This story of Elijah running away to Mount Sinai because he was afraid of the vengeance of Queen Jezebel has to be looked at and viewed from a much more rational standpoint. It is certainly true that Elijah had led Israel in the matter of the slaying of the prophets of Baal and that was a great day in the history of Israel and everyone rejoiced except the haughty Queen Jezebel. When her husband, that wicked king Ahab, told her about it the 'fat was really in the fire'. So she commanded a messenger to seek out Elijah and give him a message: "so let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as one of them by tomorrow about this time". And the unfortunate messenger must have set out upon his mission with a quaking heart for was not this Elijah an unpredictable man and who knows what fate might befall the daring emissary who came to him with such a threat. For that expression "so let the gods do also to me" was a kind of oath in which Queen Jezebel called down upon herself the fate with which she threatened Elijah if by any means she should fail to effect her purpose. And it did turn out that way later on, for Elijah did escape, and that pagan queen did meet a violent death many years afterwards. But that is a different story.

So many commentators and students have concluded that Elijah ran away to Mount Sinai because he feared for his life. Surely that is a completely unwarrantable conclusion for it ignores two important factors. The first is that if this wicked Queen really did intend to have Elijah killed she would know better than to warn him in advance. The second is that the man who had already flatly defied the miserable King Ahab and this scheming Queen Jezebel to their faces, and would do it again in after times, was not going to be deterred by threats of that nature. The Queen must have known that; and, there was something else. She had seen the powers exercised by this Elijah, powers given to him by the God he served, powers which she knew full well had never been manifested by the god she worshipped, Baal, the sun-god. It is plain that it was Queen Jezebel who was frightened at the powers possessed by Elijah, so that her purpose was to induce him by her threat to leave the country and not to trouble her again. Thus what she really did was to give him twenty-four hours notice to quit the land of Israel and not come back.

Yet the Scripture says that when he heard the message, "he arose, and went for his life ‑ and came to Beer-sheba", which was in Judah and outside that wicked king Ahab's jurisdiction. But was it not that his life was utterly and altogether devoted to his prophetic calling and he must take all reasonable care to preserve it lest the Lord should have further need of him? He set out knowing that by so doing he would be there and ready when the Lord should commission him again, and he would come back to Israel for such a commission. He did eventually come back, and that wicked king Ahab and this idolatrous Queen Jezebel were again to hear the whiplash of his tongue delivering the Lord's message of condemnation to them.

So now he left Jezreel behind and was striding along the road that led southward over the central mountains of Samaria, out of the dominions of the wicked Ahab. He made his way towards the friendly kingdom of Judah where good King Jehoshaphat ruled his people in the worship and service of the God of Israel. It was forty miles to the frontier, over a gruelling mountain road that was little better than a track, skirting Ahab's principal city of Samaria as he went, Samaria with its idols and its Baal-worship. He passed through village after village bearing the name of the hated god, Baal-Hazor and Baal-Famar and the rest, and the detested idol sanctuary of Bethel. He viewed on his left the ruined town of Shiloh from a distance as he passed, the town where the priests of Aaron had once tended the Tabernacle made by Moses in the wilderness of Sinai in the days before Baal-worship had come to afflict his people. On his right he looked upon the heights of Beth-Horon, and far below, the valley of Ajalon, where in the days of Israel conquering the land Joshua the courageous had led the hosts of Israel against the Amorites. The Lord had sent a driving hailstorm into the faces of the fleeing enemy and enabled Israel to win a resounding victory. And that reminded him of the storm cloud which had come up from that same direction when he was on the top of Mount Carmel and he wondered a little if his victory then was going to be as decisive and lasting as had been that of his illustrious predecessor. So he came to a little village called Adasa and knew he was in the territory of King Jehoshaphat and it was the second day and the sun was declining to its setting and he laid him down and slept.

See now this unpredictable man, for it is morning and he is striding out along the southward road. Will he not relax and take his ease, free from the malice of that vengeful Queen Jezebel? He will not take rest. He strides forward as a man with a purpose. Fifty more miles he must go, over the tops of the Judaen mountains to Beer-Sheba, the southernmost town of Judah on the southern frontier of Jehoshaphat's dominions. So on the second or third day he was there, speaking to no man and staying for none. Then he was gone again, into the trackless wilderness which lay beyond Beer-Sheba, that wilderness from which Israel had come at the beginning. It was the wilderness in which lay the sacred mountain of the Lord, hallowed by the making of the Covenant which made Israel the Lord's own people, Mount Sinai. Thus then, after another day's journeying into the mountains, he lay down and committed himself to God. "It is enough", he said "now, O Lord, take me away, for I am not better than my fathers".

Was this despondent man really he who a few days earlier had called fire down from heaven to demonstrate the reality of God? And had the zeal which inspired him to lead the people in the slaying of four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal so soon evaporated? Could it possibly be that the fearlessness with which he had faced and challenged this wicked King Ahab and that pagan Queen Jezebel in their own court, surrounded by their own courtiers, should so quickly have vanished? So many, reading the story as it has been set down, have taken it that way. But how uncharacteristic of the man, and how unlikely. Might not his apparent despair have been not for himself, but for his nation, for Israel? True, the representatives of the people gathered there on Mount Carmel had shouted with awe and conviction "the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God", but how many of their fellows would believe them when they got back home to their tribal villages? How many of the nation would sincerely and zealously abandon Baal worship and turn to the living God? Judging by the recorded condition of national affairs during the rest of the reign of Ahab and his successor, Ahaziah, not many. He had not really achieved deliverance for Israel, any more than the men of God who had gone before him. He had done no better than his fathers. And now, he was the Lord's man, now and for ever, and if it was the Lord's will to take him out of the way and raise up a better man, he was quite content that it should be so. He, like Moses of old, was willing to go to his rest in the mountains, no man knowing of his sepulchre or of his end, and some other man finish his work. 

But the Lord had other plans. See now an angel approaching over the rocky desert. A moment ago he was not there; now he is, clad in the attire of a Bedouin nomad. He sets down a loaf of bread and a vessel of water. A moment ago those were not there either. He touches the sleeping man. "Arise and eat". Elijah opens his eyes, sits up, and sees the bread and water. He looks round over the wide plain. There is no one there. He recalls the provision God had made for him at the brook Cherith in the days of the famine; the three years spent with the widow woman of Zarephath; and he knows that God is about to make his next revelation to him and give him his next commission.

So then in the peace and confidence of that conviction, he slept again, quietly, peacefully, until in his sleep he felt again that soft touch, and heard again that quiet voice, "Arise, and eat, for thy journey is a great one". At that he opened his eyes and realised where he must go. His feet must take him even to Mount Sinai, the mountain of the Covenant, where God had spoken to Israel through Moses. Was God now going to speak to Elijah? He hesitated not one whit but set out to traverse the two hundred and fifty miles that separated him from his goal.

Forty days, it took him. Forty long days under the scorching sun, traversing tortuous ravines, finding food where he could and sleeping wherever he might find shelter from the ice-cold nights. He had not gone this way before and he must have sought directions from the occasional nomadic tribesmen he would have encountered from time to time. They would know, for Sinai had from ancient times been a sacred mountain revered by all the inhabitants of that desolate land. So at length he came within sight of the mountain, and found himself a little cave in its sides, and therein he entered, and tested, and waited for the voice of the Lord.

"What doest thou here, Elijah?"

So strange a question. Surely the Lord must have known why he had come. Was He oblivious to the apostate state of Israel, unmindful of the continued power of that pagan queen Jezebel, of the idol temples and sanctuaries defiling the land which He had declared his own. Had God not seen into his own heart and perceived his despondency and concern? He must put the Lord right at once. "I have been very zealous for the Lord 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, only I, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away". So hopeless a plaint, he must have thought as he spoke, and yet, and yet, what else could he say and what else could he do? He spoke, and waited.

"Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord". He obeyed, and waited again. Now what is this? A murmur in the distance, a sound, undulating softly and becoming steadily louder; a noise, as of a strong wind blowing; suddenly a raging gale which shook the mountain crags and tumbled loose rocks down the precipices. Elijah quickly withdrew back into the protection of his cave and stood .... now the wind has died down and passed away and all is quiet but there is no word from the Lord. Surely then the Lord was not in the wind.

A rumbling below the ground and a shaking. The mountain quivered and chasms opened as the earthquake struck. The jutting peaks were riven and rock masses fell down the mountain side to the valley far below .... Now the shaking has ceased and the rumbling has died away and all is quiet but there is no word from the Lord. How plain it is that the Lord was not in the earthquake.

A vivid, dazzling lightning flash; in a moment the sky was alive with fire, driving down to earth to the accompaniment of crashing thunder. A tropical thunderstorm of a severity never experienced in temperate climates, one which illumined the sky together with a tremendous noise . . . The lightning ceased to flash and the thunder sank to a low rumble and died altogether and all was quiet and there was no word from the Lord. And nothing there was to show that the Lord was in the fire.

And then … "a still, small voice". The Hebrew is literally "a sound of soft stillness". Only Elijah heard it; perhaps only Elijah could hear it. And no man knows what it said to him, for he never told anyone. But whatever it was, and whatever it said, the consequence was that Elijah covered his face with his mantle and went out to the entrance of the cave, for he knew, now, that he was going to meet God. And he stood and listened, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" He repeated his complaint ‑ perhaps not despairingly as on the former occasion, but more dispassionately, as a concise statement of the impelling force which had brought him to Sinai. He had done all he could in Israel; he had earned the enmity of its pagan rulers; there seemed no one of consequence who remained true to the Lord, and he had no direct lead on what he was to do next. So he had come to Sinai to put himself in the Lord's hands and accept his decision. 

"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 you shall anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-Meholeh shall you anoint to be prophet in your place.....and I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal". (And let the studious take note that the Lord did not say "I have left" as in the AV The Hebrew is in the future tense and He was telling Elijah that all was not lost; there would yet be some who remained loyal).

Hazael was captain of the Syrian army; Jehu was captain of Ahab's army; Elijah was yet to be involved again in the politics of his nation and concerned in the eventual overthrow of Ahab. He was to seek out and anoint his own successor to his prophetic office. There was work for him to do. That wicked king Ahab had not yet seen the last of him. So Elijah went back.

(To be continued)

AOH