A
lot of ink has been spilled over the “psychology of Elijah”. Many have poured
over the factors which might have led to this great
reversal in Elijah’s thinking.
The keyword for many interpreters of this text is the word “fear” which is found in
19:3: “Then
he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life…”.
It is strange
that (all things considered) such a
fearless man should turn into a wimp
overnight – all because king Ahab’s wife, Jezebel had said to
him, “So may the gods do to me and more also , if I do not make your life as
the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” (19:2). It was after this
threat that Elijah arose and ran for his life. (v.3) It just
doesn’t make sense, does it? One moment he faces 450 false prophets, man alone
in the strength of the Lord, and overcomes, and the next moment he capitulates before one woman and flees. As I have said, this text has kept commentators occupied.
Much has been made of
the psychological impact – the emotional and the physical tiredness that Elijah must have experienced
after this great contest. Much has been said about Elijah’s lack
of ‘spiritual guardedness’. He
has been accused of losing it- having a
crisis of faith. There is something to be said for such observations, and I think we all know the feeling expressed
by Simon Peter in Luke 5:5 when
he says to Jesus
after a disappointing fishing
expedition: “Master we have toiled all night and took nothing!” Working hard, and seeing little results can
have a crushing effect upon the soul
of any man, and particularly so
in the ministry. But is that the real issue here? Is this as simple as saying: “Well here we have an example of a spiritual man who overworked himself,
and who did not take care of his own soul, and the result is that he bombed out emotionally, physically and
spiritually ”? Is that the great
lesson of 1 Kings 19? I
am thankful that I have had a few months now reflecting on the life and times of Elijah, and I am thankful
that I have had a week of study
and reflection on this particular text behind me in the company of the
Holy Spirit and some good commentaries. I believe that I have come away with a better
understanding of this text. Let us
begin by
looking at the text again, before we make application.
The narrative can be divided into 6 parts:
1.
Jezebel
threatens to kill Elijah (vv.1-2)
2.
Elijah
sees what is happening in Israel. There
is no spiritual revival after this
contest with the prophets of Ba’al. This and the death threat causes him to flee to
Beersheba in Judah (v.3)
3.
From
Beersheba, Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness. It
is here that we learn
something of Elijah’s emotional state. He is depressed. He tells God that he wants to die.
He feels a failure: “I am no better than my fathers”. He then
sleeps (emotional and physical
exhaustion) and as He awakens, there is
food and drink brought to him by an angel of the Lord. The angel informs him that he will need this sustenance
for the journey ahead. This provides us with another clue. God is calling him for a meeting at Mt.Horeb(Sinai), the mountain where God had
previously made a significant covenant
with Israel through Moses (vv. 4-8). This is an important fact to be considered.
4.
At
Mt. Horeb the word of the Lord came to him (vv.
9-18). God asks the question (twice)
: “What are you doing here Elijah?” (vv. 9 , 13). Elijah responds (see vv.
10, 14). He reveals his
zeal for God’s work on the one hand. On the other hand he reveals his very real disappointment at the gross failure
of Israel, God’s covenant people, to return to their covenant God at this significant
time at which the false gods of Ba’al
were so evidently defeated . It
seems that the glorious victory at Carmel
and the profession of the people
“The Lord , he is God” (
18:39) had no
real effect on Ahab and certainly none
on Jezebel. The nation of Israel seemed to continue
in their spiritually apathetic state.
5.
God
hears Elijah and now in vv. 15 &16 God
gives Elijah a new commission. He
tells him three things (i) Go to
Damascus (capital city of Syria) and
anoint the Hazael in place of Ben
Hadad [1] (ii)
Anoint
Jehu as king over Israel in
the place of the house of Ahab[2] and (iii) find yourself a replacement. Anoint
Elishah, the son of Shaphat to be prophet in your place. This shall happen in 2 Kings 2.
6.
This new commission really
amounts to a very severe judgment upon
Israel. The wrath of God
upon all the evil shall be exercised through these “servants” of God, beginning with Elijah.
God’s instruments include (surprisingly) a pagan king like Hazael and a
murderous and rebellious Israelite king called Jehu, and it includes also the true servant of the Lord, who will be Elisha. There will be a systematic purging of
Israel under Hazael , Jehu an Elisha (see v. 17). It will be a bleak, dark
time in Israel. It will seem as if the lamp of Israel will be extinguished, and yet at this time God assures Elijah that there are 7000 in Israel, who have been kept
by the grace of God, and whose hearts had been undefiled by the present evil idol worship
(v.18).
This is the story line. Now what
shall we make of it? What is the Holy Spirit teaching us here? What about Elijah? Has he become a sell out? Having taken careful note of the text and context (I trust), let us make some observations and conclusions:
1.
Elijah’s running away from Jezreel to
Beersheba was not necessarily motivated by carnal or self -centered fear, but by a sense of failure and futility. The slant will colour our interpretation of Elijah’s
psychological state. We are helped in
this if we consider an
alternative translation of the text. I
know that the ESV (our
preferred translation) along with most
other translations (e.g. NASB, RSV, NIV, Amplified)
reads in v.3… “then he was
afraid.” The alternate translation (e.g. KJV & ASV) reads: “And
then he saw…”. Now why this
discrepancy? Here is the explanation. The oldest Hebrew
text has no vowels. The original Hebrew text only consist of
consonants. So if I wrote, “Mary is
a blonde” in old Hebrew, then I would write “Mry s blnd” (The vowels are understood). So too, the Hebrew word used here yar’ah, (without the vowels) can mean “to be
afraid “ or it can mean “saw”
(in the imperfect tense[3]), depending on which vowels you insert. The Masoretes[4]
are to blame for this. They added
vowels to the Hebrew text between the
7th and 11th
centuries AD. By this they chose “and he was afraid” over “and he
saw”. Why do we make all this fuss over
language? Because the emphasis would make a difference in Elijah’s motives for fleeing. The one says he
ran out of fear; the other says that he ran
because he saw the writing on the
wall, and he was bitterly disappointed and disillusioned. I personally cannot see that Elijah had a personality change, becoming a
wimp. I cannot see that he became a spiritual drop out. Let’s see whether the
rest of the text stands up to this reasoning.
2.
Elijah needed
distance between the problem
in Israel because he was intensely disappointed with Israel. He desperately needed to meet with God at a place of origins,
because he needed further perspective.
Having arrived in Beersheba, he leaves his servant there and walks a day’s journey further into
the desert. By now his emotions and his body are beginning to catch up. He is
deeply depressed and he tells God that he wants to die. Instead of death he experiences
what some of called ‘ the small death’ – sleep which
is God’s blessed gift to
revive us, and to make us forget the stresses and strains of life for a
while. In this the wilderness, God in love for his exhausted servant sent an angel to sustain him with freshly baked
cake and water (19:6). And still he was tired. He lay down again,and the
angel nudged him and encouraged him to get up and continue the journey to Horeb ,
the mountain where Moses had previously met with God
for 40 days and nights . Significantly it took Elijah 40 days and
40 nights to get there (19:8).
And God spoke to him there: “ And the
word of the LORD came to him“. The LORD asks him: “What are you doing here Elijah?” Now, many people take that as a
rebuke from God, as if to say “you should not be here! You are in the wrong
place!“ It really is not necessary
to come to such a conclusion. This
could equally mean: “What have you
come to tell me?” If this is true, God was looking at his servant in a
softer , loving light. I think that the
response indicates this , because Elijah
then tells God why he is here.
Elijah says that he is upset for God’s
sake. Note the emphasis in v.10: “The
people of Israel have thrown down your altars and killed your
prophets with the sword …”. Here’s the point! Elijah is not whining.
He has come to talk to God as this most
historically significant place of Israel’s beginnings! He has come to formally charge Israel with apostasy before God.
He is righteously angry and
disappointed before God, and he is at the right place to do so! Nowhere in this text do we that God is angry with Elijah for being
disbelieving and in the wrong place. If anything, we observe God’s tender kindness towards his
faithful prophet.
To recapitulate:
Elijah was not so much afraid of Jezebel,as he was broken by the
continued stubbornness and unrepentant
paganism of the nation. Elijah was here because God had
essentially driven him there. Elijah had
come to bring a charge of apostasy against Israel!
3.
This teaches us afresh the
depth of human depravity and
stubborn willfulness. No
matter how much proof there is of God’s
power over evil, people will not believe. Sometimes we are tempted
to think that if only we can get people to hear the truth. If only we can convert them through our well
rehearsed arguments. If we think that, we have not yet comprehended the
deadness of the human heart (Eph. 2:1). The
testimony of Jesus is true: “And this is the judgment, that light has
come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light.” (Jn. 3:19).
4.
We would do well to desire Elijah’s heart and passion for the glory of God, and for his hatred for sin and
depression over sin. Do we really care about the unfaithfulness of
the present professing church? Can we be happy with this doctrinal
indifference and idolatrous pragmatism of our day - so much that we get upset for God’s sake? Can God’s servants get depressed and despondent,
and is that OK? Yes! If it is over God’s
glory, and honour and interests
it is always OK. We are after all meant to be God’s holy people. We must feel
to some degree what He feels about sin Do you ever get depressed over
the way things are in our society, for God’s sake?
5.
The wrath of God is revealed against
all the ungodliness of men who suppress the truth by their ungodliness.
(Rom 1:18). In the
closing verses of our text today we
shall see this. God is beginning to act against wicked Israel . And Elijah is
there to anoint the following people,
believers and non believers alike to
do God’s work – to bring punishment upon Israel. And, in the
process, God will take his tired servant out of the world and replace him with
another man, Elishah who will faithfully run with the baton.
Elijah has
not been God’s last broken- hearted servant. Plenty of cases have abounded in our own days, but you need not fear being a broken hearted
servant when you are in the hands of a good God! Amen.
[1] Hazael murders Ben Hadad in 2 Kings 8:7
and becomes king of Syria
[2] This happens in 2 Kings 9 when under the direction of Elisha a young prophet was called to anoint Jehu as king over Israel. Jehu killed Joram ( Ahab’s son – now on the throne ) and
he also killed Jezebel (9:30ff)
in accordance with the word of the LORD
[3] The Hebrew
imperfect does not have tense apart
from context and syntax just like the Hebrew perfect. The Hebrew imperfect
denotes incomplete action, whether in the past, present, or future.
