ELIJAH MEETS GOD AT HOREB

1. Introduction

When I was preparing for this segment of the PD Day, I reflected on my task to explain the meaning of Elijah’s meeting with God on Mount Horeb and I came to the conclusion that my task shares basic similarity with that of visual artists to present their artistic viewpoints of that same event on Mount Horeb, which is also known Mount Sinai. There is however a difference in the way meanings and viewpoints are communicated. While visual artists convey their viewpoints through the various artistic mediums, I convey my explanations and thoughts about Elijah’s meeting with God in literary form. For my part, I hope to show that the encounter with God amidst the sheer silence at Horeb has given Elijah new courage to face the challenges in his prophetic career. In this regard, my thoughts will extend beyond 1 Kgs 19:11b-13 so as to set this prescribed text in context.

2. Context

It will include a sketch of the events leading to Elijah’s meeting with God because they form an important backdrop for appreciating the significance of the event on Mount Horeb. My thoughts will also extend beyond verse 13, to verse 19a that describes Elijah’s departure from Horeb after his meeting with God.

I would like to begin by reading the prescribed text to you; it describes the event on Mount Horeb subsequent to God’s instruction to Elijah to exit the cave in which he was spending the night after his arrival at the mountain of God. The text does not refer to God as “God.” Instead it refers to God as “the Lord” which is just a different of identifying God.

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The text that I have read to you is taken from the New Revised Standard Version. Before I explain the forceful and dramatic imagery in this text, I would like to spend some time to talk about the events that occurred prior it.

Elijah was a prophet to the northern kingdom of Israel during the mid-ninth century BCE. He makes an abrupt appearance in 1 Kings 17 after a short narrative (1 Kgs 16:31-34), which describes King Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians. Soon after the marriage, Ahab begins to worship Baal, the god that his new wife Jezebel serves and worships. Thus his marriage to Jezebel causes his heart to turn away from God.

Baal is the Canaanite god of storm who is thought to be responsible for bringing life-giving rain at certain times of the year and thus restoring fertility to the land. Elijah Meets God At Horeb

Elijah’s prediction of a drought upon his appearance in the narrative directly challenges the power of the storm god Baal; it is also an indirect attack on Jezebel for introducing Baal to King Ahab and causing him to sin against God. Elijah seeks to prove that Israel’s God is the one true God and that God, not Baal is responsible for the fertility of the land.

The drought occurs as Elijah had predicted. At the end of the third year, God decides to send rain to water the land as a final proof that he alone has power over the natural elements; he alone has control over the fecundity or productivity of the land.

The drought ends with a heavy downpour after Elijah prevails over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in a contest that culminates in the slaying of all the Baal prophets. Jezebel hears about Elijah’s deed and she sends a messenger to Elijah to inform him of her intention to avenge her prophets; she promises to kill him the next day.

Elijah’s response is to flee. “The biblical text reflects Elijah’s panic in a rapid series of short grammatical clauses: ‘he feared and he arose and he fled for his life.’”1 By the fourth clause in that verse, Elijah is already at Beersheba in the Judah, which is about 200 kilometers south of Mount Carmel and well beyond the jurisdiction of King Ahab and Jezebel. He travels for another day and he enters the Negev desert and he prays to God; he prays for death in view of his trouble with Jezebel, “Enough; O Lord, take away my life now, for I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kgs 19:4). After his prayer, he travels for another 40 days and 40 nights and he arrives at Mount Horeb. The narrator then reports, “At that place, he come to a cave and spent the night there.”

3. Elijah’s Meets with God at Horeb (1 Kgs 9-19a)

Immediately after this report, the narrator says that the word of God comes to Elijah and it says to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah answers, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” In response, God gives him this command, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

The dialogue that I have just described to you employs the phrase, “the word of God came to him,” to portray an encounter between God and Elijah; the narrative, however, does not explain the precise nature of that encounter. Interestingly, when Elijah meets God outside the cave, the same dialogue transpires between them in that God asks Elijah the same question─“What are you doing here Elijah?”─and Elijah responds with the same answer. Various solutions have been offered for this puzzling duplication.

It is thought that the repetition of God’s question reflects the repeated calls of the prophets’ name when God appears to them─for example, the repeated calls of Moses’ name when God appears to him at the scene of the burning bush (Exod 3:4)

1 Jerome Walsh, 1 Kings. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996), 266.

2 Elijah Meets God At Horeb

and of Samuel’s name when God calls him to the prophetic ministry (1 Samuel 3:4).2 As for Elijah’s verbatim answer, it has been argued that it emphasizes the major themes of Elijah’s zealousness for God and Israel’s abandonment of its covenant.3

There seems to be a simpler solution to this issue of duplication in that it is possible to interpret God’s dialogue with Elijah in the cave as an occurrence within a dream. The phrase (9a) that precedes the initial dialogue, which says that Elijah “spent the night in the cave” supports this idea that the word of God happens to Elijah while he was asleep. And it is not unusual for God to communicate through dreams; this phenomenon appears in a number of places in the Old Testament (Gen 15:1; Joel 2:28; Num 12:6; Zech 1:7-8:8; Obad 1:1; Nah 1:1). In sum it may be proposed that the ‘dialogue’ that occurs in the cave anticipates the dialogue outside the cave when Elijah actually meets God or conversely, the dialogue outside the cave is an enactment of the dialogue in Elijah’s dream.

The next segment of my reflection concerns the prescribed text itself and it ends with Elijah’s departure from Horeb.

Elijah’s encounter with God outside the cave is preceded by a great wind, a wind so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces “before the Lord” (1 Kgs 19:11b). This clause “before the Lord” is sometimes overlooked; this means “in the presence of the Lord” or literally, “before the לִפְנ ֵ֣י יְהוָ ה Hebrew clause face of God.” Thus the wind announces the arrival of God; the wind is not to be identified with God himself and the narrative stresses this point by asserting that God was not in the wind. Similarly, the narrative asserts that God was not in the subsequent earthquake and fire. Then after the fire, there was a “sound of sheer silence.” The narrative, however, does not say that God was not in the silence like the previous three occasions. The implication is that God is in the silence.

that the New Revised Standard Version ק֖ ֹולדְמָמָ ה ָ֥ דַקָ ָּֽ ה The “Hebrew phrase renders as a “sound of sheer silence” has also been translated as “a gentle little breeze”, “a soft murmuring sound”, a “gentle whisper” (NIV), and “a still small in my view, refers to the utter silence and calm after ,ק֖ ֹולדְמָמָ ה ָ֥ דַקָ ָּֽ ה voice” (KJV). 4 the cessation of the fire. Thus the phrase “a sound of sheer silence” captures perfectly the scene before the actual appearance of God.

When Elijah senses the onset of calm and sheer silence, he wraps his face in his mantle or cloak and goes out and stands at the entrance of the cave in accordance with God’s instruction. His action of wrapping his face in his mantle as he leaves the cave is not an act of protection for fear that the great wind, earthquake, and fire might return but one done in anticipation of a meeting with God. He shields himself so that he does not see the divine face in the same way Moses had hid his face when God appeared to him in the burning bush on Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb (Exod 3:6b).

2 Marvin Sweeney, I & II Kings (OTL; Louisville: Westminster, 2007), 232. 3 Sweeney, I & II Kings, 232. 4 Simon DeVries, 1 Kings (WBC; Dallas: Word Book, 2003), 236; Jewish Publication Society, Tanakh (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).

3 Elijah Meets God At Horeb

Gazing directly into God’s face is thought to be fatal for no one can see the face of God and live.

God’s word that came to Elijah in the cave had prepared him for his meeting with God. With his face in his mantle, Elijah only hears the voice of God asking him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah answers as he did in his dream, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

In the dream, Elijah’s answer is followed by God’s command to Elijah to leave the cave and meet him outside. Now that he is already outside, God gives him a new command. God instructs him to return to Israel and to appoint Jehu as the new king of Israel, which is an outright rejection of the sinful behavior of king Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Elijah is also tasked to appoint a new Syrian king by the name of Hazael; Syria is located north of Israel and this second command seeks to demonstrate God’s control over political affairs beyond Israel’s border. Interestingly, Elijah is also commanded by God to appoint Elisha as his successor upon his return to Israel.

In summary, God’s command to Elijah constitutes a new prophetic commission with new tasks for him to perform. The subsequent verse 19a indicates that Elijah offers no objection; the verse simply says “And he went from there.” The word “there” has been used at the beginning of the narrative in verse 9 to refer to the cave at Horeb. Therefore when it says at the end of the narrative that “he went from there,” it means he went from the cave in which he had sought refuge.

Elijah’s meeting with God in the silence on Mount Horeb has given him new courage to leave his hiding place, to return to Israel, and to focus on accomplishing the new tasks that God has given him rather than his trouble with Jezebel. The encounter with God was a liberating experience for Elijah; it was an experience of conversion, a conversion from fear and disorientation to renewed faith and sense of purpose. The inspiring force behind the conversion is God himself, whose splendor is captured in the imagery in 1 Kgs 19:11b-13.

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