- 17-
be executed on the idolaters and seducers, the idol-priests. The victory that day must
be complete; the renunciation of Baal-worship beyond recall. Not one of the priests
of Baal must escape. Down the steep mountain sides they hurried them, cast them
over precipices, those fourteen hundred feet to the river Kishon, which was reddened
with their blood.^14
But up on the mountain-top lingered King Ahab, astonished, speechless, himself for
the time a convert to Jehovah. He also was to share in the sacrifice; he was to eat the
sacrificial meal. But it must be in haste, for already Elijah heard the sighing and low
moaning of the wind in the forest of Carmel. Himself took no part in the feast. He
had other bread to eat whereof they wot not. He had climbed the topmost height of
Carmel out of sight of the king. None had accompanied him save his servant, whom
tradition declares to have been that son of the widow of Sarepta who had been
miraculously restored to life. Most fitting minister, indeed, he would have been in
that hour.\ Once more it was agonizing prayer - not once, but seven times repeated.^15
At each break in it the faithful attendant climbed the highest knoll, and looked
earnestly and anxiously over the broad expanse of the sea, there full in view. At last
it had come - a cloud, as yet not bigger than a man's hand. But when God begins to
hear prayer, He will hear it abundantly; when He gives the blessing, it will be
without stint. Ahab must be up, and quick in his chariot, or the rain, which will
descend in floods, will clog the hard ground, so that his chariot would find it difficult
to traverse the six miles across the plain to the palace of Jezreel. And now as the foot
of the mountain was reached, the heaven was black with clouds, the wind moaned
fitfully, and the rain came in torrents. But the power of Jehovah^16 was upon the
Tishbite.
He girded up his loins and ran before the chariot of Ahab. On such a day he hesitated
not to act as outrunner to the convert-king; nay, he would himself be the harbinger of
the news to Jezreel. Up to the entrance of Jezreel he heralded them; to the very gate
of Jezebel's palace he went before them, like the warning voice of God, ere Ahab
again encountered his tempter. But there the two must part company, and the king of
Israel must henceforth decide for himself to whom he will cleave, whether to
Jehovah or to the god of Jezebel.
(^)