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Ekron? But the authority of Jehovah would be vindicated. Guilty messengers of an
apostate king, they were to bring back to him Jehovah's sentence of death. Whether
or not they recognized the stern prophet of Jehovah, the impression which his
sudden, startling appearance and his words made on them was such that they at once
returned to Samaria, and bore to the astonished king the message they had received.
It is as difficult to believe that the king did not guess, as that his messengers had not
recognized him who had spoken such words. The man with the (black) hairy
garment, girt about with a leathern girdle, must have been a figure familiar to the
memory, or at least to the imagination, of every one in Israel, although it may not
have suited these messengers - true Orientals in this also - to name him to the king,
just as by slightly altering the words of the prophet^116 they now sought to cast the
whole responsibility of the mission on Ahaziah. But when in answer to the king's
further inquiry,^117 they gave him the well-known description of the Tishbite, Ahaziah
at once recognized the prophet, and prepared such measures as in his short-
sightedness he supposed would meet what he regarded as the challenge of Elijah, or
as would at least enable him to punish the daring prophet.
We repeat, it was to be a contest, and that a public one, between the power of Israel's
king and the might of Jehovah. The first measure of the king was to send to Elijah "a
captain of fifty with his fifty." There cannot be any reasonable doubt that this was
with hostile intent. This appears not only from the words of the angel in verse 15, but
from the simple facts of the case. For what other reason could Ahaziah have sent a
military detachment of fifty under a captain, if not either to defeat some hostile force
and constrain obedience, or else to execute some hostile act? The latter is indeed the
most probable view, and it seems implied in the reassuring words which the angel
afterwards spoke to Elijah (v. 15).
The military expedition had no difficulty in finding the prophet. He neither boastfully
challenged, nor yet did he fearfully shrink from the approach of the armed men, but
awaited them in his well-known place of abode on Mount Carmel. There is in one
sense an almost ludicrous, and yet in another a most majestic contrast between the
fifty soldiers and their captain, and the one unarmed man whom they had come to
capture. Presently this contrast was, so to speak, reversed when, in answer to the
royal command to Elijah, as delivered by the captain, the prophet appealed to his
King, and thus clearly stated the terms of the challenge between the two, whose
commission the captain and he respectively bore. "And if a man of God I,^118 let fire
come down from heaven."
Terrible as this answer was, we can perceive its suitableness, nay, its necessity, since
it was to decide, and that publicly and by way of judgment (and no other decision
would have been suitable in a contest between man and God), whose was the power
(^)