The Angel and Elijah (1 Kings 13)

The incident on Mount Carmel when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and put them to death is often regarded as a great experience because the Lord revealed his acceptance of Elijah’s offering. It can be described as a mountain-top experience, although the problem with such experiences is that they are often followed by a valley experience. In Elijah’s case, he did descend into a spiritual valley because he was informed by Jezebel that the Carmel appearance of God’s power did not make much impression on her. Indeed, she warned him that if he remained in the area, she would do to him what he had done to her prophets. Therefore, he went from being very brave to being very afraid, and he literally ran for his life away from her presence. Indeed, he did not even stay in Judah (where Beersheba was) because her daughter was the wife of the king of Judah.

 

The strong prophet had become weak, and maybe the problem began when he misinterpreted what had happened at Carmel. What was said there? It showed that God could defeat the priests of Baal very easily. What was not said there? That he was going to it in Elijah’s chosen way. Indeed, God already had his plan for dealing with Jezebel and the religion she represented, and it was not going to involve Elijah directly apart from his anointing of Jehu. But the prophet had to go through a process before he discovered God’s will.

 

Meeting an angel

In fact, Elijah ran a long way, from the north of Israel down to the south of Judah, beyond Beersheba. There he sat under a tree and asked God to take away his life, probably because he felt a complete failure. He also seems to have thought God was against him. We could even say that he was disappointed with God. Now he had come to a stage where he concluded that there was no point in continuing and the solution was that he should die. Elijah does not have suicidal thoughts here, but he does not see any point in being the Lord’s prophet if the Lord is not going to use him. It was a strange prayer, but God gave him a wonderful answer.

 

What was the answer from heaven? The Lord sent an angel who not only provided sustenance, but also gave a word of assurance to Elijah. It was Elijah’s intention to go to Mount Sinai, probably to have a meeting with God. We are not told if the Lord had commanded him to do this previously, but the angel did say that God approved of it now because one reason why he was sent was to ensure that Elijah had strength for the journey there.

 

What can be said about the presence of this angel? He knew where Elijah was in that isolated area (could we find an individual in that desert area), he was gentle in that he touched the prophet, he was patient in that he waited while Elijah slept from exhaustion, and he knew how much sustenance Elijah would need, and the sustenance itself was supernatural because it was sufficient for the next forty days. It is also important to note that this angel is called ‘the angel of the Lord’, an indication that he is not merely an angel, but the pre-incarnate Son had come on this heavenly mission to his deflated servant.

 

It is also reasonable to assume that this meeting with the angel was a preparatory one for the main encounter later at Sinai. Elijah would have thought about this visit during the forty days that he took to get there. Indeed, it would not normally have taken forty days to cover the distance of 250 miles, although it is a desert terrain. So it could be that Elijah was engaging in a form of spiritual discipline as he made the journey. After all, it is important to prepare to meet with the Lord.

 

What happened at Sinai?

The obvious detail is that God came to him there in what is called a theophany (God taking on a visible appearance). That seems clear from verse 9. The divine visitor is called ‘the word of the Lord’. One commentator suggests that the divine visitor here is the same one as appeared earlier to give Elijah food and drink. I see no reason as to why it could not be so. In whatever we look at it, the best explanation is that here we have another visit from the pre-incarnate Son of God, whether similar to the angel or in another manner. It looks to me as if Elijah is inside a cave and God is outside of it.

 

The divine visitor has an important question for Elijah, so important that he will ask it twice: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ Sometimes this question is interpreted as a divine rebuke, but that is a rather surprising understanding given that the question is asked twice and receives the same answer each time, and Elijah is not rebuked for doing so. Seeing it as a rebuke means that that we have to see Elijah as defiant and petulant, and that is unlikely.

 

I would suggest that the question is given at a strategic time after Elijah has had plenty of time to reflect on what has happened to him and his ministry. The Lord is looking for honesty from his servant, for him to say something that he has concluded about himself and others. So, in his answer, Elijah says what he knows about himself, what he knows about the people of Israel, and what he thinks he knows about the state of God’s kingdom.

 

What did he say about himself? He stated that he had been dedicated to the Lord’s service. His heart had been in it (he was very jealous for God’s glory). His life was the opposite of the people in general because they had tried to remove the worship of God from the land, and he had fought to retain it. In fact, he was the only prophet still alive, and the authorities were trying to kill him. Did Elijah tell a lie here because we know that in the previous chapter Obadiah had told him about prophets hiding in a cave? I think Elijah is saying that there were two kinds of prophets. Some were like him, living alone, and going wherever God sovereignly sent them; others lived in communes and functioned as teachers of the people. Only he was left of the former kind.

 

How did God respond to Elijah’s self-assessment? Remember he is outside the cave and Elijah is inside it. The Lord gave some object lessons to the prophet. They pointed out to him where God was not at that moment. He was not in powerful displays of his presence such as a strong wind, an earthquake and a fire. Yet while God was not in them, he was the one who produced them. At other times, he could and would use them.

 

Could a prophet in soul trouble converse with a God who came accompanied with such phenomena? Would we venture out of the cave if that is what we had heard? Instead of those phenomena, on this occasion the Lord was present with a low whisper. A gentle approach rather like the way that the angel had dealt with him. Presumably one could speak to the Lord now. Elijah must have thought so because he went to the entrance of the cave, although he was careful to cover his face. After all, he would have known that Moses in that same area had been told that he was not allowed to look on God directly.

 

The gentle voice asked the question for a second time. As we read it, we can see that it sounds very different when spoken gently. The gentleness enables Elijah to answer with the same words, but maybe he said them gently as well. As David had discovered for himself on a previous occasion, it was the gentleness of God that set him on the path to greatness. Elijah too discovered that the same gracious God had plans for him, even if they were not the plans he had thought would happen.

 

What did God tell him? He told him that he governs the nations and not just Israel (he was to change the ruler in Syria as a means of punishing Syria and Israel), that he judges within Israel (Jehu would deal with Jezebel), that he already has identified and prepared Elijah’s successor (Elisha, which means that Elijah was not the last as he had imagined), and that he can preserve his people as a witness whether Elijah knows about them or not.

 

Lessons

What do we do when we are disappointed with God’s providences? Three years ago, some imagined that God would speak to our society through the pandemic, but he did not do so on a national or global scale. Instead, the opposite happened. What do we do when those providences run counter to what we thought God was going to do? If we are disappointed with such outcomes, pay attention to what God says to us in providence. Because he wants to deal with our disappointments.

 

What did God say in providence to Elijah? Did he speak to him in the words of Jezebel that he should leave the area? Not that she imagined that her words would have that effect. But it is noticeable that he left her area of influence. Then an angel appeared and said that it was appropriate for him to go to Horeb, which he seems to have been thinking about. We could say he was getting step by step guidance.

 

What does it mean for God to act in power? It requires no greater effort from God to send an earthquake or to whisper. God acting in power means that he fulfils his secret will. It also means that he enables us to perform his revealed will as far as it affects us personally. Is that not what Elijah discovered?

 

What do we think of the gentleness of God? God is God at all times and possesses all attributes fully. We can say that he has wise truth, or we can say that he has truthful wisdom. His attributes are not separate from each other as if he is part this and part that. So, we can say that God has holy gentleness and gentle holiness. His gentleness advises some to stay away from coming too close to his splendour and receiving judgement. His gentleness is seen when he pities his children. The gentle power of God is seen in the flight of a butterfly or in the opening of a flower. It was seen in the conversion of Lydia and in the response of Priscilla and Aquila when God in his providence arranged that they instructed Apollos.

 

Considering and experiencing his gentleness is the path to true greatness, and Elijah the fiery prophet discovered that he was on that path which we can read about in what happened to him later on, even to having the privilege of being on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Saviour who identified himself as gentle and with Moses who was called the meekest man in all the earth. In fact, it is rather striking that Elijah was reminded of this on the mountain where Moses had met with God, a mountain that the pre-incarnate Son came to on this occasion to show Elijah.