CONTENTS. PAGE I. The Startling Message. II. By the Brook..... III. The Barrel and the Cruse.......... IV. Death and Resurrection.. VI. The Conflict on Carmel .... IX. Abel-meholah X. Naboth's Vineyard.. XI. Fire from Heaven.. XII The Ascension.... XIII. Elijah on the Mount. 7 23 38 52 87 ΙΟΙ 116 133 147 164 179 195 ELIJAH THE PROPHET. I. THE STARTLING MESSAGE. I KINGS Xvii., I. SRAEL was at this time in a most deplorable condition. Its rulers had caused the nation to err; and as one king after another disappears from the scene, his character and history are summed up by the sacred chronicler in the words, "He did evil in the sight of Jehovah after the manner of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." This is the sad refrain continually recurring in the national annals, and each time it is repeated it reveals a blacker depth of wickedness than before. Of Omri it had been said that "he did worse than all that were before him ;" but it was reserved for Ahab to inaugurate a new species of iniquity, more revolting than any which the ten tribes had committed since the date of their rebellion against the son of Solomon. This monarch was by no means the weakling he is commonly supposed to have been. Now and again, indeed, his whole nature seems to have been, for the time, paralyzed under the operation of what Maurice has described as a troublesome conscience, checking an evil will;"* but in general he manifested those qualities which have secured for other 66 "The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament," by F. D. Maurice, p. 129. kings the title "great." He was brave and successful on the field of battle. Once and again he vanquished the army of the proud Ben-hadad;* and at last he met his death while fighting valiantly, though in disguise, at Ramoth - gilead.† This personal prowess was combined in him with a love of art and a desire to promote the commercial prosperity of his people. He made streets for himself in the great trading city of Damascus. He reared for himself a palace of ivory, and was, besides, the founder of several cities.§ But all this outward magnificence was dimmed by a darker shadow of iniquity than that which fell on the glory of any of his predecessors. Thus it is written concerning him: "It came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him."|| There is thus a clear distinction drawn between the sin of Jeroboam and that of Ahab. It is intimated that, as the son of Nebat took a new departure from the worship at Jerusalem, when he set up the golden calves at Dan and at Bethel ; so the son of Omri took a new departure from the practice of Jeroboam, when he built a temple and set up an altar to Baal. The act of Jeroboam was, in the main, political. He foresaw that if the tribes who had chosen him to be their king continued to go to Jerusalem to attend the three great annual religious festivals, the spiritual union would speedily overcome the political division. So he established separate * ↑ Ibid., xxii., 34. + Ibid., xx., 34 1 Kings xx., 21, 29. § Ibid., xxii., 39; Amos iii., 15. |