CHAPTER XIV.

ELIJAH AND ELISHA.

T has been often noticed that Elijah was more remarkable for what he did than for what he taughtfor his heroic acts than for his explicit instructions. Notwithstanding, he holds no mean place amongst the instruments raised up by the All-wise and the All-good to declare His will; for, as we find constant occasion to notice, the Divine will is taught through human deeds as well as through human words.

Elijah was still more of a reformer than of a prophet. The predictive element, indeed, appears in his utterances. He announced the doom which startled Ahab, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." 1 And again, "It came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth." 2 Yet once more, “Behold," said Elijah to the king, "I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast pro2 xviii. I.

1 1 Kings xvii. I

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voked me to anger, and made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat." But the religious element is never wanting in what Elijah said to the king and to the people. He was evidently a preacher of faith and obedience, from the beginning to the end of his ministry; yet he chiefly comes before us as a man Divinely commissioned to arrest and overthrow the prevalent corruptions of Church and State, especially the idolatrous worship of Baal, which had impiously superseded the adoration, homage, and obedience due to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And it is singular and instructive to notice that this eminent reformer does not make his appearance in the Temple courts, or in the royal streets of the city of Jerusalem, but in "Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon;" and on the sides of Mount Carmel; and by the gates of Jezreel; and in the solitudes of Beersheba and Horeb; and in the thoroughfares of Samaria. He is not a citizen of the holy city, he is "of the inhabitants of Gilead."2 Not in Judah, where was the central seat of Divine ordinances, but in Israel, which had schismatically withdrawn from Judah; not in the home of the Levitical hierarchy; not in the church, descending in a straight line of order and succession from the founders of the sacred commonwealth, but in a community which had broken off from its mother in Mount Zion, did this preacher of righteousness, and oracle of the Most High, discharge the duties of his holy office. He showed that God had not cast off the apostate portion of His chosen people, that His Spirit 1 1 Kings xxi. 21—24. 2 xvii. I.

still strove with the erring and rebellious, that already His anger was turned within Him, and His repentings were kindled together.

Properly speaking Elijah does not come in succession to any one. He bursts upon the northern nation, as he does on the reader of the Bible, suddenly, abruptly: and his credentials are found not in any human ordination or appointment, but in his own pure, elevated, and noble character, his own brilliant and astonishing miracles, and his own illustrious reformatory acts.

The story of Elijah and the widow first attracts attention.

Moral courage, though it may sometimes have the appearance, has in it nothing of the reality of fierceness. It is frequently allied to what is tender and kind. Bravest men may be the gentlest; those who defy earth and hell may overflow with love. Womanly affection cannot be more delicate in its attentions and sympathies than manly generosity beating in heroic hearts. Elijah exemplifies these remarks. His acts throughout indicate a spiritual and Divine boldness, perhaps unexampled; but what a revelation of gentleness is made in his conduct towards the famished and bereaved sweet

mother of Zarephath! Sweet flowers grow waters gush out of the clefts of the rugged rock. In reply to the woman's sad lamentation, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die; the man of God manifested the spirit of Him by whom he was sent, and promised a miracle of plenty in the midst 1 1 Kings xvii. 12.

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of famine; the outstretching of a hand of heavenly help in an hour of the direst human necessity: "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth." Again there comes a strain of human tenderness in the prophet's prayer, when the boy lay dead: "O Lord my God, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" "I pray Thee, let this child's soul come into him again." And once more there is seen the outstretched arm of heavenly succour, to beat down death, to rekindle life,-a type of complete victory over the last enemy, a rehearsal of the final resurrection. "And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."1 Here is an instance in which the evidential force of a miracle is illustrated. The woman was—as any unsophisticated person would be under the circumstances convinced of the Divine mission of the wonderworker. And with regard to this instance of a resurrection from the dead, though it could not be to the widow and the people of that day all that it is to us, yet it could not fail to stir within them hopeful and healthful thoughts pointing to a power over death, which did actually then exist,-a power very nigh, a power which pertained to the God of Israel, a power to the capacities of which no limits could be set, a power not unlikely some day to unfold itself in forms of unprecedented glory.

11 Kings xvii. 14, 20—24.

As to Elijah and Ahab, a drought had been predicted by the former, and whilst the famine prevailed the latter sent a messenger to look for him as one “who had absconded with the key of the storehouse of nature.” When the king met the prophet with the inquiry, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" the prophet turned upon the king, saying, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.”1 Elijah was a poor outcast, living on charity; yet here the weak changed places with the strong, and the servant of God humbled the vicegerent of the devil. The Divine conversation between the prophet and the prince taught the momentous lesson to all who should hear or read the story, that one who trusts in God is a stronger man than the captain of an army or the master of a kingdom.

The controversy on Carmel is the central incident of the prophet's life.

The Bible speaks of the excellency of Carmel, the traveller extols its flowers, trees, and perpetual verdure. It was in its glory when Elijah there met the priests of Baal;—he in his hairy mantle, they in their sacerdotal vestments. He stood forth for the true God, the true religion, and the true worship, ready to stake all on the issue of this appeal. "Call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God." When all was prepared, after a short suspense, a lambent flame descended and kindled the sacrifice, and licked up the water in the trench, consuming the very dust and stones. It was a great spiritual victory, and the people shouted, "The Lord, He is the God; the Lord, He is the God." 2 1 I Kings xviii. 17, 18. 2 Ibid. 24, 39.