Elimelech

“ There is but one man in the Old Testament who, as a prophet, stands on the same level as Elijah,—he who stood with Elijah on the snowy heights of Hermon when their Lord was transfigured into celestial brightness, and they spake together of His decease at Jerusalem. And Moses had passed through the same dark hour as that through which Elijah was passing now, when he saw the tears, and heard the murmurs of the greedy, selfish, ungrateful people, who hated their heavenly manna, and lusted for the leeks and fleshpots of their Egyptian bondage. ”

“ He justifies himself. But strengthened, comforted, uplifted by the exaltation of the consciousness of God's presence, Elijah feels his resilient powers again upspringing. His courage returns; his perceptions grow sharp again; the inspiration of a new line of action opens up to him. He hears the word of the Lord: "Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat to be prophet in thy room. ”

“ He sent to the idol-god, to enquire of him,
and Elijah met the men whom he sent,
and straightway said to them even as God's angel had told him,
'What, then! is not the Almighty God in the nation of Israel,
and ye go to an idol-god, to seek your healing?
Now therefore saith the Almighty, that the king shall not arise
from the bed whereon he lieth, but shall die.'
Then the messengers returned again to the king,
and showed him what the prophet had said to them by the way.
Then the king straightway sent fifty men
to the prophet of God, desiring to call him. ”

“ When the time came for the Lord to take his servant to himself, Elijah wished to be alone, but Elisha his servant would not leave him. He followed his master from one town to another until they came to the river Jordan. Then Elijah took off his mantle, and folding it, struck the waters and they were divided, so that they went over on dry ground. Then Elijah said, "Ask what I shall do for thee," and Elisha prayed that a double portion of his Master's spirit might rest upon him.
"If thou see me when I am taken from thee it shall be so unto thee," he said, "but if not, it shall not be so." ”

“ And yet I assure you, though Elijah is dead, and the prophets that lived after him are dead also, one prophet is here among us who thinks, and feels, and speaks with the soul of Elijah, one who with the courage and fearlessness of the prophets of old, cries to us in accents not to be overheard or misunderstood, appeals to us in words that burn like leaping flames into our souls, chastising us for our sins and follies, and calling us back to our duty to our God and to the religion of our fathers. ”

“ Now bid men call to me all the false prophets
who serve Baal, and eat with Jezebel.'
Then the king sent and told his nation,
and bade the people of Israel and the deceitful prophets
to come all together to have speech with Elijah.
Then said Elijah to all that multitude,
'How long will ye halt on two sides thus?
If our Lord is God, then follow Him,
If Baal is god, follow his service.'
Then the people were silent, and Elijah resumed,
'I only am left of all God's prophets,
and Baal has four-hundred and fifty prophets. ”

“ For indeed Elijah, conversing with God concerning you, speaks thus: 'Lord, they have slain Thy prophets, and digged down Thine altars: and I am left alone, and they seek my life.' And He answers him: 'I have still seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' [95] Therefore, just as God did not inflict His anger on account of those seven thousand men, even so He has now neither yet inflicted judgment, nor does inflict it, knowing that daily some [of you] are becoming disciples in the name of Christ, and quitting the path of error ”

“ And whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18 And I have a remnant of seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to the Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.
19 And he went from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. And Elijah passed by him, and throw his mantle onto him. 20 And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Please, let me kiss my father and my mother, and I will follow you. ”

“ The blind man answered: "I weep because I cannot see Elijah the prophet, the holy one of God."
'Then Elijah rebuked him, saying: "Cease from weeping, O man, for in weeping thou sinnest."
'The blind man answered: "Now tell me, is it a sin to see a holy prophet of God, that raiseth the dead and maketh the fire to come down from heaven?"
'Elijah answered: "Thou speakest not the truth, for Elijah is not able to do anything of all that thou sayest, because he is a man as thou art. For all the men in the world cannot make one fly to be born." ”

“ Elijah is the prophet of the wilderness, wandering, rugged and austere; Elisha is the prophet of civilized life, of the city and the court, with the dress, manners and appearance of ordinary “grave citizens.” Elijah is the messenger of vengeance—sudden, fierce and overwhelming; Elisha is the messenger of mercy and restoration. Elijah’s miracles, with few exceptions, are works of wrath and destruction; Elisha’s miracles, with but one notable exception, are works of beneficence and healing. ”

“ The members of the prophetic school founded by the prophet lived by the work of their own hands. After Elijah's disappearance, the disciples being without a leader, Elisha placed himself at their head. In the beginning of his career he followed closely in the footsteps of his master, keeping aloof from all men, and living chiefly on Mount Carmel. Gradually, however, he accustomed himself to mix with the people, especially after he had succeeded in rousing an energetic man to destroy the house of Omri, and put an end to the worship of Baal. ”

“ Elijah had just gone through the most tremendous conflict of his life. During all that long and most exhausting day at Carmel he had had little or no food, and at the close of it he had run across all the plain with the king's chariot. In the dead of that night, with his life in his hand, he had fled towards Beersheba, and now he had wandered for a whole day in the glare of the famishing wilderness. It does not do to despise the body. If we are spirits, yet we have bodies; and the body wreaks a stern and humiliating vengeance on those who neglect or despise it. The body reacts upon the mind. ”

“ With this calling to remembrance of the law of Moses, and this prediction that the prophet Elijah will be sent before the coming of the Lord Himself, the prophecy of the Old Testament is brought to a close. After Malachi, no other prophet arose in Israel until the time was fulfilled when the Elijah predicted by him appeared in John the Baptist, and immediately afterwards the Lord came to His temple, that is to say, the incarnate Son of God to His own possession, to make all who received Him children of God, the segullâh of the Lord. ”

“ Elijah was a man of great austerity and mortification, zealous for God, bold in reproving sin, and active to reduce an apostate people to God and their duty; John Baptist was animated by the same spirit and power, and preached repentance and reformation, as Elias had done; and all held him for a prophet, as they did Elijah in his day, and that his baptism was from heaven, and not of men. Note, When God has such work to do as was formerly to be done he can raise up such men to do it as he formerly raised up, and can put into a John Baptist the spirit of an Elias. ”

“ Then fell down all the people, terrified, in prayer,
and cried with faith to the living God,
'The Lord Himself is God, the Lord Himself is God.'
Then Elijah said to them, ' Seize the prophets
who have served Baal, that none of them escape.'
So they were seized and brought to Elijah,
and he slew them, that none of them remained alive. ”

“ Olympiodorus adds, πλὴν οὐκ ἐνόησε τοῦ δικαίου τῆν διάνοιαν, but he has not understood the true idea of the servant of God! [109]
In modern times, Herder entertains the same judgment. Elihu's speech, in comparison with the short, majestic, solemn language of the Creator, he calls “the weak rambling speech of a boy.” “Elihu, a young prophet” - he says further on his Geist der Ebr. Poesie, where he expounds the book of Job as a composition - “arrogant, bold, alone wise, draws fine pictures without end or aim ”

“ And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.
And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off and they two stood by Jordan. ”

“ Elijah rather appears to us at first sight as a proud, arrogant, and merciless wielder of the power committed to him: we wonder that an answer should have been given to his prayer; we are shocked at the destruction of so many men, who listened only to the command of their captain and their king; and we cannot help contrasting Elijah's conduct, as a whole, with the [Pg 14] beneficent and loving tenderness of the New Testament dispensation. ”

“ When He reveals Himself in a vision of the night to Eliphaz the Temanite "a wind passed before my face, so that the hair of my head stood up, and there was silence, and I heard a voice saying, Shall mortal man be great before God? shall a man be pure before his Maker?" These passages in no small measure explain the symbolism of Elijah's vision, and point to its essential significance. ”

“ With the kneeling camels around the well, the aged Eliezer uncovers his head in the evening twilight, and with closed eyes and face raised towards heaven, he talks to God in this simple and yet eloquent way, “O, Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham. Behold! I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: And let it come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink ”

“ In the nineteenth chapter of the First Book of Kings, the fourth verse, we are told that Elijah "sat down under a juniper 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 not better than my fathers." It is of no small significance that the legend states that the Lord answered Elijah's prayer in terms of food. The prophet was both tired and hungry, so when he "lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. ”

“ Such a phenomenon as Jezebel explains and necessitates such a phenomenon as Elijah. [Pg 358] "The loftiest and sternest spirit of the true faith is raised up," says Dean Stanley, "face to face with the proudest and fiercest spirit of the old Asiatic Paganism."
The name Elijah, or, in its fuller and more sonorous Hebrew form, Elijahu, means "Jehovah is my God." Who he was is entirely unknown. So completely is all previous trace of him lost in mystery that Talmudic legends confounded him with Phinehas, the son of Aaron, the avenging and fiercely zealous priest ”

“ In that home among the hills of Judea was to be a child in the arms of its mother. The name of the child, and he a son, was to be John (Jehovah shows grace) . Many homes would rejoice in his birth, and he would be God’s man, eating nothing to inflame carnal passions, and filled with the Holy Spirit, he would become prophet and reformer. The grossly literal hope of the people for Elijah’s appearance in the flesh would be spiritually fulfilled, for Elizabeth’s son was to have the spirit and the power of the Tishbite; and thus gifted of the Almighty, was to be the forerunner of the Christ. ”

“ When I think of the weakness and littleness of men, and the folly of their trying to thwart the purposes of the Almighty, it makes me feel like the Prophet Elijah:—"For it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a god: either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." ”

“ Elihu is no great personage, no heaven-sent prophet whose oracles must be received without question. He is not terrible like God, but a man formed out of the clay. The dramatising appears overdone at this point, and can only be explained by the desire of the writer to keep on good terms with those who already reverenced the original poet and regarded his work as sacred. What is now to be said to Job is spoken with knowledge [Pg 348] and conviction, yet without pretension to more than the wisdom of the holy. ”

“ Elijah was a prophet, and he knew that when he prayed for drought and for rain he was praying for what was in accordance with the will of God; and it is such prayers that are sure of fulfilment. We are not prophets, and when we pray for changes of weather we cannot be sure that what we ask is in accordance with God's will. All that we can do is to submit humbly to His will, and to beg that, so far as they are in harmony with it, our desires may be granted. But when we pray for the conversion of sinners we are in the same position as Elijah. ”