Elijah the Tishbite

2023-06-28

Elijah the Tishbite is one of the most well-known prophets in the Old Testament. A hairy man wearing a leather girdle, he is first mentioned in 1 Kings 17 where he told king Ahab of Israel of the coming drought. “And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” (1 Kings 17:1). During this time, Elijah was in a secret place by the brook Cherith where the ravens fed him. When the brook dried, a widow fed him in Zarephath.

Because of the famine, the widow and her son were down to their last handful meal when Elijah came and promised that if she would make him a cake, her supply of meal and oil would not fail. She was miraculously sustained and never ran out of meal. The Lord provides even when things look bleak.

When the widow’s son died, Elijah rose her son from the dead by the power of the LORD. “And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived” (1 Kings 17:22).

In the third year, Elijah presented himself to Obadiah, Ahab’s governor. Though reluctant, the servant presented Elijah to the king after much assurance. The prophet challenged the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the groves that served Jezebel. Though the 950 could not elicit an answer from their false gods, Elijah called on the Lord, who sent fire from heaven to consume a sacrifice soaked with water with the surrounding stones and water. Many people turned to the Lord at the awesome sight. “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God” (1 Kings 18:37-39). Afterwards, the rain fell for the first time in years.

Because the false prophets were slain, Jezebel put a price on Elijah’s head. He fled to Beersheba, where an angel fed him. Then he fled 40 days to Horeb. There the prophet cried to the Lord in despair, believing he was the last of those who served the Lord on earth. However, the Lord refreshed him, and recommissioned him to anoint Elisha son of Shaphat his successor, Jehu king of Israel, and Hazael king of Syria. God then also reassured him, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18). Later, Elijah found the sons of the prophets. Even the most dedicated servants of the Lord will break and need to be lifted up.

Elijah then anointed Elisha as his successor, but this successor would be the one to anoint the kings.

After Ahab killed Naboth for his vineyard, Elijah pronounced evil for the king and his family. “Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel” (1 Kings 21:21). At this, Ahab showed rare signs of repentance. “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house” (1 Kings 21:29).

When king Ahaziah son of Ahab fell sick, he sent to the prophets of the false god Baalzebub. After Elijah intercepted the emissaries, he told them the king would die because he did not seek the LORD instead. The king sent three sets of fifty men each with captains. The first two fifties demanded Elijah to come, but the Lord slew them. The third fifty humbly approached Elijah and found mercy, but the message to the king was the same.

Elijah primarily served the Lord in the northern kingdom, but there was a time when he wrote to Jehoram king of Judah concerning his departure from the ways of his fathers:

And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the LORD God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father’s house, which were better than thyself: Behold, with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day. (2 Chronicles 21:12-15)

Elijah was appointed to go up alive into heaven. Elisha accompanied him over the Jordan, where they were talking with each other, and parted ways. “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11). Elisha received a double portion of his master’s spirit, and continued his ministry where he left off, serving with the sons of the prophets.

This is not the last we see of Elijah; he is seen with the Lord Jesus in the New Testament in the transfiguration.