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But while fully admitting this distinctive standpoint of the preparatory dispensation,
it were a most serious mistake to forget that the Old Testament itself points to a
higher and fuller manifestation of God, and never more distinctly than in this history
of Elijah. Attention has already been called to the analogy between Elijah and John
the Baptist. At this stage we specially recall three points in the history of the latter. It
seems as if the Baptist had expected that his warning denunciations would be
immediately followed either by visible reform, or else by visible judgment. But
instead of this he was cast, at the instigation of Herod's wife, into a dungeon which
he was never to leave; and yet judgment seemed to slumber, and the Christ made no
movement either for the deliverance of His forerunner, or the vindication of his
message. And, lastly, in consequence of this disappointment, spiritual darkness
appears to have gathered around the soul of the Baptist. One almost feels as if it had
been needful for such a messenger of judgment to become consciously weak, that so
in the depression of the human the Divine element might appear the more clearly.
And it was also good that it should be so, since it led to the inquiring embassy to
Christ, and thus to a fuller revelation of the Divine character of the kingdom. The
same expectation and the same disappointment are apparent in the history of Elijah
on the morrow of the victory at Carmel. But they also led up to a fuller manifestation
of the meaning and purpose of God. Thus we see how the Old Testament itself, even
where its distinctive character most clearly appeared, pointed to that fuller and more
glorious manifestation of God, symbolized, not by storm, earthquake, or fire, but by
"the still small voice."
If Elijah had lingered in Jezreel in the hope that the reformation proclaimed on
Mount Carmel would be followed up by the king, he was soon to experience bitter
disappointment. There is, however, good reason for inferring that the impression then
made upon the mind of Ahab was never wholly effaced. This appears not only from
the subsequent relations between the king and prophets of the LORD (1 Kings 20),
but even from his tardy repentance after the commission of his great crime (1 Kings
21:27-29). Indeed, it might almost seem as if, but for the influence of Jezebel upon
the weak king, matters might at least temporarily have taken a different turn in Israel.
But if such was the effect produced upon Ahab by the scene on Mount Carmel, we
can understand that Jezebel's first wish must have been as soon as possible to remove
Elijah from all contact with the king. For this purpose she sent a message, threatening
the prophet with death within twenty-four hours. It need scarcely be said, that, if she
had been so bold as really to purpose his murder, she would not have given him
warning of it, and that the reference to twenty-four hours as the limit of his life must
rather have been intended to induce Elijah to immediate flight. And she succeeded in
her purpose - not, indeed, from fear on the part of the prophet,^18 but from deep
disappointment and depression, for which we may in some measure find even a
physical cause in the reaction that must have followed on the day after Carmel.
(^)