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1Ki_19:1-21
19So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijahpassed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. 20And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what haveI done to thee? 21And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.
1Ki_19:3. And when he saw that, he arose,&c. The Sept. translates åַéַּøְà by êáὶ ἐöïâÞèç ; the Vulgate, timuit ergo; they read therefore åַéִּéøָà , which Thenius explains as undoubtedly correct, because øàä is used of mental vision only when a simple conclusion from outward circumstances is referred to. But this is exactly the case here, as the Targum also renders it by çæà . From the (outward) circumstance of the message, Elijah saw clearly how matters stood; he perceived that he could no longer remain here, as he had wished and hoped, and that he could not carry his work of reformation through to the end. Since he did not as on a former occasion (chap, 1Ki_18:1) receive a divine command to hazard his life, i. e., to remain in spite of the threat, he arose and left the kingdom, as he had done once before. øָàָä is therefore used here just as in 2Ki_5:7; if åָéִּøָà were the true expression, the person of whom he was afraid would have to stand in connection with it, as in 1Sa_18:12; 1Sa_21:13. Moreover, how should the man who had just been standing all alone over against the whole people, the king, and 450 priests of Baal (chap, 1Ki_18:22), who especially appears as an unequalled prophetic hero in the history of Israel, have become all at once afraid of a bad woman?— àֶìÎðַôְùׁåֹ is used here just as in 2Ki_7:7, and can only mean: in consideration of his soul, i. e., for the preservation of his (threatened) life; this meaning, moreover, is demanded by the connection with 1Ki_5:2, and we can hardly find expressed here the thought: “in order to care for his soul in the way indicated in 1Ki_5:4, i. e., to commend his soul or his life in the loneliness of the desert to God the Lord, as he should determine concerning him” (Keil). Decidedly incorrect is the translation of the Vulgate (quocumque eum ferebat voluntas), which Luther follows: “Whithersoever he would,” which has led to the erroneous conception that Elijah tied in his own will and strength, without awaiting an intimation from the Lord. Equally incorrect is the explanation of Gerlach: without end or aim, and certainly that of Krummacher: He was only travelling off haphazard.—Beer-sheba lay on the border of the wilderness. Since it belonged to the tribe of Simeon (Jos_19:2), the clause: which ìִéäåּãָä , must mean that he betook himself out of the kingdom of Israel into the kingdom of Judah, to which at that time the tribe of Simeon also belonged.—His servant he left behind in Beer-sheba, not perchance through fear of being betrayed by him, nor because “he expected to have no further need of him” (Thenius), nor because the wilderness afforded no sustenance, but: “he wished now to be entirely alone, as men often do in times of sorrow or discouragement; therefore he sought the wilderness.” (Calw. B.)
1Ki_19:4. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, namely, the Arabian, through which the people had once been compelled to wander. øֹúֶí is not juniper-tree (Luther), but “a kind of broom plant, that is the most longed-for and most welcome bush of the desert, abundant in beds of streams, and valleys where spots for camping are selected, and men sit down and sleep, in order to be protected against wind and sun” (Robinson, Palestine I. p. 203). The words: It is enough, &c, do not mean: “I must, as a human being, fall a victim to death some time, and I wish to die now” (Thenius), nor: “I have already endured tribulations enough here below” (Keil), but: I have now lived long enough. This is imperatively demanded by the sentence: for I am not better than my fathers, which forms the ground of his request: Jehovah, take away my soul (life). Long life, old age, is looked on, under the old covenant, as a special gift of God (Psa_61:7; Psa_102:25; Pro_3:2; Pro_4:10; Pro_9:11; Pro_10:27); Elijah, therefore, means to say: for I do not deserve nor desire to be distinguished and favored above my fathers by a specially long life. It is an entirely mistaken view which supposes that Elijah made this request “from a weak-minded weariness of life” (Thenius), or “with a murmuring heart” (Krummacher). In that case he would have deserved a reproof or a correction; but instead of this the Lord sends a heavenly messenger, who strengthens and refreshes him, and speaks to him only animating, encouraging words. Elijah’s whole life and labor had no other aim than to bring Israel back to their God; to this end were directed all the toils and privations to which he subjected himself. When he believed himself to have finally reached this end on Carmel, suddenly there came an incomprehensible turn of events; he saw himself deceived in his holiest and most blessed hopes, king and people abandoned him, the labor and struggle of a lifetime appeared to him fruitless and vain; the deepest, most bitter sorrow pervaded his soul. In this frame of mind he began the journey into the wilderness, and as he now sits down there wearied and exhausted by the journey, bowed down by sorrow and grief, what was more natural and human than for this man, who besides was already well-stricken in years, to pray his Lord and God to take from him the heavy burden and let him come to the longed-for rest; “it was a holy sorrow and sadness, such as no common man is capable of, which filled him at that time and brought to his lips the prayer: It is enough,” &c. (Menken.)
1Ki_19:5-9. An angel touched him. Although îַìְàָêְ in verse 2 is used of the messenger of Jezebel, yet here it denotes no human messenger, but a messenger of Jehovah (1Ki_5:7). The Sept. has in all three places ἄããåëïò .— òֻâָּä is a thin cake baked on a stone plate by means of hot ashes laid over it (chap, 1Ki_18:13. Winer, R.-W.-B. 1, p. 95).—After the first awakening Elijah had eaten only a very little, on account of his great weariness, and had fallen asleep again.—The closing words of verse 7 Keil explains, after Vatablus: iter est majus, quam pro viribus tuis; but since îִîְּêָ (cf. 1Sa_20:21) is not = ìêָ , we may better follow the Sept.: ὂôéðïëëὴ ἀðὸ óïῦ ἡ ὁäὸò , or the Vulgate: grandis enim tibi restat via. This moreover presupposes that Elijah had already determined to go to Horeb: for that he is not to be considered “as in a manner summoned thither” (Thenius) is shown by the question of verse 1 Kings 9 : What doest thou here?—Horeb (=Sinai) is here designated as “the mount of God,” because God declared, and revealed himself upon it in a special manner as the God of Israel; it was here that he appeared to Moses in the fiery bush and called him to bring forth Israel out of Egypt (Exo_3:1-15); it was here also that he made the covenant with the chosen people, “talked” with them, and gave them through Moses the law, the testimony of the covenant, the foundation on which all further divine revelations rest. Horeb is the place of the loftiest and weightiest revelation for Israel (Deu_1:6; Deu_4:10-15; Deu_5:2; 1Ki_8:9; Mal_4:4). Elijah wished to go thither in the hope that in that spot Jehovah would grant a disclosure to him also, as he had once to his servant Moses, and make known to him what further he had to do.—The cave into which Elijah went was, according to most commentators, that in which Moses once tarried while the Lord passed by (Exo_33:22); this view is favored also by the definite article. According to Ewald it must have been the cave “in which at that time wanderers to Sinai commonly rested.”
1Ki_19:8. Forty days and forty nights. Since Horeb is not more than 40 geographical miles from Beer-sheba (according to Deu_1:2. there are only eleven days journey from Kadesh Barnea, situated somewhat to the south, to Horeb), older commentators have assumed that Elijah, because old and weak, spent 19 or 20 days on this journey, remained 1 day on Horeb, and accomplished the journey back again in 19 or 20 days. But the text says very plainly that he went 40 days and 40 nights “unto Horeb.” According to Thenius, “the legend” leaves the actual relations of space out of sight here, for by this reckoning Elijah would have accomplished in each 24 hours’ time only 2 hours’ distance. But even the legend could not arbitrarily make a distance which every one knew and had before his eyes, three or four times too great; in any case the actual distance was not unknown to the author of our books. The text is not intended to make prominent the idea that Elijah kept on 40 days and 40 nights uninterruptedly, in order to reach Horeb, but that he was wonderfully preserved during this time which he spent in the wilderness before his arrival at Horeb. We must not overlook in this connection the reference to the 40 days and nights during which Moses was on Sinai without eating bread or drinking water (Exo_34:28; cf. Exo_24:18; Deu_9:9; Deu_9:18; Deu_9:25; Deu_10:10), and the indirect reference to the 40 years which Israel spent in the wilderness, where the Lord fed the people, when they had no bread, with manna, to make it known that man does not live by bread alone.
1Ki_19:9. And behold, the word of the Lord, &c. These words do not, as is commonly supposed, begin a new paragraph, but are rather to be connected with the immediately preceding portion of the same verse, “while he was spending the night in that spot, behold, the word of Jehovah came unto him.” It cannot be maintained from 1Ki_19:13 that ìåּð here means not: to spend the night, but: to remain, as the Vulgate has it: cumque illuc venisset, mansit in spelunca. The question îַäÎìְêָ ôֹä is, after the example of Josephus ( ôß ðáñåὶç , êáôáëåëïéðὼò ôÞí ðüëéí , ἐêåῖóå ): often taken as implying a censure, quasi Deus diceret, nihil esse Eliœ negotii in solitudine, sed potius in locis habitatis, ut illic homines ad veri Dei cultum adduceret (Le Clerc); also Thenius considers it intended “to remind Elijah how he, a prophet whom God would everywhere protect, and who in the service of God must endure everything, had not waited for a divine intimation, but from fear of man had fled to save his life, and then, in weak-minded weariness of life, had been able to wish himself dead.” This conception is radically false, and leads to an erroneous understanding of the entire passage. For, if a censure were to be inflicted on Elijah, it would not have been delayed until now, but would have been given when he had fled a day’s journey into the wilderness (1Ki_19:4), and longed to die; but instead of this he was even tenderly encouraged by an angel and wonderfully strengthened, in order to be able to continue the journey still farther. Why does not the angel say to him there, what does not follow till 1Ki_19:15? Elijah had indeed no divine command to flee into the wilderness, but still less had he any command to remain in Jezreel and bid defiance to Jezebel, as formerly (chap. 18) he had the command to show himself to the irritated king. When now during his journey, weary in body and soul, bowed down with grief and sorrow, he prayed that his end might come, but this prayer was not listened to, he longed so much the more “for a revelation and disclosure of what might be God’s will now, whither he should turn, what begin, whether and how God would employ him yet further in the service of Israel” (Menken). This drove him to the “mount of God,” i. e., to the place where, once before, his prototype Moses, the founder of the covenant, beheld the Lord and received comfort and strength; to the place where the Lord had spoken to his people and made with them the now broken covenant. If now he is asked: What doest thou here? What desire has driven thee hither? this was “a question of tender kindness, to relieve the full, burdened heart of the prophet, that he, to whom the great privilege of being able to complain of his sorrow had so long been denied, might be moved to reveal his desire, to pour out his whole heart before the Lord. So the Lord, after his resurrection, asked Mary, as she stood at the grave and wept: Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou, that thou mayst change thy sorrow into joy” (Menken). So also this is connected with the question Rev_7:13.
1Ki_19:10. I have been very jealous, &c. As the question is not to be considered a censure or rebuke as against Elijah, so also his answer is not to be considered a justification or a reproach as against Jehovah; entirely mistaken is the assertion that there is expressed in tins answer “only the greatest despondency concerning his fate” (Thenius), and “a carnal zeal that would at once call down the vengeance of the Almighty on all idolaters” (Keil), or that it bears witness to an “internal strife and murmuring” (Krummacher); it is rather, as the Apostle expressly declares, an indictment of Israel (Rom_11:2 : ἐíôõã÷Üíåé ôῷ èåῷêáôὰ ôïῦ ’ ÉóñáÞë ). “The prophet lays the facts, whose weight had fallen upon him with such fearful power, before the Lord, that He might see how they appear, and he leaves the riddle which is therein presented to Him, for Him to explain” (Gerlach). He brings forward for weighty accusations; (1) they have fallen away from the covenant relation; (2) they have thrown down the altars still remaining here and there, dedicated to thee; (3) instead of listening to thy servants who admonished and warned them, they have slain them; (4) as for myself, the last one who has openly appeared and been zealous for thee, they are seeking my life. The words: I have been very jealous, form the introduction to this fourfold accusation: I have used every means, but all in vain; what then is now to be done, what will and should be brought about? The complaint of the prophet was at the same time again a question to the Lord, to which he then receives a twofold answer (with signs, 1Ki_19:11-12, and with words, 1Ki_19:14-18). He speaks of his zeal, moreover, not in order to boast or bother himself about his fate: “God’s honor and Israel’s welfare were of far greater value to him than his own honor or welfare; he mentions his own person and his own need only in so far as they stood in necessary and most intimate connection with the cause of God and the truth, and so his complaint was a holy one, as all his sorrow and sadness were holy” (Menken). He mentions his zeal in order thereby to confirm and strengthen his accusation against Israel.
1Ki_19:11. And he said, Go forth, &c. It is common to translate with Luther: “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind … before the Lord.” According to this Elijah must have gone out of the cave before the wind, &c. But according to 1Ki_19:13 he did not go forth till he heard the gentle breeze; it is therefore absolutely necessary to consider the words åְäִðֵּä éְäåָֹä òֹáֵø as connected with the address to Elijah, and to begin the narrative portion with åְøåַּç . That is, the participle òֹáֵø is not preterit, but, as usual when it stands for the verbum finitum, present: Jehovah passes by, i. e., he is on the point of doing it; cf. Isa_5:5; Isa_7:14; Isa_10:23 (Gesenius, Gram. (Conant) p. 240). The Sept. translates: ’ Åîåëåýóῃ áὔñéïí êáὶ óôÞóῃ ἐíþðéïí êõñßïõ ἐí ôῷ ὄñåé · ßäïὺ ðáñåëåýóåôáé êýñéïò . Êáὶ ἰäïὺ ðíåῡìá ìÝãá ê . ô . ë . This division of the sentences is entirely correct, only áὔñéïí , which is not found in a single manuscript, is an unauthorized addition borrowed from Exo_34:2. The narrative in that place, moreover, serves in several ways to explain the one before us: especially the expression éְäåָֹä òֹáֵø gives clear and definite evidence. Moses desires to see the glory ( ëָּáåֹã , see above p. 76) of Jehovah, whereupon he receives the answer: “I will make all my goodness ( èåּáִé ) pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah” (i. e., what he is), and farther: “while my glory passeth by … I will cover thee with my hand, until I have passed by;” then follows “And Jehovah passed by before him and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah is a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but that will by no means clear,” &c. (Exo_33:18-19; Exo_33:22; Exo_34:6). The expression òáø is nowhere else used of Jehovah, and doubtless marks this highest revelation as one that is possible only for a moment, in distinction from a permanent, abiding revelation, for which ( ùְׁëִéðָä ) ùָׁëַï is used. When now Elijah complains here of Israel that they have broken the covenant, as they did once in the wilderness through the golden calf, and desires a disclosure concerning the dealings of Jehovah, which are dark and incomprehensible to him, the answer thereupon imparted to him: Behold! éְäåֹäָ òֹáֵø , is designed to express the idea: Jehovah will reveal himself to thee as he did once to Moses, and show thee what he is in his essence, and with this thou shalt receive the desired disclosure.
1Ki_19:11. And a great and strong wind, &c. Tempest, earthquake, and fire, as awe-inspiring natural phenomena, are in the Old Testament especially signs and attestations not only of the absolute power of God, but particularly of His anger, i. e., of His penal justice against His enemies, the ungodly. Thus they appear in connection with one another Isa_29:5 sq. and Psa_18:8-18, and they have the same significance here also. But since they occur here separately, one after the other in regular succession, they plainly indicate a succession of punishments differing in degree and kind. The tempest points to the rending, scattering, and turning to dust (Isa_17:13; Isa_40:24; Isa_57:13), the earthquake to the shaking of the foundations and the falling down (Isa_24:18 sq.;Psa_18:8; Psa_18:16; Jer_10:10), the fire to the complete consuming (Isa_66:15 sq.;Psa_18:9; Psa_97:3). In none of these three now was Jehovah, only out of the gentle whispering does He speak, i. e., the punishments come indeed from Him, pass before Him and bear witness of Him; but He Himself, that which he is, his essence (name) is not to be discerned in them; to this corresponds, rather in contrast with those destructive phenomena of nature, the gentle, soothing, refreshing, revivifying breeze after the storm. The word ãְּîָîָä from ãָּîַí to be silent, in Poel to silence (Psa_131:2), means properly stilling, and is used in both the other places where it appears, of the rest and refreshing which have followed pain, distress, and terror (Psa_107:29; Job_4:16). When now Jehovah “passes by” here in this, the same thing is expressed symbolically which Moses there heard in words, as Jehovah passed by; Jehovah is a God merciful and gracious, &c. The significance of the whole phenomenon is accordingly this: Jehovah, the God of Israel, will indeed display His punishing, destroying might to His despisers and enemies, but His own true and innermost essence is grace, rescuing, preserving, and quickening love, and though the people have broken the covenant of grace, yet He maintains this covenant, and remains faithful and gracious as He promised. For the bowed down and accusing prophet this was the well-attested divine answer, which contained comfort and consolation as well as incitement to carry on His begun work, and not to despair of Israel, nor allow Himself to be wearied out or led into error by the apparent fruitlessness of His efforts thus far. According to Ewald (loc. cit. p. 542) the words before us can “in the first place be rightly conceived of only as describing how Jahve will here appear to Elijah, and how He will talk to him. His passing by announces itself first in the most distant way by the fiercest storm; but that is not He Himself; then more subtle and near by thunder and earthquake; but this also is not He Himself; then in the most, subtle way by fire (as in the tempest, according to Psa_18:18 (16), Hab_3:4); but this is not He Himself; only in the soft whispering that then follows, in the most subtile spiritual voice does He reveal Himself, and to this attention is to be given (as Job_4:16; Job_26:4 in like manner)!” Also Thenius says: “It is the most incorporeal object possible for the illustration of the presence of the divine being, such as Job has selected, 1Ki_4:16.” This conception is in itself very unnatural: for why should thunder and earthquakes be regarded as “more subtile” (i. e., more immaterial) than a stormy wind, and the all-consuming tire “more subtile” than an earthquake? The gradation is rather just the reverse, from the weaker destroying element to the most powerful, and not from the grossly material to the most immaterial possible. But in general, the entire context is adverse to this conception; for by no means is the revelation to be made here to Elijah, that God’s essence is spiritual and that He is incorporeal (Elijah needed no revelation for that), but that Jehovah in His own innermost being is not a destroying, annihilating God, who only punishes, but rather a quickening, saving and preserving, a gracious and faithful God.
1Ki_19:13. When Elijah heard it, &c. During the storm of wind, the earthquake, and the fire, then Elijah was still in the cave, and he came out of it only at the soft whispering, in obedience to the command, 1Ki_19:11.—He wrapped his face in his mantle, although Jehovah did not pass by in visible shape, “from awe before the unapproachable one” (Then.), as Moses did once when the Lord appeared to him in the fiery bush, “for he was afraid to look upon God” (Exo_3:6; cf. Exo_33:20; cf. Exo_33:22). Even the Seraphim stand with covered faces before the throne of the Holy One (Isa_6:2). The question already addressed to Elijah before the significant phenomenon and now repeated after it; îäÎìְּêָ ôç , has this sense: Hast thou now any further reason for lingering here? Elijah’s repetition of his complaint expressed in 1Ki_19:10 can have only this reason, that he does not yet feel satisfied with what has happened to him (1Ki_19:11-13), because it is not clear to him what this is intended to signify. He therefore receives now a reply in definite words (1Ki_19:15-18); and it appears from other cases also that revelations are made to the prophets first in sensible signs (symbols) and then in definite words (cf. Jer_19:1-13; Jer_24:1-10; Eze_5:1-12; Eze_12:1-12; Eze_15:1-8; Eze_37:1-14). But in this case the verbal revelation is constantly not merely an explanation or interpretation of the symbolical revelation, but it carries the latter out still further by showing how that which the phenomenon attested rather in a general way concerning the being of Jehovah, is to be historically verified in the special case under consideration.
1Ki_19:15-18. And Jehovah said unto him, &c. This address has always been a source of great trouble to commentators, because in respect to that which is here laid upon Elijah and predicted of him the succeeding history makes known nothing or something entirely different. Elijah anointed neither Hazael nor Jehu; the former was not anointed at all. not even by Elisha (2Ki_8:11 sq.), the latter was anointed long after the departure of Elijah by a disciple of the prophets, and therefore certainly not by Elisha, and Elisha himself was indeed summoned to be the successor of Elijah, yet not by being anointed, but by being covered with the prophet’s mantle (1Ki_19:19). Still less does the history know anything of the fact that Elisha, whose life and work are nevertheless related so minutely, ever slew any one, to say nothing of an equal number with Hazael and Jehu. The older, ordinary solution of the difficulties is best presented by Gerlach, who says: “Still it is to be supposed that Elijah executed literally what the Lord commanded him, since he was expressly told to go to Damascus for the purpose of anointing Hazael. For reasons which are not known to us, this anointing may have been kept secret, as was the first anointing of David by Samuel (1 Samuel 16), and, just as in the case of this king, the anointing of Jehu may have been repeated at a later date by Elisha, when the moment for Joram’s downfall had come. That prophets were anointed appears, apart from this passage, only figuratively in the prophecy Isa_61:1; the more this office now became the mightiest in the falling kingdom of Israel, the more natural was it to bring it, by means of the symbolical consecration, into conformity with the royal and priestly officers.” This forced artificial explanation is seen at once to be a makeshift and to rest on untenable assumptions. The more recent criticism has made easy work of it: this affirms: Out of the whole of Elijah’s history, as contained in the original manuscript, the author of the books before us has everywhere taken only so much as served his purpose; here now, after 1Ki_19:18, he has left out the account of the execution of the commission which had been received in regard to Hazael and Jehu, because the other original manuscripts, from which he composed the history of Hazael and Jehu, cannot be reconciled with it (Thenius, followed by Menzel). But how can we attribute to our author the carelessness or unskilfulness of having wholly failed to observe the inconsistency between 1Ki_19:15-18, and his own reports concerning Hazael and Jehu (2 Kings 8, 9)? If he had considered them irreconcilable, he would not have stopped with the pretended omission of the account concerning the execution of the commission, but would naturally also have omitted either the verses before us, 15–18, or the reports concerning Hazael and Jehu which cannot be harmonized with these. In order to remove the difficulty we must take a wholly different course. In the beginning it is well to observe that the address of Jehovah, 1Ki_19:15-18, is a reply to Elijah’s repeated severe accusation of Israel, and therefore already bears the character of a divine judicial sentence, which at once contains a prophecy, and is in the fullest sense a divine oracle. As now is generally the case with such oracular sayings, so also here the tone is evidently lofty and solemn, and the form is sententious, axiomatic; what Ewald (The Prophets of the O. T. I. p. 49) observes in reference to the strophic rhythm of the prophetic oracles, that the triple rhythm comes in with great force, especially when the language possesses a certain stately elevation, fits the present case completely. The tripartite character of the whole passage is sharply defined; 1Ki_19:15-16 are the first strophe, 1Ki_19:17 the second, 1Ki_19:18 the third; and each of these three strophes has in turn three members. But in such an oracle a strictly literal understanding of the individual expressions is the less necessary, when, as is here the case, it stands opposed to plain statements that follow. This is eminently true of the expression “anoint,” which is not to be taken literally, because then the immediately succeeding 1Ki_19:19, according to which Elisha is not really anointed, would contradict it. To “anoint” a person or thing means simply to bring them into the service of God. Thus not only kings and priests, but also implements of worship (Exo_29:36; Exo_30:26 sq.), yes, even stones (Gen_28:18) were anointed, because they were to serve for the fulfilment of the divine will. Here too the word is used in this sense; it signifies not the actual outward anointing, but what the anointing means, just as in Jdg_9:8. All three, Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, are to serve for the execution of God’s will and counsel, and each, indeed, in a different way. By Hazael, the foreign Syrian king, Israel was continually hard pressed from without (2Ki_8:12; 2Ki_8:29; 2Ki_10:32; 2Ki_13:3; 2Ki_13:7); he was the rod of correction in the hand of Jehovah, the instrument of his anger, i. e., of his punishment (cf. Isa_10:5). By Jehu the kingdom of Israel was shaken within; he put an end to the house of Ahab, from which the idolatry proceeded and was kept up (2Ki_9:24; 2Ki_9:33; 2Ki_10:1-28), and was the divine rod of correction for the idolatrous within Israel. By Elisha, as successor of Elijah, who strove with fiery zeal against all idolatry, the reformatory work of the latter was to be continued, and he also served as God’s instrument in correcting and punishing Israel, if not by means of the sword, yet through his whole prophetic activity. Since now Elijah, immediately after receiving his commission to anoint, still did not anoint Elisha, easily as he might have done this, but summoned him to be his successor, by covering him with the prophet’s mantle, we have here the clearest evidence that he did not understand the anointing literally in the case of Hazael and Jehu, any more than in that of Elisha. He took the whole oracle in general as a divine revelation of what was soon to happen in Israel. In connection with the words: Go and anoint, it is to be remembered that in other cases also of oracular sayings the prophets are commanded to do something (symbolically), which (in reality) is to be brought to pass by the Lord (cf. Jer_19:1 sq.; Jer_27:2; Jer_28:10 sq.;Eze_5:1-12; Eze_12:3 sq.). The disciple of the prophets, who anointed Jehu under the direction of Elisha, was obliged to begin this action with the words: “Thus saith Jehovah: I have anointed thee king over Israel” (2Ki_9:3); the real anointing was performed, therefore, by Jehovah himself.
1Ki_19:15-17. Go, return on thy way, &c. The words îִãְáַּøָäãַîֶּùֶׂ÷ are not to be translated, per desertum in Damascum (Vulgate, Luther), nor hardly “into the wilderness of Damascus” (Keil after Le Clerc), but “to the wilderness (through which he had come after 1Ki_19:4) to Damascus” (Thenius). This command cannot be taken literally with any more safety than the following: Anoint; it merely indicates whence the divine punishment is to break in upon Israel. For details concerning Hazael and Jehu, vide on 2Ki_8:9-10. Of the expression “slay,” used of Elisha 1Ki_19:17. the same thing is true as of “anoint;” for that Elisha did not actually slay, our author knew as well as we do now, and indeed our knowledge comes only from his own reports concerning him. He cannot possibly, therefore, have understood the word literally, but only in the prophetic sense in which it is used of the Messiah in the oracle Isa_11:4; “he shall smite the earth (the land) with the rod (i. e., the rod of correction) of his mouth and with the breath ( éָîִéú ) of his lips shall he slay ( øåּçַ as in the passage before us) the godless.” Cf. Isa_49:2; where the month of the prophet is called “a sharp sword,” into which the Lord has made it; just so Rev_1:16; Rev_2:16; Rev_19:15. The fundamental and main thought of the oracle is in general this, that the judgment of Jehovah will come, but the judging and dividing will be brought about by the sword, now with the actual sword, now with the sword of the øåּçַ of God (Job_4:9); so far could Elisha very well be joined with Hazael and Jehu in the otherwise very much contracted oracle.
1Ki_19:18. Yet I have left, &c. In the three strophes of this passage also the symbolical mode of expression is continued. For the number seven thousand is no more to be taken arithmetically than the number an hundred and forty and four thousand (twelve times 12,000) in the Apocalypse (Rev_7:4; Rev_14:1-5). Seven is the symbolical numeral sign of holiness, the covenant and ceremonial number (cf. Symbol des Mos. Kult. I. s. 193); and it marks those who are left as a holy company, faithful to the covenant, as the “holy seed” of the covenant people (Isa_6:13; cf. Isa_4:2; Rom_11:7). In like manner the expressions, all the knees, etc., and every mouth, etc., are a figurative rhetorical description of those faithful to Jehovah. The kissing is not to be understood of kisses thrown with the hand (Gesenius), but of kissing the feet of the image which stands on a pedestal (Hos_13:2; Cicero in Verr. 4, 1Kings 43: Quod in precious et gratulationibus non solum id sc. simulacrum venerari, verum etiam osculari solent). Menken has a striking observation on 1Ki_19:18 : “Now the prophet understood why the still, small voice was preceded by the desolating storm, the devouring earthquake, and the consuming fire; and beyond all, the anxiety, terror, bloodshed, destruction which were contained therein for Israel. His heart received abundant consolation from the further revelation of the Lord; for this gave him now, in addition to the still, small voice of the Spirit of Life, a disclosure touching the mercy of the Lord to Israel, that infinitely surpassed all his hopes and expectations: and if the revelation of the wants and plagues which were to come upon Israel produced in him the same feeling as the destruction and ruin of threatening storms, still by this disclosure he felt himself encouraged and quickened, as in the refreshing blessed coolness after the storm.” In the Return (1Ki_5:15) there is contained therefore anything rather than a rebuke for the prophet; but it is the expression of comfort and encouragement.
1Ki_19:19. So he departed thence, &c. The city Abel Meholah, where, according to 1Ki_19:16, Elisha lived, lay in the valley of the Jordan, about three German miles from Beth Shean, in the tribe of Manasseh (Jdg_7:22; 1Ki_4:12). Though he may indeed have been already known to Elijah, yet he hardly belongs with the “sons of the prophets,” among whom Ewald wrongly places him; adding, at the same time, “He had just ploughed round his twelve yoke of land, being at work on the twelfth and last.” But öֶîֶּã , as appears from 1Ki_19:21, and as ìְëָּðָéå also demands, is not a yoke of land, but a yoke (pair) of oxen. One ploughman belonged with each yoke. Elisha was with the last, the others all “before him.” The conjecture that the “twelve yoke of cattle represented the twelve tribes” (Hengstenberg, von Gerlach), like the twelve stones of the altar on Carmel (1Ki_18:31), has very little in its favor. The number appears to be mentioned only to show that Elisha was a man in good circumstances, who, nevertheless, left his property in order to follow the call of Elijah. àַãֶּøֶú is here the prophetic official garment (Bech. 1Ki_13:4; 2Ki_1:8; 2Ki_2:13). The throwing it over Elisha was a symbolical act, which denoted the summons to become a prophet (the investiture); and was intelligible to Elisha, even without any words. Elijah seems to have withdrawn at once; he wished, indeed, to leave the doubtless astonished Elisha some time for making up his mind; yet the latter did not meditate long, but hastened ( éָøָõ , he ran; not he followed) after him, and declared his purpose to accept the summons, only he wished first to take leave of his father and mother (cf. Gen_31:28). Elijah’s answer, ìֵêְ ùׁåּá , is not to be translated with Luther: Go (to thy parents) and come (then) again; but just as in 1Ki_19:15, where both words together express only one conception—Return, namely, to thy parents, as thou wishest. The following sentence, For what have I done to thee? should, according to Keil, have the meaning, “I have not wished to coerce thee, but I leave the decision concerning the prophetic call to thy free will.” In a similar manner Ewald: “As if indignant at this reawakening of desire for the world, Elijah gave him permission to return altogether if he wished.” This does not agree with the fact that, according to the Divine will (cf. 1Ki_19:16), Elisha was destined to be the successor of Elijah, and Elijah, therefore, certainly did not leave the acceptance of the summons wholly to his free will. Had he given over to him the decision of the matter he would not have first thrown the prophetic mantle over him, but would have waited till Elisha decided. When Elisha prays that he may be permitted to take leave of his parents, his idea is that he is ready to follow Elijah, and he only wishes first to satisfy a natural filial obligation, not that he prefers to remain with his parents. That Elijah was unwilling for him to fulfil this filial duty is therefore not to be imagined. Thenius translates: “Go, return! yet! what have I done to thee?” and observes: “He gives the permission, but recalls the lofty meaning of the symbolical action which had just been performed on him, by which he had been devoted to the service of the Lord.” This gives indeed a good meaning, only it is very questionable whether ëִּé can have here, where no contrast is expressed, the signification, yet! The fundamental idea: for, is never entirely lost: Go, take leave of thy parents, for what have I done to thee? I have summoned thee to the prophetic service; thine abode is henceforth no more with thy parents: thou art to follow me.
1Ki_19:21. And he returned back from him, &c. Elisha had run after him ( éָøָõ , 1Ki_19:20), and now returned to take a formal leave of his people. He took (not “a” yoke, as Luther has it, but) the yoke of cattle, viz., that with which he himself had been ploughing (1Ki_19:19), which was his in an especial sense. These he slew for a farewell feast ( æáָçַ , as in Chron. 1Ki_18:2; 1Sa_28:24; Eze_39:17), not, he offered it (as a thank-offering), for the whole context shows that the reference is not to a religious, priestly act, for which also an altar would have been necessary. To offer is here the equivalent of to dispense, to give up (Keil), and is not to be understood in its strict sense. The instruments of the oxen, i. e., the yoke and the frame of the plough, he applied not forsooth as would necessarily be expected, if a sacrifice were the matter in hand, to the burning of them up, but to the boiling of the flesh; certainly not because there was no other wood at hand (1Sa_6:14; 2Sa_24:22), but rather in order to indicate that he gave up for ever his previous calling. The people that took part in the feast can hardly be “the inhabitants of his place” (Thenius), but those who up to this point were laboring in common with him in the field, and of them he now took leave as of his parents. The conjecture that this farewell feast occurred immediately in the field where Elijah met him, and that he withdrew from it to take leave of his parents (Calw. B.), is as groundless as it is unnecessary. So far as the words are concerned, the Lord, in Luk_9:61, may very likely have been thinking of this passage, but the sense and meaning are very different. “Elisha did not wish first to bury his father and mother, i. e., wait until they were dead, but only to take leave of them; moreover, when he wished this, he had not already put his hand to the plough, like the man in Luk_9:61-62, for he had not presented himself to succeed Elijah (Calw. B.). There the Lord is expressing censure, whereas what is here related should not prove a reproach to Elisha, but rather an honor and praise. There can, accordingly, be no talk of a “close affinity” between the two places (Thenius). Krummacher represents the matter thus: Elisha gave the feast to his parents at once, became thereby their “host,” and appeared “here already as a prophet, supplying and blessing,” &c. This is pure fancy, and has an incorrect explanation of the text for its basis.
2. The removal from Jezreel into the wilderness should not, as is so often done, be looked on as properly a “flight,” a lack of faith, courage, and firmness (Krummacher: “Faith, to remain was wanting in him this time”). The text has no more knowledge of a flight ( áָּøַç ), like that, e. g., in the case of Jonah (Jon_1:2-3), than of his being afraid. He recognized in the threat of Jezebel a providential admonition, which, however dark and hard it might appear to him, he did not believe himself at liberty to resist, since no higher direction to remain had come to him. For him, the strong man, firm as a rock, heroic in temper, it was an infinitely more difficult and humiliating duty to give up to the anger of a godless, wicked woman, than to bid her defiance, and make trial of the Lord. He bowed beneath the inscrutable decree, as becomes a true servant of God; and so his going away was an act of faith no less than his appearing before the persecuting Ahab (1Ki_18:15 sq.). “To force martyrdom upon himself, of his own choice, without necessity, he did not consider a part of his calling, nor did he regard it a great and holy act, nor has this ever been the ease with the prophets and apostles. In behalf of the truth and the glory of God’s name the prophet would have given up his life with joy; but at the present crisis this end would not have been attained through his death; it would have been a triumph for Jezebel” (Menken). There is no greater mistake than to suppose that Elijah withdrew from Jezreel “through fear of man,” and that then, because he had arbitrarily relinquished the prosecution of his prophetic calling, he was “summoned, so to speak,” to an account and justification of himself on Horeb (Thenius). It was just there that he was favored with the most glorious revelation.
3. The state of mind into which Elijah fell in the wilderness has nothing to do with the common “weak-minded weariness of life” (Thenius). His righteous and holy sorrow over the fruitlessness of all that God had done, through him, to save His people from ruin and destruction, overpowered him, being as he was, according to the apostle’s expression, ὁìïéïðáèὴò ἡìῖí (Jam_5:17; cf. Act_14:15); so that he was subject to the frailty and weakness of human nature, from which no mortal is free, so long as he lives in the body. Even he, this mighty hero, was obliged to go through this experience for himself, and pay his tribute to it. Similar States of mind appear even in lives of the firmest and strongest men of God. Thus, in the case of that other Elijah, John the Baptist in the prison, who believed, in like manner, that he must give up all hope, and sent, in the hard hour of temptation, to inquire of the Lord, “Art thou He that should come,” &c.; yet at that time the Lord testifies of him that he is no reed which the wind blows to and fro. And the Author and Finisher of faith himself, in the days of his flesh (Joh_1:14), offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears (Heb_5:7), and called out: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Mat_26:38). As here Elijah, so there the Lord in Gethsemane was strengthened by angel—a clear token that his condition was one indeed of severe temptation, but not of guilt or sin, such as would merit censure or reproof, or even a summons before the tribunal of God.
4. Elijah’s spending forty days and forty nights in the wilderness before reaching Horeb, while he might have attained his end in a much shorter time, was anything rather than accidental or meaningless; concerning Moses the fact is made prominent, not once merely, but repeatedly, with a certain emphasis, that he, before receiving on Horeb the highest revelation from Jehovah, spent forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking (Exo_24:18; Exo_34:28; Deut. 9:9; 18:25; 10:10). Since, now, the same thing took place in the case of Elijah also, and in that of no other servant of God, this very fact marks him out as the other, the second Moses; but it follows at once from this that the season of forty days and forty nights had the same significance for Elijah, the restorer of the covenant (vide above on chap. 17.), as for Moses its founder. It was a season of preparation for the highest possible revelation of God that can be given to a mortal, but, as such, a season of abstinence from all earthly enjoyment, of absorption in God and a higher world, of contemplation and prayer. This significance is impressed upon it by the number forty, which is in the Scriptures generally the measure of every season of abstinence, of purification and trial, of conflict and correction, and so also of expectation (Gen_7:4-17; Deu_8:2-3; Deu_29:4-6; Jon_3:4; Eze_4:6; Eze_29:11-13; Mat_4:2). Elijah now spent this time, not like Moses upon the mountain itself, but in the wilderness lying before it, which was just the most appropriate locality for him. “Here the whole wonderful history of the old fathers passed in review before him.… With every step which he took forward into the silent desert, new pictures and scenes came before his gaze out of that wonderful past” (Krummacher), he was most vividly reminded “how even in this wilderness God the Lord had manifested Himself to His servants and to His people in the most varied and most glorious manner.… and so he was gradually prepared for the revelations and consolations which awaited him in this wilderness” (Menken).
5. The revelation which Elijah received on Horeb furnishes, indeed, an unmistakable parallel to that which once fell to the lot of Moses, but the account of it is in no wise copied by our narrator from that earlier one, as more recent commentators suppose. (Thenius thinks that he surpasses his model almost.) The common characteristic of the two revelations consists in this, that Jehovah here, as there, “passes by,” which designates, as observed above, the highest state of revelation under the old dispensation. When now Elijah is favored with the same revelation, such as fell to the lot of Moses only and of no other servant of God beside Moses under the old dispensation, he is thereby placed over against Moses; in fact, to a certain degree, on the same line with him; and this is owing to the position which he holds in sacred history as the restorer of the broken covenant, the other, the second Moses. The nature and method of the “passing by” were, on the contrary, very different; the accompanying natural phenomena are wholly wanting in the earlier instance, and are in the Ingest degree peculiar, for they have reference to the special relations and circumstances in which Elijah found himself, as is moreover expressly attested by the explanatory language of God (1Ki_19:15 sq.). The whole of this revelation bears in general a predominantly prophetic character, referring, that is, to the future, while this element is almost entirely absent from the revelation to Moses. However, it is a matter of greater importance that here, as there, Jehovah reveals saving grace as His most real and inmost essence, and that this revelation fell to the lot of just these two, Moses and Elijah, i. e., the founder and the restorer of the covenant, the representatives of the law and of the prophets, and so of the Old Testament economy in general (Mat_17:3; Luk_9:30). This fact is the best refutation of the common assertion that the God of the Old Testament is entirely different from the God of the New Testament—an angry, despotic, national God, not the God who, under the new dispensation, has revealed Himself as “Love.” That which became evident to all, Jews and Gentiles, when the time was fulfilled, was already disclosed by the Lord to the two representatives of the old dispensation, although with “veiled countenance,” for it was just they who, in their higher historical position, needed to take a deeper look into the essence of God, and so into the counsel of His mercy and love.
6. The whole transaction on Horeb may indeed be designated a “vision” (Niemeyer, Herder, Von Gerlach. Keil), only by this must not be meant that it was merely a transaction within the prophet, a pure vision which he had during sleep, perhaps “in a dream” (Thenius). The expression in 1Ki_19:9 : “And behold the word of Jehovah came to him,” which is constantly used of an inner revelation, points doubtless to the fact that Elijah found himself in a visionary condition, into which he seem