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the ax to the root of the tree, yet, ere it fell, called for fruits meet for repentance. He
was not the forerunner of the LORD, save in judgment; he was the forerunner of the
King, not of the Kingdom; and the destruction of the state and people of Israel, not the
salvation of the world, followed upon his announcement. A grander figure never stood
out even against the Old Testament sky than that of Elijah. As Israel's apostasy had
reached its highest point in the time of Ahab, so the Old Testament antagonism to it in
the person and mission of Elijah. The analogy and parallelism between his history and
that of Moses, even to minute details, is obvious on comparison of the two;^288 and
accordingly we find him, significantly, along with Moses on the Mount of
Transfiguration.
Yet much as Scripture tells of him, we feel that we have only dim outlines of his
prophetic greatness before us. By his side other men, even an Elisha, seem small. As
we view him as Jehovah's representative, almost plenipotentiary, we recall his
unswerving faithfulness to, and absolutely fearless discharge of his trust. And yet this
strong man had his hours of felt weakness and loneliness, as when he fled before Ahab
and Jezebel, and would fain have laid him down to die in the wilderness. As we recall
his almost unlimited power, we remember that its spring was in constant prayer. As we
think of his unbending sternness, of his sharp irony on Mount Carmel, of his
impassioned zeal, and of his unfaltering severity, we also remember that deep in his
heart soft and warm feelings glowed, as when he made himself the guest of the poor
widow, and by agonizing prayer brought back her son to life. Such as this must have
been intended by God, in His mercy, as an outlet and precious relief to his feelings,
showing him that all his work and mission were not of sorrow and judgment, but that
the joy of Divine comfort was his also. And truly human, full of intense pathos, are
those days of wilderness-journey, and those hours on Mount Horeb, when in deepest
sadness of soul the strong man, who but yesterday had defiantly met Ahab and
achieved on Mount Carmel such triumph as none other, bent and was shaken, like the
reed in the storm. A life this full of contrasts - of fierce light and deep shadows - not a
happy, joyous, prosperous life; not one even streaked with peace or gladness, but
wholly devoted to God, a bush on the wilderness-mount, burning yet not consumed. A
life full of the miraculous it is and must be, from the character of his mission - and yet
himself one of the greatest wonders in it, and the success of his mission the best
attestation of, because the greatest of the miracles of his history. For, alone and
unaided, save of God, he did conquer in the contest and he did break the power of Baal
in Israel.
His first appearance, alike in the manner and suddenness of it was emblematic of all
that was to follow. Of his birth and early circumstances, we know next to nothing.
Josephus assumes (Ant. 8. 13, 2) that the Tishbah which gave him his name (1 Kings
17:1) lay on the eastern side of Jordan, in the land of Gilead; and some modern writers
have found the name in the village of Tiseth, to the south of Busrah. But this view has
(^)