Elijah

Introduction

The enigma of Elijah

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I led a series of quiet days during the spring lockdown of 2021. The choice of Elijah as the theme seemed to fit with the times because it could be said that Elijah was living in a kind of pandemic (the spreading of idol worship, and the hunting down of the prophets of God), and he went through something of a lockdown experience in the Kerith Ravine and had to cope with the effects and consequences. Subsequently, Elijah became the recurring theme of many sermons as I worked through his life in more detail. Eventually the material was used for healing retreats and church weekends, each reiteration breathing more life and understanding into the character of this man. Many times, I heard the words, ‘This should be written down,’ and so here it is. If, in reading this, you find some healing too and the opportunity to deepen your relationship with the Lord who loves you and pilgrimages beside you, then the work of Elijah to point to the Lord continues, to His glory.

You can use this book in several ways; you can simply read it to learn more of the life of this extraordinary man, or you can read it reflectively, deliberately stopping at the ‘Take a moment’ pauses scattered through its pages, perhaps while on retreat. You could also use it as part of a house group or Bible study group, using the pauses and the reflective questions at the end of each chapter as discussion points.

Elijah is probably one of the most well-known prophets; the stories of his life are learned in Sunday school and youth clubs because they have a flavour of excitement and heroism, the battle of good versus evil, as well as his extraordinary exit from life on this earth. Among Jewish communities, at every Passover an extra cup of wine is set on the dinner table for Elijah and the door is opened for him, with hope that he will enter this year. Elijah’s return is said to mark the Messiah’s earthly arrival and so he continues to be an enduring symbol of hope and redemption for the Jewish people. In the Christian faith, Elijah is also portrayed as the forerunner to ‘that great and dreadful day of the Lord’,[1] sent by God to prepare God’s people for the Lord’s coming. It is little wonder then that Elijah’s name is linked with that of John the Baptist, who speaks of the One to come who is greater than he.[2]

A curiosity, when studying Elijah, known as a great prophet, is that his name does not appear in the lists of Major or Minor Prophets that can be found in any standard internet search (and neither does the name of Elisha, his successor). Why might this be, I wonder? The Major Prophets and Minor Prophets have the distinction of their names being the titles of individual books within the Bible, yet Elijah does not have a book of his name. Those whose names appear in the list of Major and Minor Prophets have recorded prophecies, visions and words from the Lord that were given to the people of their day, including the gradually increasing revelation of the coming of the Messiah at a future time. Many of these passages have become very familiar as we read their words at certain times within the Christian calendar to remind ourselves that the birth of Jesus was promised of old, and His work of salvation was the fulfilment of God’s plan for His people.

Elijah has not left us with a legacy of words; in fact, he was a man of very few words. So the fact that he is so highly regarded as a prophet is a mystery, when he doesn’t fulfil the usual categories or definitions that we regard as the fulfilling of a prophet of God. But still, he is revered as a prophet! His legacy as a prophet, therefore, must be fulfilled in some other way.

We will come back to these mysteries at the end of the book, having had opportunity to examine his life and work.

As we walk with Elijah, we will see him engaged in the work of God, and the cost for him physically, emotionally and spiritually, resulting in a near-catastrophic breakdown. We will also see the patient, compassionate and loving kindness of God as He restores him and heals him. Many of us, I suspect, would say we need that same healing and restoring today.

Healing is an enormous subject, and many books and manuals have already been written about it. This is not intended to be another manual on the subject of healing! This is an exploration of the life of a ‘man just like us’,[3] with the same frailties and failings as us, who found healing in many different ways as he came to a fuller understanding of who he was; not just in his role as a prophet but also in his identity as a man in relationship with God. My prayer for you, as you read, is that journeying with Elijah will enable you to look at the many similar ways in which you can find God’s healing in your life too.

Introducing Elijah

When we first meet Elijah, he appears seemingly from nowhere, with very little introduction about who he is, how old he is, or his background, apart from the fact that he is a ‘Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead’.[4]

Gilead was a mountainous region to the east of the Jordan River, a wild and rugged landscape, where keeping sheep and goats was probably one of the few means of existence. Tishbe (or Thisbe, as it is sometimes called), was probably a small village in that area. Two of the lost tribes of Israel (Manasseh and Gad) were thought to have settled in this same region of the Jordan, which is significant, because it means that Elijah was very likely raised by Hebrew people, explaining his knowledge of Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew nation, and the Torah, the Hebrew Scriptures.

Hebrew ancestry would also explain Elijah’s name, which contains two different forms of the name of the God of the Hebrew nation. I am not a Hebrew scholar, but I do enjoy looking at the meanings and origins of Hebrew words because even a basic glance at the original Hebrew word in a good lexicon can provide a much richer interpretation of Scripture than just the standard English translation of the word.

Elijah’s name has three elements; El-i-jah, where ‘El’ is the basic form of the name of God, meaning strength, might and power. ‘El’ is occasionally used on its own, but usually ‘El’ is used with an attached attribute such as:

Elohim (God the supreme one)

El Elyon (God Most High)

El-Shaddai (God the all-sufficient one)

El Roi (God who sees me)

There are many others; each of these names gives a different glimpse into the revealed character of God throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

The last syllable of Elijah, ‘jah’, comes from Yahweh. The divine name was considered so sacred that it consisted only of consonants YHWH, making it unpronounceable.

The name Elohim is used in the Old Testament when the creative characteristics of God are referred to, but when Scripture speaks of relationship with mankind the name Yahweh is used; it is the personal name of God. In the NIV translation when Lord is shown in small capitals, it means the use of YHWH in the original Hebrew. These differences are consistently used throughout the entire Old Testament. The name Jehovah comes later, to enable pronunciation of YHWH; it is easy to see how ‘jah’ from Elijah is likely to have originated from Yahweh. Many books have been written on this name alone, but suffice to say here that the name Yahweh is a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness to His promises, and it conveys the meaning that God is ever-present with His people to save, help, deliver, redeem, bless and keep covenant with them.

The ‘i’ between these two syllables of Elijah’s name is also significant because in Hebrew it is the personal pronoun ‘my’ or ‘mine’. So, putting that altogether, Elijah’s name can be literally rendered as ‘Strength, might and power is my Lord’.

I wonder if, in naming Elijah, his parents were prophetic, if they had any sense of who their son would grow up and become?

When Elijah first appeared before Ahab in 1 Kings 17, undoubtedly he spoke his name to the king to introduce himself (or was introduced by someone else). As his name was spoken, the sovereign and sacred name of the God of the Hebrew nation was laid before the king; quite something in the spiritually dark times in which they lived.

Take a moment…

Do you know what your name means, or whether you were named for a particular reason? Has that been a blessing for you, or something of a burden?
Perhaps ask the Lord about it. Listen to His heart for you.

1

Elijah the Tishbite

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’
Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: ‘Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have instructed the ravens to supply you with food there.’
(1 Kings 17:1-4)

Elijah is speaking to Ahab, the king, and his name has declared the sovereignty of Yahweh before this man of whom Scripture says, ‘Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord … and more to arouse the anger of the Lord’^[5] than all those before him. That is quite a testimony! We have no idea how or where this meeting took place, but a little imagination can hint at the incongruity of these two men standing face to face. Elijah, perhaps bearded and careworn; Ahab, perhaps more finely dressed. Ahab has authority, the regal authority of a king, while Elijah looks like the man from the hills that he is. The power balance between these two men is not necessarily what it seems! Ahab bears the authority of the crown, but Elijah carries the authority of the Lord Most High and bears the sacred name of God. As Elijah faces Ahab the king, it is a timely reminder that authority can be projected, enforced or even perhaps worn, but real authority lights from within, and the authority that Elijah, this man of God, carries is probably palpable.

Take a moment…

to reflect on the difference between human authority and spiritual authority; can you recognise the difference in someone?
What about you? Do you have authority – if so, what kind?

The fact that Elijah survived this encounter validates his authority being greater than that of the crown. He leaves unscathed, although the risk to his life must have been considerable, even before he opened his mouth and declared the word of the Lord to the king. If that were not risk enough, Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, was busy spreading the worship of Baal through the land, and hunting and killing the prophets of God. F B Meyer refers to Jezebel as ‘Lady Macbeth of Jewish history’,[6] which tells us all we need to know about Ahab’s wife! The fact that Elijah was able to see the king, deliver his message and then leave safely is nothing short of miraculous, especially since his opening words to the king are recorded for us.

Elijah says to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’ His first prophetic utterance has been given, even if it was rather short! Elijah’s declaration of faith in Yahweh to the king, when the religion of the land has been moved away from Yahweh, is risky; to declare that he serves God rather than the king is probably treason. Elijah affirms his allegiance to Yahweh, using a phrase where the original Hebrew is closer to ‘God, whom I stand before’, rather than acknowledging that he stands before the king; this shows us the steadfastness of Elijah’s security in the Lord, and may have sounded more than a bit dismissive of the king and his crown.

But – why declare drought? If it is the intention of Yahweh to reclaim the worship of the people for Himself, why not declare the downfall of the king or a plague on his house? This action would only affect the king and his household and limit the impact on the ordinary people across the land. A time of drought would have a much wider impact across the land, affecting its people, its harvest and its animals, and in truth would probably affect the poorest people first and therefore longest. I suspect the declaration of drought is significant for two reasons, one relating to the Hebrew people’s persuasion away from the worship of Yahweh, and the second relating to Baal, the pagan god of Jezebel.

In order to understand the first significance, we have to consider some verses in Deuteronomy:

Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.
(Deuteronomy 11:16-17)

The first significance of drought, then, derives from the consequence of being ‘enticed … away’ from the Lord to serve other gods; that consequence being the heavens will not produce rain. These words, quoted above, from Deuteronomy are the words of Moses spoken at a critical time to the people of Israel as they are about to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land. Moses speaks at great length, reminding the people that the Ten Commandments had to be given twice because of their disobedience, and how they were humbled in the desert in order to learn obedience and trust in God who provided for them. Moses reminds them of the God-given law which will govern the people as they inherit the Promised Land and become a significant nation and people of God. Moses’ speech is full of warnings too; disobedience will be punished and, specifically, drought will be the consequence of worshipping other gods.

Whether Ahab understood the spiritual significance of drought is debatable, but it answers, perhaps, why the consequences were to be felt by everyone across the land and not just those in the royal court. Ahab was responsible for leading the people to worship Baal and building temples in his name, but the people had followed and switched their allegiance. Some may have voluntarily worshipped Baal, but undoubtedly there were significant consequences for the ordinary people who didn’t follow the party line. These ‘persuasions’ to follow Baal were likely to be threats and punishments and even death, but before we judge too swiftly, we have to consider how we, ourselves, might behave under the considerable pressures of some of the religious regimes of our day and the injurious tortures at their disposal. These were difficult times indeed for the Hebrew nation under the crown of King Ahab.

Take a moment…

Have you ever wondered how you would cope under pressure to deny your faith?
Have you been tempted to hide your faith because of taunts or being made fun of?
Is there anything you want to say to the Lord now?

In considering the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 11, and understanding that drought is a consequence of disobedience, it can be very tempting to assume that the experiences of times or seasons of ‘drought’ in our own lives stem directly, therefore, from our disobedience! I wonder if you’ve ever thought that; searching hard for evidence of disobedience in your life when you’ve hit a dry patch?

Droughts, for us, can take many forms, for example, a sense of dryness in our relationship with God, the fading of our relationships with family and friends, and a barrenness of life that saps motivation and energy. As a result, we can spend endless hours in self-examination and recrimination without considering the possibility that, while it may be true, it is also possible that the difficult times can stem from other factors such as grief, sickness and hardship of all kinds, none of which may be our fault.

The ‘blessings if you obey and punishments if you don’t’ that characterise the early Scriptures are sometimes used to present God as a harsh disciplinarian, but if we step back a moment and look at the Old Testament as a whole, we might see a different picture. I wonder about it as a symbol of God ‘growing up’ His people, just as we might raise our children. To begin with, when our children are young, we might persuade them to tidy their bedroom with the offer of treats such as sweeties, and deny them treats when they don’t. When a bit older, we might use pocket money to ‘persuade them’ while ‘grounding’ them for disobedience. Relationships change as the children grow, and we discover that what worked when they were five years old will not work when they are fifteen or twenty. Is it, then, the same for the way that God’s relationship with His children has changed? The coming of Jesus marked a massive relational shift between God and His people, so that His people became adopted sons and daughters, and heirs, chosen along with Jesus, and the updated, or perhaps the fulfilled Law of Moses, was written in hearts rather than in stone. At the time of Moses and subsequently Elijah, the children of Israel were still ‘young’, and the ‘blessings if you obey’ and ‘punishments if you don’t’ were still part of the deal in how they related to God.

Take a moment…

Does this depiction of God change your image of Him?

The second significance of the pronouncement of drought, and in particular the explicit statement of no rain and no night dew, was a direct challenge to the king and the worshippers of Baal, the god introduced by Jezebel. Baal was known as the weather god, the god of storms, and god of the rain and dew. His influence, therefore, was believed to have impact on harvests and fertility across the land. So the declaration of drought was provocation of the highest order to the king’s chosen deity.

Before we go on to look at what happened next, let’s think about drought for a moment, and the impact drought would have. The land of Israel is well known for its seasons of drought. The summer months are notoriously dry, and water is a highly valuable commodity. Many pilgrimage trips to Israel will visit sites of cisterns, or where the remains of large cisterns can be seen. For communities that didn’t have an available supply of fresh water such as a spring or a well, cisterns were the practical solution. The larger cisterns were huge caverns dug out of underground rock to act as reservoirs, collecting the flood waters when it rained, so that fresh, if somewhat stale, water could be available through the dry season for a whole community. Cisterns could also be much smaller reservoirs for individual dwellings. The volume of water that the larger cisterns could hold are immense, for example the Zippori National Park in the Galilee region of Israel has an ancient cistern that was estimated to hold ‘4,300 cubic metres of water’[7] (almost a million gallons). This is a huge volume and would sustain a local community through a long drought.

Ahab, as king, would no doubt have cisterns, or access to cisterns, as part of his ‘palace complex’ to ensure their ongoing supply of water. So Ahab may well have dismissed the threat of drought, thinking that he and his royal court would be sustained by their cisterns, and anyway, if the water did run out, he could simply lay kingly claim to any remaining water supplies he required.

It takes little imagination to consider the consequences of a severe drought. We are easily desensitised to the impact of drought because of the frequent images we see on TV and in newspapers. The emaciated children, dead animals and scorched landscapes probably differ very little in this century from the impact of drought in Elijah’s time. The consequences of drought, when the crop fails, is famine and death, not only of human life but also of animal life, economic life and perhaps even the death of hope itself. If we are fortunate to live in a country where the closest we get to drought is a hosepipe ban during the summer months, we are richly blessed indeed.

Our personal cisterns

The whole point of cisterns was the collection and storage of water in the rainy season to protect the community from the impact of drought in the dry season. The saving of a resource that can be set aside and reserved for future use is a familiar one to us, for example savings accounts in the bank, building a pot of money for unseen future emergencies and perhaps the occasional treat, like a holiday! A biblical image is the intervention of Joseph when he advised Pharaoh to build barns and store the grain from the bumper harvests of seven years to protect against the effects of the seven years of famine. Consequently, the nation was saved.[8]

Take a moment…

What internal resources might I have to sustain me in difficult times?
In other words, what internal cisterns do I have that store resources for coping with the unexpected?
How resilient am I?

Various definitions of resilience include the element of adapting and responding positively to stress and misfortune, where people who have the greatest resilience are those who are flexible and capable of adapting to new circumstances quickly. Most importantly, they expect to bounce back and feel confident that they will, whatever the presenting difficulty might be. Some of the internal resources that contribute to resiliency may include the quality of someone’s relationship with the Lord, supportive friends and family as well as good habits of eating, exercise and relaxation. One particular asset of the resilient person is their ability to keep perspective and to notice when thought patterns or behaviour patterns may be getting out of control, therefore giving opportunity for balance to be restored.

I often think of resilience as being like the childhood toy of the 1970s, which was blessed with a round and heavy base that kept it from falling over! When knocked or pushed it would go through some considerable rocking around, but eventually would come back upright and still once more, as long as the next blow didn’t follow too quickly. Inevitably, in life, even the most resilient of people can experience too many heavy blows in succession and discover there just isn’t the opportunity to take breath between them; the internal resources of that person will be pressed into considerable use if the person is to survive the experience well. We will see something of that later in Elijah’s life.

One of the most common requests for prayer from visitors to Crowhurst Christian Healing Centre (CCHC),[9] where I work as a chaplain, relates to periods in their life where one crisis followed another, and the cumulative effect has caused dis-ease within that person. The effect of this is often a feeling of disconnection from God, from those closest to them and usually from themselves. The opportunity to talk, to be heard and prayed for in a place where they can find stillness and the presence of God is healing for spirit, soul and body. We will see this, too, reflected in Elijah’s life later on.

What about the condition of your own cisterns? A quick appraisal of how you have survived recent difficulties may be quite revealing! Effective emotional, spiritual and physical resilience will probably indicate healthy cisterns that are well resourced. When we are struggling to survive the storms of life, or to cope with stress or other difficulties, it may be a sign that our cisterns have instead become unhelpful storage facilities of undealt-with pain in our lives. When we are then faced with more difficulty to cope with, we discover the consequence is spillage; the overflowing of pain from the past already in our tanks mingles with the current struggles. We end up feeling overwhelmed and struggle to cope with any of it.

If you are interested in reading more about this, there are plenty of good reads on the subject, including, for example, Dr Julie Smith’s book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?[10]

Take a moment…

Have your cisterns become storage tanks of pain from your past?
Is there anything that the Lord might want to say to you about this?

So far, we have only considered the first verse of 1 Kings 17! Reading the next verse,[11] it is clear that Elijah has passed on the message from God to Ahab, and only then, once he has done so, does God give him his next instruction. ‘Then the word of the Lord came …’ (my emphasis). Clearly, Elijah delivered the message to Ahab without knowing what he was going to do next, which shows a man of great faith, trusting that God would reveal the next steps, as indeed God did. What we don’t know is whether Elijah had to wait for those next instructions, or whether they came immediately.

As I have reflected on the times in my life when I wondered if the Lord was nudging me to ‘share a word’,[12] perhaps during some worship, I have to confess I am not very satisfied receiving a first bit, without the full text. I almost always hesitate because I want to know the whole thing before I begin. Having a sense that there is something to share, or even knowing the first sentence, doesn’t feel like enough to stand up with – after all, what if nothing else comes?! Even though I know that once I begin, the rest will surely come, I still hesitate. I suspect, in truth, many promptings have gone unshared because it didn’t feel like I had enough to stand up with.

Take a moment…

Is this something you struggle with?
Would you rather have all the information to begin with; if so, are there nudges of God that have been ignored?
What might the Lord want to say to you now?

If Elijah had not delivered the message to Ahab until he understood what he was to do next, he might never have gone at all! Particularly when you factor in the obvious and known threat to his life as God’s representative before the king. Elijah’s willingness to go to the king, without knowing what came next… I suspect we might call this a step of faith.

There are many biblical examples of steps of faith, where someone did something that seemed unwise or illogical, but ultimately their faith was rewarded. Noah, who built an ark[13] when it hadn’t rained before;[14] Abraham, who was prepared to sacrifice his long-awaited son;[15] and Peter, who stepped out of the boat to walk on water.[16] A dramatic screen version of the ‘leap of faith’ is when Indiana Jones looks across a great chasm in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[17] There is no obvious path, but as he steps out into nothing, his foot hits a solid base and he discovers a narrow stone bridge that is so camouflaged with the rocks below that it is completely hidden from sight. It is true to say that taking a step of faith can often feel like Indiana Jones stepping out into nothing with a great chasm below.

Have you ever taken a step, or a leap of faith?

Take a moment…

to reflect on that experience; did the step of faith lead where you expected or hoped it might? Did the step of faith end in a surprising way? As you reflect back, is there anything to notice that you hadn’t understood before?

This ‘word of the Lord’, a phrase we will come to see frequently in Elijah’s life, is very interesting. The first part is an instruction to leave: ‘turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan’.[18] The land east of the Jordan would have been familiar to Elijah, as Gilead, his homeland, was in that region, but this is definitely not ‘hiding at home’.

Hiding from God might be something we should veer away from; it suggests perhaps that we are afraid of revealing something we don’t want Him to know(!), or perhaps we have done something He would disapprove of and we don’t want to face the consequences. The result of this, if we continue to hide from Him, is likely to be an increasing disconnect in our relationship with Him.

Elijah was asked to hide with God, which requires obedience. There are lovely invitations in the Psalms to ‘hide with God’, for example:

Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings.[19]

For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.[20]

The shelter of the ‘sacred tent’, as promised in this latter psalm, was to be an uncomfortable tent for Elijah, in the desert of the Kerith Ravine!

The second part of God’s word to him was a promise: ‘You will drink from the brook, and I have instructed the ravens to supply you with food there.’[21] I wonder if Elijah had expected something else to happen at this point, rather than to be sent away to hide in the desert? I wonder if he thought God might perhaps want him to stay around for a bit, to rally the believers and to signpost the way back to God when the drought began to hit hard? That would be the role of a prophet, wouldn’t it; to signpost people to God and communicate God’s word to them? Surely, that would be a better fulfilment of the role of a prophet of God than hiding away in the desert?

Up to this point we haven’t really considered the role of a prophet of God, so perhaps it would be appropriate to do that now.

The role of prophets in the Old Testament

The first use of the word ‘prophet’ can be found in Genesis and is spoken in relation to Abraham (another man who bears the title ‘prophet’ but has no book of his name). In this first mention, God spoke in a dream to Abimelech, a pagan king, that he should return Sarah to Abraham because ‘he is a prophet, and he will pray for you’.[22] The role of prophet is further defined by Moses in Deuteronomy 18 when the prophet is described as someone who will be established by the Lord, for the people, and who must be listened to, because the words he speaks will be the words that God Himself gives him to say and the prophet will tell the people everything God has commanded. Moses goes on to describe the consequences for the people who do not listen to the prophet, who will be called to account by God Himself. There are consequences, too, for the prophet who presumes to speak in God’s name but speaks words not commanded by God, for they would be put to death.[23] The role of prophet, then, is not one to be taken lightly.

A prophet, therefore, could be said to be the spokesperson of God to His people, the communicator of God’s word to His people, and someone who is established by God for that purpose. In the early days of the prophets, God spoke through them to remind the people of the consequences of disobedience and to call them back to Himself. The turning of the people back to God is a common thread among all the prophets. As the leader of the nation of Israel transitioned from judge to king, the role of the prophet became even more significant in ensuring the king was aware of the consequences of allowing the people to stray away from the ways of the Lord. Increasingly, through the Old Testament, the prophets spoke words of hope to the people in exile, and words of promise concerning the coming of the Messiah. As the covenants God made with His people became more detailed, so also increasingly revealed was the nature and character of God who loved His people and who wanted relationship with them. It was the prophets who spoke these revelations to the people.[24]

Having already mentioned that Elijah’s name is not found in the lists of Major or Minor Prophets, it is still worth understanding the differences between these terms. Andy Rau believes the books containing the work of the Major Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel.^[25] The ‘Major’ Prophets are not considered more important than the Minor Prophets, but their books are longer and therefore have a more significant impact on Old Testament history and theology. In contrast, the Minor Prophet books tend to be much shorter.

What is prophecy?

Finally, in our brief overview of the role of prophet before we journey on with Elijah, we need to ask, ‘What is prophecy?’ Today, most people, Christian or not, would probably define prophecy as speaking the future in some way, foretelling what is to come. Whether the prophecy is fulfilled or not is part of the distinguishing of a true prophet, although not all prophecies are conveniently fulfilled within the lifetime of the prophet! In truth, revealing the future, even when that was somewhat oblique and mysterious, was only part of the role of a prophet, in addition to the other aspects outlined above. Their call was also to turn people back to God and then enable and encourage them to stay faithful to Him.

Having briefly looked at the role of a prophet, it seems likely that, having delivered the news about the drought, Elijah might expect to stay around, although it would mean living with a degree of risk that could be uncomfortable and threatening. Staying around, though, might be the opportunity for him to be God’s man of the moment in supporting the Hebrew people as they begin to turn back to God. His role as prophet, as we have just seen, is to refocus them on Yahweh, so to be available when needed would seem logical. But it isn’t what the Lord has in mind for him at all. God’s instruction is very clear: he is to hide in that specified location.

I wonder how Elijah feels about that? Whether he feels he has been ‘swerved’ unexpectedly by God from one road onto another, or, to use another metaphor, a door began to open that has now suddenly slammed shut in his face? Perhaps Elijah felt he was on the verge of doing something wonderful for God; his faith was rising that the Hebrew people were close to being turned back to Yahweh, and he could be a significant part of that process. Now, though, suddenly, he is to drop completely out of sight.

Has that been the same for you? All seemed to be going really well, following what you thought was God’s leading, then, without warning, the road swerves, or the door slams, and that golden opportunity has slipped like dust through your fingers. You are left wondering, ‘What happened there?’ ‘Did I get that so wrong?’ Perhaps even worse, ‘Did I mess it up?’ Suddenly, what felt like a very real opportunity has become a thing of disappointment, frustration, doubt and recrimination. The failure of that opportunity may even have felt like punishment, or banishment, and we fear we have failed or disappointed God in some way. Did you wonder if you had got it completely wrong in the first place? I wonder, though, if the sudden change in direction proved ultimately to be God’s plan for you, and you might not have got where you need to be if not for that unexpectedly closed door.

Joseph must have felt like that, sitting in his prison in Egypt, having been wrongly accused of seducing Potiphar’s wife. Yet he was exactly where he needed to be in order to be brought before Pharaoh, to interpret those dreams.[26] Moses must have had similar feelings after the Hebrews had been allowed to leave Egypt and he had led them away from the country of their slavery, only for them to arrive at the immoveable obstacle of the sea.[27] Rather than it being a dead end for them, it proved to be an opportunity for faith to be exercised and to see the hand of God at work. These examples from Scripture encourage us that these are not ‘dead end’ times, and it isn’t that we have failed or got it wrong. It’s perhaps times like these that we have to trust the Lord even more, but if we are so fixated on our ‘failure’, and take our eyes off the Lord, we may just miss what He does next.

So Elijah heads towards the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan and into the unknown. Scripture doesn’t tell us how he feels at this moment, but it is easy to suppose that it is a future full of unknowns, and of uncertain duration. If Elijah has been depending on God up to this point, that dependency is to take on a whole new meaning in the days ahead, irrespective of whether Elijah goes humbly and obediently or whether he is deeply disappointed and bewildered. There is no doubt about God’s instruction: ‘the ravens will feed you there’. In other words, My provision for you is very specifically in that place and nowhere else.

Questions for reflection

• What are the characteristics of spiritual authority? Do you recognise them in others? What are the characteristics that Elijah might have displayed? Do you recognise any of these characteristics in yourself?
• Do you have cisterns in your life that protect you and provide you with resources during the times or seasons of drought in your life? Are your personal ‘reservoirs’ well stocked with sustaining resources that can be drawn upon in hard times? Can these ‘sustaining resources’ be spelled out? Are you aware of what they are? What, specifically, are the physical, emotional, spiritual and relational resources you have that sustain you in difficult times and help you to weather the storms of life?
• Have there been moments in your life where a nudge of God was not pursued? Did you regret not doing it? Is there anything God might be saying about it now?
• Have you ever taken a leap of faith? What did that look like in your life? Was the outcome expected or unexpected? If you were disappointed in the outcome, take some time to reflect and to see if you can find the hand of God that was at work, perhaps in a surprising or unexpected way, but was only revealed much later.
• Have you known a period in your life that you would see as ‘hiding’? Were you hiding with God or hiding from God? Take some time to reflect on the difference.
• Have you had the experience of being swerved unexpectedly onto a different pathway? You took what seemed to be the right steps, and then it seemed to all go wrong. Were you right to have taken the step? What might have happened if you hadn’t taken that step? Did a door seem to open that then shut suddenly at the last moment? Reflect on that situation; what might God say about it now? Are you in the right place now – whether or not you took the right step?

[1] Malachi 4:5.

[2] Luke 3:16.

[3] James 5:17, NIV 1984.

[4] 1 Kings 17:1.

[5] 1 Kings 16:30, 33.

[6] F B Meyer, Elijah and the Secret of His Power, New York: Fleming H Revell, 1901, p 215.

[7] www.biblewalks.com/sepphoris (accessed 2nd January 2025).

[8] Genesis 41:22-36.

[9] www.crowhursthealing.org.uk (accessed 13th March 2025).

[10] Dr Julie Smith, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, London: Michael Joseph, 2022.

[11] 1 Kings 17:2.

[12] ‘Sharing a word’ generally refers to the practice of bringing a message of encouragement or affirmation to the congregation that comes from the heart of God, rather than from the person who speaks the message.

[13] Genesis 6.

[14] Genesis 2:5-6.

[15] Genesis 21–22.

[16] Matthew 14:28-29.

[17] 1989; distributors: Paramount Pictures.

[18] 1 Kings 17:3.

[19] Psalm 17:8.

[20] Psalm 27:5.

[21] 1 Kings 17:4.

[22] Genesis 20:7.

[23] Deuteronomy 18:15-20.

[24] See R P Belcher, Prophet, Priest, and King: The Roles of Christ in the Bible and Our Roles Today, Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co, 2016.

[25] www.biblegateway.com/blog/2011/06/tour-of-the-bible-part-4-the-major-prophets (accessed 2nd January 2025).

[26] Genesis 39.

[27] Exodus 14.