ELIJAH, whose name (”ehovah is God))) indicates his mission and his work, was one of the greatest prophets of Israel. His prophetic activity began in the days of Ahab of Israel, and ended in the days of his son, Ahaziah, or, as is on the whole more probable, in the days of his son-in-law, Jehoram of Judah. His first ap pearance is strange; the end of his life on earth still more strange. Throughout 'his career he comes and goes in an unusual and remarkable way. His special work was to save his nation from falling into heathenism, and thus making impossible the great history which has resulted in the Christian civilization of our own days. Ahab, the king of northern Israel, had marned Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre, and formerly a priest of the Tyrian religion. Among the Semitic peoples an alliance of na tions meant a mutual honoring of gods. Thus the marriage of Ahab and Jezebel introduced into the kingdom of Israel the worship of the Tyrian Baal. Gradually, through the deter mined efforts of Jezebel, who was a fanatic for her faith, the worship of Baal displaced that of Jehovah, and seemed likely altogether to de stroy it. Later, by the marriage of Athali:.h, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, to Jehoram, king of Judah, the same course of things began in the kingdom of Judah (2 Kings viii, 18). To bring back the nation to the worship of Jehovah, and to the recognition of him as God, was the work of Elijah. This work began with the sudden appearance of the prophet to Ahab, to announce to him the coming drought and famine, which the nature god Baal would be powerless to prevent (1 Kings xvii, 1). The life of the prophet up to this time had probably been spent in the lonely and wild region on the eastern side of the Jordan, although it is un certain where his birthplace was. During the three years and more of drought and famine which followed Elijah's first appearance to Ahab, the prophet found a home and the means of life, first by the brook Cherith, and after ward in the home of a widow in Zarephath, a city of Plurnicia. At the end of this time he
had his great contest with the prophets of Baal on the Mount Carmel, where, in answer to his prayer, Jehovah revealed himself by fire, and was acicnowledged by the people to be God. The same day the falling rain ended the drought and the famine (1 Kings xviii). The triumph of the prophet was followed by a flight to Mount Horeb to escape the wrath of the angered Jezebel. On this mountain he received from God a revelation in regard to the real part his work had in the history of his nation, and was commanded by God to call Elisha to be his successor in the work for the nation. In obedience to this command, he went from Horeb to Abel-meholah, the home of Elisha. Having given to Elisha the call to be his successor, he disappeared for a time from the view of men (1 Kings xix). About six years later, the prophet again appeared to Ahab in the vine yard of Naboth, in Jezreel, to denounce him for his wicked disregard of the rights of his brother, made sacred by the law of Jehovah (1 Kings xxi, 17-24). The final work of the prophet on behalf of his people is recorded only in the book of Chronicles (2 Chron. xxi, 12-15). This was the sending of a letter to Jehoram, the king of Judah, to tell him that, because he had endeavored to introduce the Baal worship of the northern kingdom into Judah, and be cause he had cruelly murdered his brothers to make his own throne more secure, Jehovah would send great evils upon his people, his family and himself. How long the prophet lived we do not know (2 Kings II, 1-12). Con sult Milligan, 'Elijah: His Life and Times' (in 'Men of the Farrar, 'First Book of Kings' (Chaps. xxxm-xlviii, in the 'Ex positor's Bible) 1893) ; and 'Second Book of Kings) (in the same. Chaps. i and ii. 1902) ; Strachan. 'Elijah) (in Hastings' (Dictionary of the Bible,' 1899).