January 25 - Elijah

January 25 - Elijah

Elijah served as a prophet during the reign of King Ahab … the 9th century BCE.  Ahab was a great ruler of the northern kingdom.  However, Ahab had married Jezebel, a princess of Tyre, who worshiped Baal.  Elijah came from Gilead, east of the Jordan river, from a place where Israelites remained separate from those around them and was appalled by the intermarriage and interplay between the Israelites and the cultures around them.

Ahab ‘served Baal a little’ (2 Kgs 10:18), but mostly wanted to be tolerant of his wife’s religion … much like Solomon.  This was unacceptable to God and one day Elijah showed up in Ahab’s court announcing a terrible drought.  The prophets of Baal believed that their god possessed the power over life and fertility.  They soon discovered that wasn’t so and famine destroyed the country.

God told Elijah to go back to Ahab and confront the prophets of Baal, which led to the contest between one prophet of Yahweh and 450 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel.  (1 Kings 18:1-46)  Nothing happened (of course) to the sacrifice that the prophets of Baal prepared, but the one that Elijah prepared was devoured by fire, as well as the water that had drenched the firewood.  Not only that, but at the end of the story, God pours out water upon the land proving His control and gaining the trust of His people.

Jezebel was quite unhappy with the outcome and threatened Elijah’s life (1 Kings 19:1-2).  He fled and was comforted by Yahweh with food.  He goes on to Horeb (the sacred mountain where Moses met earthquake, wind and fire, then God’s revelation (Exodus 19) and finds that while earthquake, wind and fire accompany Yahweh, He is not in the violence of those things, but in a still, small voice.  Yahweh is not like the storm-god Baal, whose nature is made of those elements, but Yahweh is above it all and controls it all.  Yahweh can only be heard by those who will listen to Him.

There are many other stories found in 1 Kings 17-19, 21 and 2 Kings 1:1-2:18.  He was a man of great faith who wandered throughout the land, showing up when needed to remind the people of Israel of their God.  He was taken up into heaven by fiery horses and a chariot and was expected to return to humanity as the prophet who would introduce the Messiah.  He appeared at Jesus’ transfiguration (Mark 9:4; Matt. 17:3; Luke 9:30) along with Moses and is expected to come forth to restore the tribes of Jacob (Sirach 48:10).