03.19. 1 Kings 19
1 Kings 19:1-21 1 Kings 19:1-9 - Elijah Before Jezebel and Before Himself
It is worthwhile to remark as we begin this chapter, that if men of God or their actions serve as types for us in the Word, this does not mean that these men understood the hidden meaning of their lives or their acts. Without even going beyond Elijah’s history, we have already remarked that in Luke’s Gospel the Lord gives an import to his mission to the widow at Zarephath quite other than that in the account here in our book. The fire falling from heaven upon the burnt offering is another proof of this. Elijah could not have seen in this either the cross or crucifixion with Christ, things that have become so clear for us in the light of the gospel. In fact, Elijah as a man of God was above all a prophet of judgment, and as far as his personal experiences go, it is only in our chapter that he lifts his eyes under divine instruction beyond the scene of judgment to that lofty, serene region in which God finds His delights, makes Himself known, and reveals Himself in the fullness of His character. This remark will help us understand the scene that is about to unfold before us.
After the total destruction of the prophets of Baal and the account Ahab gives Jezebel of this, she swears by her false gods to take her revenge upon Elijah within twenty-four hours, and she lets him know this. "And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life" (1 Kings 19:1-3). He flees before a woman, he who had met with Ahab and had resisted the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal! This attitude, so contrary to his attitude before, came from Elijah’s at this moment forgetting the source of his strength. He could no longer say, "The Lord before whom I stand." He felt himself to be before Jezebel, not before the Lord. And the thing was so true that he was going to have to walk for forty days and forty nights in order to stand before God again. From the moment a believer lets any object whatsoever come between his soul and God, the distance immediately takes on incalculable proportions. The result of this estrangement necessarily is that the prophet loses all his strength, for one does not find this anywhere but before God. "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled." Elijah, a quite remarkable instrument of the Lord’s power, had not realized in the same measure that in himself there was neither goodness, nor light, nor strength. It was needful for him to make this experience, and God would bring him to this in leaving him to his own resources before the enemy’s power. He who had sent the message, "Behold Elijah," to Ahab flees for his life at a mere threat from Jezebel. From Jizreel he passes into the territory of Judah where the queen could no longer reach him, continues his flight to Beer-sheba, the farthest border of Judah toward the wilderness, leaves his servant there, and not satisfied with his flight, goes into the wilderness itself a day’s journey. There he "sat down under a certain broom-bush, and requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough: now, Jehovah, take my life; for I am not better than my fathers" (1 Kings 19:4). He is so completely discouraged that he wishes for an end to his life. Why this? "For I am not better than my fathers!" The prophet thus had thought, even if only for a moment, that he was better than his fathers and that God had supported him in the conflict because of this excellence! Poor prophet! - powerless before Jezebel, absolutely discouraged in his own sight, he who had believed that he could build something upon this foundation of sand. But in order that this man of God might be entirely delivered from self, the Lord was going to have him undertake a long journey, at the end of which he would meet the God of the law at Horeb.
How many lessons this scene contains for us! We can have been used in God’s service and yet know Him very imperfectly. Then too, a time of special blessing often precedes a period of great spiritual weakness, because Satan, ever on the lookout, causes us to find in the blessings themselves an occasion to be puffed up and to exalt the flesh. Such is in part the reason for Elijah’s discipline; such was the reason for the apostle’s discipline after he was caught up to the third heaven, though this was only preventative. Notice again that Satan attacks us on that side which we guard the least because it seems the least vulnerable to us. Would it be likely that a man whose courage had resisted the entire people would be seen fleeing at a mere threat?
"He himself went . . . into the wilderness." What a blessing when the Lord leads us there so that we may there experience those infinite resources which are in Him; how humiliating but how beneficial too, when our own will has brought us there, that we be there to learn what is in our hearts! Such was Elijah’s situation. - "And he lay down and slept under the broom-bush." He was giving up his mission, so to speak, just as its reality had been proven by brilliant exploits. But it was necessary for him to learn that his inner life was not being sustained by faith as his outward testimony had been.
"And behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, Arise, eat!" (1 Kings 19:5). In 1 Kings 17:1-24 it had been he, Elijah, who had dispensed food to others after having been fed himself; here where his lack of faith had driven him, he had no food at all. But God does not abandon him: He thinks of him. The only strength available to him comes from food which God has prepared for him; at his head he finds a cake baked on hot stones and a cruse of water. He eats, but does not understand what God wants of him, and goes to sleep again. A second time he finds the same food and the angel says to him, "Arise, eat; for the journey is too great for thee" (1 Kings 19:7). God fed him in order that he might walk. An important lesson for us! The Lord had fed him at Cherith and at Zarephath so that he might render a powerful testimony, but if divine food does not impart strength to us for ourselves, will God’s purpose be attained? This food which Elijah finds at his head has miraculous power. Is it not so with the Word of God? It brings us to "the mount of God." So deemed the apostle as he spoke to the Ephesian elders: "I commit you . . . to the word of his grace, which is able to . . . give to you an inheritance among all the sanctified" (Acts 20:32).
Elijah "went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God" (1 Kings 19:8). With it one walks and does not faint. Moses had spent forty days and forty nights upon Horeb, conversing with God. His word and His presence were enough to sustain His servant’s strength. The Lord Himself spent forty days and forty nights in the wilderness without any food, in the presence of wild beasts and exposed to Satan’s attacks. He hungered and found nothing at His head to cause Him to resist the enemy’s temptations. But He was the Man who did not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeded from the mouth of God. Simple dependence upon this word fed Him, was His strength, and gave Him the victory in extraordinary circumstances that He alone could overcome.
1 Kings 19:9-21 - Elijah Before God
Elijah comes to Horeb, the mountain of God, and goes into the cave, the same place, no doubt, where the Lord had hidden Moses (Exodus 33:1-23). The prophet did not know where God would bring him; he did not intend to betake himself to Horeb when he fled a day’s journey into the wilderness. But though he reaches the cave, it is not with the feelings of the heart of a Moses toward the guilty people - a heart which despite all their iniquity, beat for the people of God. "Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book that thou hast written" (Exodus 32:32), ready to suffer being made a curse in order to save Israel. "Consider that this nation is thy people!" (Exodus 33:13), he said again, interceding for them. This same Moses who proclaimed the God of the law appealed to the mercies of the God of grace towards those who had offended Him. But Elijah had not yet learned the lesson which God wanted to teach him. "The word of Jehovah came to him, and he said to him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for Jehovah the 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 am left, I alone, and they seek my life, to take it away" (1 Kings 19:9-10). Then God teaches him what Moses had desired to know when he said, "Let me see thy glory." First He makes various manifestations of His power and His judgments pass before the prophet. Elijah knew them well: he had been present when the stormy wind had preceded the rain (1 Kings 18:45); at his word fire had fallen from heaven in presence of all the people (1 Kings 18:38); and these same phenomena had occurred of old upon this very mountain when God had given the law; the mountain had also quaked and there had been thunder and lightening and fire. But - what a lesson for Elijah - the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. The whole life of this most powerful of the prophets might well have slipped away without him ever really knowing God!
Elijah hears "a soft gentle voice" (1 Kings 19:12-13); then he understands that this is something new surpassing the scope of his experiences, and, his face wrapped in his prophet’s mantle, he stands at the entrance of the cave. This soft gentle voice was that of grace. It is in grace that God has revealed Himself in the fullness of His being to poor sinners like ourselves. The God who thus reveals Himself repeats His question to the prophet to probe him to the very depth: "What doest thou here, Elijah?" Elijah makes the same reply (1 Kings 19:14; cf. 1 Kings 19:10). He had had time for reflection; he lays bare what is in his heart. Whom does he credit with good? Himself: "I have been very jealous for Jehovah . . . I am left, I alone . . . they seek my life." Whom does he accuse? The people of God: " The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets . . . they seek my life." In a word it is an orderly accusation, a pleading against Israel, and a panegyric for Elijah.
"Know ye not," says the apostle, "what the scripture says in the history of Elias, how he pleads with God against Israel? Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have dug down thine altars; and I have been left alone, and they seek my life. But what says the divine answer to him? I have left to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed knee to Baal. Thus, then, in the present time also there has been a remnant according to election of grace." "God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew" (Romans 11:2-5; Romans 11:2 a).
Elijah had come to intercede against Israel! In accusing the people and in justifying himself he was showing his ignorance of grace and of himself. How was this then? He was appearing before the God of grace to play the role of accuser and to plead for judgment! But what was the divine answer to him? First of all, that vengeance would be executed. To Elijah would fall the sad mission of preparing the instruments: Hazael and Jehu. Secondly, the prophetic administration is taken away from Elijah and he must anoint Elisha as prophet in his stead. He who was saying, "I am left, I alone," must learn that God chooses, forms, or discharges His instruments as it suits Himself. How Elijah thus is judged to the very depths! No longer will he say, "Take my life; for I am not better than my fathers." He will have to live on, all the while being witness to another ministry which he will have to acknowledge, being himself used of God in forming it.
Thirdly, and this is the great point of "the divine answer": "Yet I have left myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him" (1 Kings 19:18). There was therefore a remnant according to the election of grace, known by God, but unknown to Elijah. The soft gentle voice was still being heard in these days of apostasy, and it was in this feeble remnant that God found His pleasure.
Elijah accepts this humiliating lesson: he submits when for the fourth time God says to him: "Go!" (cf. 1 Kings 17:3; 1 Kings 17:9; 1 Kings 18:1). He returns by the way by which he had come (1 Kings 19:15). He finds Elisha the son of Shaphat and casts his mantle on him - the mark of identification as a prophet. Had he stuck to the mere letter of God’s word, he would have had to begin by anointing Hazael and Jehu (1 Kings 19:15-16), but he makes haste to carry out the act which would reduce himself to nothing - himself, the great prophet - by handing over his authority to another. Thus he who had said, "I am left, I alone," shows that from now on he is nothing in his own eyes. As for Hazael and Jehu, it would not be Elijah, but Elisha who would anoint them. He surrenders all claims to that which could have made him stand out and leaves that work to be carried out by someone other than himself.
Elisha leaves his oxen and runs after Elijah. "Go back again," the prophet answers him, using the same words he had heard from the mouth of the Lord (1 Kings 19:15). He was nothing in his own eyes from now on, and this was not the moment to induce Elisha to follow him. "What have I done to thee?" Elijah had not cast his mantle on him to draw him after himself, but that he might be prophet in his stead. What a beautiful example of humility, of selfjudgment, of unselfishness, of obedience, of trust in the Word this man of God gives us here! How quickly chastening had produced its fruits in him! Can we not say that Elijah’s humiliation will glorify God more than all the prophet’s power? His career is apparently broken off, but a new career, beginning in chastening, is about to open before him; and if the first has not ended in glory, the second will end in nothing but glory! Let us all follow Elijah’s example in the breaking of self in order to glorify the Lord!