ELIJAH, a prophet of Tishbeh in Gilead, contemporary with Ahab king of Israel (c. 876-853 B.c.), and the hero of the follow ing stories preserved in the Books of Kings : (a) r Kings xvii., xviii.—Of the marvellous acts of Elijah, and of his triumph over the prophets of Baal: how he brought a three years' drought upon Israel, and, during the famine caused by the drought, was himself miraculously fed, first by ravens, and, later, by a widow of Zare phath, whose food he miraculously multiplied and whose son he raised from the dead ; how he defied the king of Israel, challenged the prophets of Baal to a religious contest, and, having defeated them by the aid of Yahweh his God, slew them with his own hand; finally, how he brought the drought to an end. (b) r Kings xix. Of the despondency of Elijah : how he fled from the wrath of Jezebel to Beersheba, was there visited by an angel, miraculously fed, and commanded to go to Horeb the mount of God; how he came thither and waited in a cave; how Yahweh made himself known in a "still small voice," and in answer to Elijah's com plaints against his people commissioned him to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha as agents of (their?) destruction; how Elijah called (or, as Gunkel believes, magically compelled) Elisha to follow him. (c) r Kings xxi.—Of his denunciation of Ahab: how Ahab and Jezebel encompassed the death and obtained the vine yard of Naboth of Israel, and how, in the very flush of Ahab's guilty satisfaction, Elijah suddenly appeared proclaiming the wrath of Yahweh against the thing which Ahab had done and fore telling that Ahab's blood should be shed in the very place where he had shed the blood of Naboth. (d) 2 Kings i.—Of Elijah's hostil ity to foreign gods, and of the deference demanded by him : how Ahaziah, king of Israel, sent messengers to the temple of the god of Ekron to enquire whether he would recover from the effects of a fall ; how Elijah turned back the messengers with the message that the king would die; how the king twice sent companies of soldiers to arrest Elijah, and how they were destroyed by fire from heaven; how, when a third company approached him with complete deference, Elijah went with them to the king, told the king that he would die, and how the king accordingly died. (e) 2 Kings ii., 1-18.—Of the passing of Elijah: how, divinely prompted, he went from Gilgal to Bethel, from Bethel to Jericho; how Elisha refused to leave him, though at each stage of his journey "sons of the prophets" warned him that Elijah was to be taken away, and Elijah himself exhorted him to stay behind; how, with a blow of his folded mantle, Elijah divided the waters of Jordan; how, beyond Jordan, Elijah asked Elisha to choose one last favour, and, when Elisha requested that he might inherit a first-born's portion of Elijah's power, replied that this gift could only be given if he actually saw his master taken away; how Elisha saw chariots and horses of fire and Elijah snatched by a whirlwind to heaven, took up Elijah's mantle, passed over Jordan dryshod by its magic power; was received by the sons of the prophets at Jericho as Elijah's true successor; and how the sons of the prophets sought in vain for three days for Elijah.
Some details of these stories are corroborated by evidence from other sources (the occurrence of a drought at this time, cf. Men ander, ap. Josephus Antiq. 13.2 ; the name of Ahab's wife and her difference with Elijah, cf. 1 Kings xvi. 31; 2 Kings ix. 36 ; the toleration of Baal worship by the house of Omri, 2 Kings x. ; the murder of Naboth, 2 Kings ix., 26) ; some are inconsistent with other evidence (e.g., Jezebel did not murder all the prophets of Yahweh, cf. 1 Kings xxii., 6; 2 Kings ii., 3, etc. ; if Ahab had abandoned the worship of Yahweh he would not have called his sons "Ahaziah" and "Jehoram" ; according to 2 Kings x., 19, seq. the massacre of the prophets of Baal was made not by Elijah but by Jehu) ; some have many parallels in secular folk-lore (e.g., the ministering ravens, the unfailing cruse, the magic mantle, the mysterious appearances and disappearances) ; some stories are remarkably like those told of other Biblical heroes (e.g., Moses and Elisha, cf. Exod. xiv., 21 seq. xxxiii., 22, Deut. xxxiv., 5 seq., Josh. iii., 16, 2 Kings iv.) . In short, the Elijah stories are not genuine biography but folk-tales, some of which were told of other heroes also. Behind the folk-tales stands a historical per son, who evidently made a deep impression upon the minds of his contemporaries, but he is shrouded in mist, and we can no longer see him clearly. That he was a religious enthusiast who lived in Ahab's time, and was violently opposed to royal oppression and to the toleration of foreign cults in Israel, even when such toleration was a political necessity, is as much of his story as can now be recovered. Was he a monotheist? What were his theological be liefs? How far did he use political means to gain his ends? Is the story of his visit to Horeb an idealization of some attempt he made to stir up the Arabian tribes to war against Israel? To such questions no answer can be given.
"In solitary grandeur did this prophet tower conspicuously over his time; legend, and not history, could alone preserve the memory of his figure. There remains a vague impression that with him the development of Israel's conception of Jehovah entered upon a new stadium, rather than any data from which it can be ascertained wherein the contrast of the new with the old lay" (Wellhausen, Hist. of Israel. E. T., p. 462).
References to the original stories, and to later legends, about Elijah occur in 2 Chron. xxi., 12 seq., Mal. iv., 5 seq., Ecclus, xlviii., 1-12 ; Matt. xi. 14, xvi. 14, Luke ix. 8, John i. 21, Rev. xi. 6. For further information see, besides the commentaries on the Books of Kings, the article "Elijah" in Encyc. Bibl., Gunkel, Yahwe, and Baal, (Tubingen, 1906), and Camb. Anc. Hist. vol. iii., pp. 364-72.
(F. S. M.)