with this word from Jehovah: ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Thou shalt not come down from the bed whither thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.’ Ahaziah recognizes the author of this message, and sends three captains of fifties to capture the prophet, who calls down fire from heaven on the first two. The third approaches him in a humble spirit, and at God’s bidding Elijah accompanies the soldier to the palace and reiterates the message of doom (2 Kings 1:1-18 ).
Like all the great events of his life, the death of this great man of God was dramatic. Accompanied by his faithful follower Elisha, he passes from Bethel to Jericho, and from thence they cross the Jordan, after Elijah has parted the waters by striking them with his mantle. As they go on their way, buried in conversation, there suddenly appears a chariot of fire with horses of fire, which parts them asunder; and Elijah goes up by a whirlwind to heaven (cf. Elisha).
In the history of prophecy Elijah holds a prominent position. Prophetism had two important duties to perform: (1) to extirpate the worship of heathen deities in Israel, (2) to raise the religion of Jehovah to ethical purity. To the former of these two tasks Elijah addressed himself with zeal; the latter was left to his successors in the eighth century. In his battle against Baal, he struggled for the moral rights and freedom of man, and introduced ‘the categorical imperative into prophecy.’ He started a movement which finally drove the PhÅ“nician Baal from Israel’s confines.
Elijah figures largely in later Scriptures; he is the harbinger of the Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5 ); in the NT he is looked upon as a type of the herald of God, and the prediction of his coming in the Messianic Age is fulfilled in the advent of John the Baptist ( Matthew 11:10 ff.). On the Mount of Transfiguration he appears as the representative of OT prophecy ( Matthew 17:3 , Mark 9:4 , Luke 9:36 ). The prophet whose ‘word burned like a torch’ ( Sir 48:1 ) was a favourite with the later Jews; a host of Rabbinical legends grew up around his name. According to the Rabbis, Elijah was to precede the Messiah, to restore families to purity, to settle controversies and legal disputes, and perform seven miracles (cf. JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] , s.v.; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb . on Matthew 17:10; Schoettgen, Hor. Heb . ii. 533 ff.). Origen mentions an apocryphal work, The Apocalypse of Elijah , and maintains that 1 Corinthians 2:9 is a quotation from it. Elijah is found also in the Koran (vi. 85, xxxvii. 123 130), and many legends concerning him are current in Arabic literature.
2. A Benjamite chief ( 1 Chronicles 8:27 ). 3. 4. A priest and a layman who had married foreign wives ( Ezra 10:21; Ezra 10:26 ).
James A. Kelso.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Elijah'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/e/elijah.html. 1909.
