Elijah

All right, good to see you back after the break and as threatened in the break We will begin with the drills of the kings of the north and the kings of the south. That is of Israel and Judah It behooves you to know these in order, okay? It's a good thing to know in order and let's begin with shall we with Judah and with Ria Bohem You know what the hand motions mean. I'll see if I can do them. I sometimes get completely messed up But we will try it beginning with Ria Bohem Ria Bohem abijah Asa Jehorsha fat Jehovah them a haziah at the liar Joe ash Amaziah as a liar joth them a haz hezekiah Manassah ammon Josiah Jehovah has Jehoyakim Jehoyakim Zedekiah If I babble on then I would be a liar. Oh so good and it just dawns on me that I'm going to be the only silly person who's heard on the tape doing this and you people all be exonerated. No dear All right, now we go to the kings of Israel the kings of the north beginning with of course Jeroboam and it's three nine eight nine and the ninth eight in the eight so beginning with Jeroboam Jeroboam Nadab Basha Ela Zimri Tivni Amri Ahab Jehorsam Jehoo Jehovah has Jehosh Jeroboam Zechariah Shalom menachem pakayah Pekah Hoshayah then came Assyria and took them all away. Okay good very good Well done you're you're actually learning those quite well Keep doing that and don't forget them at least not before the final. Okay All right, well we come now to a New section we're skipping over a few chapters and coming to really the heart of the book which deals with Elijah Elijah and of course Ahab Jezebel and other care other fake colorful characters in the book of kings if you remember from your first outline that we had a while back This this central section in the book which runs from the end of first king 16 to second kings 12 Really? Recourse the contest between Yahweh between God and the gods of Canaan and This takes place during the days mainly of Ahab of the Amrid dynasty son of Amri and we don't have time Of course in this in this particular class to cover all the ground as it deserves I was mentioning again in the break that the body of material that we cover in In this course I think we're on average at least in all of the old Old Testament courses We teach the body of text we covers about the size of the New Testament So many things cannot be handled as fully as we might like and we have to skip things and run over things The question also arose as to whether we would indeed ever get to Ezra Nehemiah We will get to Ezra Nehemiah even if only in a very short and brief fashion next week So be prepared for Ezra Nehemiah. I would hate for you to lose the joy of doing those outlines and such So please have those ready now we want to look at Elijah As an example of the kind of thing that we find the kinds of episodes that we find in this very important central section I'm not going to try to cover the whole of the stories of Elijah and Elijah I just want to choose a sample episode, but as we move toward that I want to set it up by sort of surveying the career of Elijah. His name Eliyah Elijah means Yahweh is my God If some debate about the the preciseness of that, but that is a center of the name Yahweh is my God This is to be compared with the name Elijah which seems to mean my God saves And their names in many ways are reflective of their ministries Yahweh is my God is the essence of that of the message which Elijah brought about Elijah's career intersects largely with the reign of King Ahab of Israel Though Elijah survives him by about five years dying in second kings too or perhaps more properly ascending in second kings too During the reign of Jehorm the son of Ahab and the younger brother of Ahaziah. So we do Omri Ahab Ahaziah Jehorm Okay, Jehorm was the younger brother of Ahaziah, but a son of Ahab Now the career of Elijah like that of his successor is characterized by miraculous Signs and it's interesting. I mentioned in the art of biblical history that sometimes when people talk about The careers of Elijah and Elijah they they compare them to the parables which Jesus spoke But a far better comparison is with the miracles that Jesus brought He compares his miracle working ministry to that of Elijah and Elijah And it's not as if miracles are happening all the time in the Old Testament It does seem that Certain miraculous things do cluster around the ministries of Elijah and Elijah Already in first king 17 where Elijah first appears we read of a divinely ordained drought that Elijah's that Elijah Announces beforehand Then we read of miracles of flower and of oil and the raising even of the widow's son already in chapter 17 Then in chapter 18 We have the famous event on Mount Carmel the contest between Elijah the prophet of the true God and the prophets of veil And again, that's not going to be the episode on which we focus But I assume you know that story and we will heart back to it a little bit as we actually focus our attention on chapter 19 chapter 19 is an enigmatic story of retreat by Elijah who has just won a great victory on Mount Carmel And then in chapter 19 turns and fleas Sort of post-examlet down I suppose Or something along those lines, but we want to look at that more closely in just a minute But we're continuing now the survey of his career in chapter 20 the focused shifts Away from Elijah to the infamous incident of Ahab's coveting of Neybath's vineyard and Jezebel's eventual acquisition of Neybath's vineyard Elijah's only role in in in those chapters is to confront Ahab in chapter 21 And also to pronounce judgment on his house And so Elijah kind of is in the background as we get into chapter 20 And then in in second Kings 2 we have the account of Elijah's passing a sending and of his replacement by his good-looking assistant Elijah As a perennial exam question who was better looking Elijah Or Elijah and just remember who's asking it And maybe maybe you'll get it right now we come then to this sample episode from the career of Elijah and that is the episode in chapter 19 Remember the setting it's on the heels of his victory in chapter 18 a victory over the prophets of Bale that was dramatic That was exciting That seemed complete But that's just the question was it complete was it a complete victory in chapter 18 Elijah seems to think so look at verses 41 and following And Elijah said to Ahab go eat and drink for there is the sound of a heavy rain So Ahab went off to eat and drink but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel Bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees and here he he says go and look toward the sea He told his servant and he went up and looked there is nothing there He said seven times Elijah said go back the seven time the servant reported a cloud as small as a man's hand is rising From the sea. So Elijah said go and tell Ahab Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you Remember this is this is still the working out of that drought that was begun back in chapter 17 Go down before the rain stops you meanwhile the sky grew black with clouds the wind rose a heavy rain came on On and Ahab rode off to Jezreel the power of the Lord came upon Elijah and tucking his cloak and cloak into his belt He ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel This guy is on a high. I mean he has really he has really seen God work and he's excited and he's able to outrun a chariot The victory was dramatic Was it complete? There are a few things in chapter 18 that give us pause for thought look at verse 19 of chapter 18 Still has background to the story and that we get to in chapter 19 So 18 19 Verse 19 we read now some of the people From all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel And bring the 450 prophets of veil and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table That's the challenge that Elijah had issued in chapter 18 Notice however verse 22 Then Elijah said to them, I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but veil has 450 prophets Notice also verse 40 Then Elijah commanded them after after his dramatic victory Then Elijah commanded them seize the prophets of veil don't let anyone get away Now do you notice anything missing here? What's missing? The prophets of Asherah There were some no shows Okay, the challenge had been issued against the prophets of veil and the prophets of Asherah That eat at Jezebel's table and apparently only the veil prophets showed up And perhaps because of Jezebel's political astuteness she kept her prophets back She adopted a weight and see attitude perhaps But what are we to make of this missing contingent? Jezebel it turns out as Elijah is soon to realize is the more threatening foe She's the general Ahab is not he's the king but she's the general She is the one who is reported to have killed the prophets back in verse 4 of chapter 18 While Jezebel was killing off the Lord's prophets Obadiah had taken 100 prophets and hidden them in two caves 50 in each Or in verse 13 of chapter 18 Haven't you heard my Lord what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? Jezebel is the enemy she's the most threatening foe Ahab was if we can use the term something of a wimp Look at verses 16 to 18 in chapter 18 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him and Ahab went to meet Elijah when when Ahab saw Elijah He said to him is that you you trouble or of Israel? I have not made trouble for Israel Elijah replied But you and your father's family have you have abandoned the Lord's commands and have followed the bales And Elijah is able just to face him down and to issue the challenge And Ahab has no reply and in fact we'll have no more to say He's he's compliant. He agrees to the to the challenge and his prophets come out but Jezebel's are held back now that's the background to the story we get to then in In chapter 19

Now in in this reading of this story, I'm going to do this I want to draw your attention to a long awaited commentary by Ian Provin which is finally out. I told you that it might come out in November at SBL And it finally came out he finished this in 1993 And low these two years later now I'm dating these tapes, but low these two years later It finally came out And so we're glad to see it. This is a wonderful commentary. I highly recommend it to you and it's cheap It's paperback and I think it costs 11.95 or 10.95 or something quite worth the money So you may want to have a look at this and what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw on his reading Of this chapter 19 because I think it's very enlightening what he does here So I'm going to describe a few things and then I'm going to actually read a passage for you because I want you to hear How this commentary reads it reads like a few other commentaries That you may have encountered many times commentaries are kind of atomistic and they go verse by verse And it's hard to kind of get the flow This covers the ground, but it does it in such a way that it sort of pulls you along So again, I'm not getting a cut in royalties. He is a personal friend, but I'm not getting a cut in royalties That's not why I recommended it is a very good commentary well as we come into chapter 19 As as As Ian Provin expresses it a hab has offered as little serious opposition as the god he worships Surely in Elijah's mind it's all over There's been very little resistance. He's won the day But Elijah is now to see that to win a battle is not necessarily to win a war That realization will send him into retreat both physical and mental as victory becomes defeat Retreat will in turn lead him to another mountain to confront not bail, but the Lord himself The god whom Elijah serves, but whose ways he only partly understands and accepts Just if you're a little fuzzy as to what happens in chapter 19 This is the time when Elijah finds himself on a mountain Where he hears that still small voice Prior to which he sees those dramatic manifestations and it is said, but the Lord was not in the wind the Lord was not in the fire The Lord was not in the earthquake put in the still small voice And so that's the account we're talking about we'll look at verses one and two of chapter 19 Now a hab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say May the gods deal with me be it ever so severely if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them In other words your number is up Thus far Elijah has really only been dealing with a hab and with the prophets of bail But Jezebel is the real power and with a rather good track record in terms of disposing of God's prophets We read 184, 1813 already Verse three Elijah was afraid or the Hebrew actually says now Elijah saw The way it was and you have a text note to that effect he saw what the deal was The two words afraid and to see are very similar in Hebrew so it's quite easy to confuse the two I tend to prefer what's in the note there Elijah saw how things were He thought he had had a complete victory Then he realized oops. I overlooked Jezebel and she's the general um So Elijah saw and ran for his life when he came to bear Shiba in Judah He left his servant there while he himself went a day's journey Into the desert he came to a broom tree sat down under it and prayed that he might die I have had enough lord. He said take my life. I am no better than my ancestors Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep It comes as something of a surprise after Elijah's grand victory in chapter 18 that he is now fleeing Now of course he he knows how to hide when God tells him to hide back in chapter 17 verses three to five We read about God instructing him to go to the brook cheddar where he will be provided for By the ravens and so forth That was a time having pronounced the drought or predicted the drought that he was to go into more or less hiding at God's command He knows how to hide But here the word of the Lord is conspicuously absent. There's nothing There's no word of the Lord that tells him to flee at this particular juncture I think in fact this was Elijah's choice at this point the word of the Lord does not come until verse nine and there it comes as a question So faced by Jezebel's persistent adherence to her gods even against all the evidence which had been delivered on Mount Carmel Elijah as as proven puts it forgets to think Theologically and simply reacts for the first time to circumstances Even Elijah can forget God can forget the good theology that he should embrace And he sees Jezebel not God standing between him and Jezebel and so he flees Then we come to verse five b Now in five a Elijah has has laying down under the tree and has fallen asleep In five b all at once an angel touched him and said now you miss this in the english But that word angel is earlier in verse two translated messenger, you know angel messenger Malach same thing in Hebrew same word and so I think if we were reading this in Hebrew It would be something as a you know, it kind of calls a chill to run down your spine because you see Jezebel is the one who sent a messenger Suddenly while he's sleeping while he's sleeping a messenger touched him and I think our initial reaction would oops Has she caught him as a messenger found him A messenger touched him and said get up and eat He looked around and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals in a jar of water He ate and drank and then lay down again Now in verse seven the the messenger the angel is now identified the angel of Yahweh of the Lord Came back a second time and touched him and said get up and eat for the journey is too much for you He's been saying I've had too much. I've had enough same phrase in Hebrew. I've had enough lord Take my life now the the angel of the lord is saying, you know really it is too much for you But it's the journey that you're going to undertake. It's too much for you So verse eight so he got up and ate and drank strengthened by the food He traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached horab the mountain of God There he went into a cave and spent the night Now There's nothing to suggest that this particular journey was at the behest of God Now he's been strengthened for the journey, but there's nothing to suggest that God has sent him on this journey In fact, he seems to be like Jonah going without divine travel permit He seems to be going where he thinks he needs to go He's attempting to write as as proven puts it attempting to write his own contract for the job of profit The question that arises with all these kinds of illusions to the 40 days and 40 nights kind of remind us of the 40 days The 40 years and the wilderness the question is will he encounter God on the mountain of God? That's where he finds himself now mount horab mount Sinai. Yes, Sandra Oh, no, no, I don't think I think this happened you see No, I'm just all I'm saying yeah The question is am I suggesting that the appearance of this messenger of the lord and the food and such was all in the dream No, I think that is is God's doing all I'm saying is that his his journey south His journey away from Jezebel I think is something that was motivated by his fear and not motivated by command of God Because God will later turn him right around and send him back north Okay, so the question then that arises is will he encounter God here? He's on the mountain of God and that brings us to verse nine There he went into a cave and spent the night and the word of the Lord came to him What are you doing here Elijah? And this again confirms that God didn't send him there He's he's want you know if he had sent him he wouldn't be asking what he's doing. He says What are you doing here Elijah Elijah replied I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty the Israelites have rejected your covenant broken down your alters and put your profits to death with the sword I'm the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too Notice how Jezebel has become vague Now they're trying to kill me too uh Verse 11 the Lord said go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord But the Lord was not in the wind After the wind there was an earthquake that the Lord was not in the earthquake After the earthquake came a fire but the Lord was not in the fire And after the fire came a gentle whisper some transitions say a thin Small voice and a skinny voice a barely audible voice after the fire came a gentle whisper When Elijah heard it he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave Now in answering the question that God poses to him What are you doing here Elijah? We see selective memory with the vengeance again province phrase selective memory With the vengeance. It's not now just Jezebel. It's they who are trying to kill me He need Elijah needs to remember the past and to regain his perspective He has done better than his ancestors in fact that business on mount mount karma was quite dramatic It was a great victory But he's certainly not the only one left We can look at verse 10 If you if you were to look back at verse 10, I think it is in in Chapter 18 am I in the right place?

No, I'm sorry. I'll overlook that because I think I may have a false reference there But province describes it this way he says somewhere between exaggerated self-loathing and exaggerated self-importance Both themselves partly the product of selective memory There is a quiet place which Elijah must rest content with who he is and what he has done And the key is to remember his past with the Lord Now here's where I want to pick up and just read you a section that begins on page 145 at the very bottom So that you you hear the way proven goes on to to to work through this particular passage The key is to remember his past with the Lord and so the Lord has fed him and now brought him to horab For another mountain top experience He needs to see once again the god of wind earthquake Fire and to remember caramel But that is not all there is to it For horab also known as Sinai is not just any mountain It is the mountain of god the place where Israel herself having been sustained in the wilderness Met with the Lord and discovered in some detail what sort of God she served This is significant it appears that the Lord is intent here not only on reminding Elijah of his recent history But also on teaching him something new The emphasis at caramel had been on God's spectacular ways and particularly on his use of fire The emphasis in verses 11 to 12 however is upon God's quiet ways He's not to be found in the spectacular elements of the storm outside the cave wind earthquake fire He reveals himself on this occasion in a gentle whisper Elijah needs to remember the past But he also needs to realize that there is more to the Lord than fire It's not immediately clear to us why it is important for Elijah to realize this And there's no evidence that Elijah himself understands Indeed, even the attempt to jog his memory appears to fail For when he is asked the second time the question of verse 9 What are you doing here Elijah? He's asked it again in verse 13 His answer is exactly the same as before The entire point of the demonstration appears like the Lord himself to have passed him by Privileged like Moses to see He remains steadfastly like Jonah slow to understand There is indeed just a suggestion that he does not particularly wish to understand He has always claimed to stand before the Lord And he gives the Hebrew phrase there which is translated in the NIV whom I serve Quite a different sense there He has always claimed to stand before the Lord Yet now in spite of the command of verse 11 go out and stand in the presence of the Lord He apparently stays in the cave until the storm is over When he does go out it is with his cloak over his face He seems as committed to not seeing as Jezebel was in 1912 And so his perspective is still the one that she has inspired in him All is lost and I am feeling very sorry for myself It is the Lord's response on the second occasion that suggests what the point of the gentle whisper really was He gives Elijah new instructions And this is what is it comes up later in the chapter which we haven't read He gives Elijah new instructions Annoyed Hazel, Jehu, Elisha A new order is to succeed the old and is to this order And it is this order that will bring about the final victory over bail worship Victory will come in other words as a result of political process Not through obviously spectacular demonstrations of divine power It will arrive not as a result of Elijah's efforts but through the efforts of others Elijah's role in the overall strategy is now clear It is partly to fight and he has done that well But it is also partly and now more importantly to prepare the way for others The caramel event is only one event in a series that will stretch beyond his lifetime God has other ways of working some of which make Elijah's God seem almost As nonexistent as bail a still small voice being only marginally noisier than no voice at all The Lord also has servants other than Elijah Not least the 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed down to bail or kissed him in veneration If the spectacular has not produced final victory that is no reason for despair For the overall strategy has always was always more long-term and more subtly conceived than Elijah imagined From the beginning it had involved the gentle but devastating whisper as well as the all-consuming fire The quiet ways of God's normal providence as well as the noisier ways of miraculous intervention Elijah must be content with being part of the plan and not the plan itself Where he has run south into spare to the desert of Bershiba He must now go north in obedience to the desert of Damascus And I could go on and on this I really like this because it is the kind of commentary that does I hope sort of pull you along particularly if you know the story and you've puzzled What does this mean? You know what what is the point of this still small voice? How does this function in the life of Elijah? Why has he fled south and so forth and so on? I think this really makes a great deal of sense and the way it's written is is In a way that that really communicates I think to us a Elijah must be content with being part of the plan and not the plan itself And as we read things like that I think we begin to get a picture of how applicable these kinds of narratives are to us You know we our our job is partly to fight and partly to prepare the way for others We need to realize that we are part of God's plan but we're not the plan itself We need to be careful of selective memory with ovengence You know I'm the only one left or sometimes we say here The only ones left are you and me and I'm not too sure about you We tend to get into that same kind of funk if you can use that in a biblical context that Elijah seemed to be in He needed to learn something about himself. He needed also to learn something about his Lord Now I would love to go on but I don't think I will because it kind of gets boring even reading something this good To just read it in class now are there comments or questions on this episode? Yes Yeah, I mean yeah, I think when when God first appeared to Moses on Sinai it was with these dramatic manifestations And it's clear you know when the text says God was not in the fire the earthquake the the wind the earthquake the fire It's clear that he sent them he's in charge of them. He's I think what it's saying is he was not he's not solely in those He's not primarily in this instance in those and so he is in a way Bringing back a recollection of of that dramatic occurrence on that mountain Just as Elijah has experienced a dramatic Event on another mountain on Mount Carmel that God needs to show Elijah if not always going to be dramatic Sometimes it's going to be still small almost imperceptible, but God is still at work Now you're a part of the plan, but you're not the plan itself God makes use of other servants and his task is to go off and annoy these others now the curious thing is Elijah Still seems to be rather obtuse and his proven points out he doesn't we don't we don't hear of him anointing any of these guys He does go and and throw his mantle over Elijah, but we never hear of his anointing and we never hear of the anointing of Isaiah and it will be a lion who will work out the anointing of jayhu All of all of those things raise questions in our minds if we think of Elijah as a kind of an automaton who just does what God tells him But he was a person and we see God giving him instructions here, which he seemed either to miss perceive or just not get on with and and never accomplished at least in terms of the record we have that fell to others. Yes The punishment or the question is whether there is any hint of things being taken away from Elijah and given to Elijah I don't think so nothing. I don't think anything particular in particular comes to mind. I think I think we see here again God simply dealing graciously with Elijah Trying to bring him along trying to open his eyes and Elijah only partially being only partially willing to see that You know this business about coming out of the cave with his cloak over in space It wasn't because of the dramatic manifestations those were now passed It was more or less, you know kind of like I don't really fully want to to see what may be there for me to see now Other comments questions. Yes Right Yeah Okay Yeah, again if I can compress the comment into a shorter link I think essentially what you're saying is you do see in Elijah Perhaps a focus on on I and the the recurrence of that pronoun and what I have accomplished and that can I think issue in A wrongful sense of what in fact he shoulders What is his responsibility? He sees himself as I against Jezebel and that that causes him to flee Perhaps if he were less conscious if he were to diminish a bit and allow God to Grow greater in his eyesight that would help him in dealing with someone like Jezebel I know I didn't quite capture what you were trying to say there, but yeah Um, they're you know, I the question is is there significance to the fact that Elijah simply Pops up from nowhere and is described as a Tishbyte I would be the last one ever to say that any detail in the text is insignificant I don't know what the significance of that might be but it might be worth looking at Most things that we read in scripture are in some way significant now We don't want to read in all kinds of hidden meanings that are not legitimated by the rest of the text, but It's certainly worth looking into. I don't know of anything in specific specifically significant about it. Yes Yeah Right Yeah, the comment is in a way it struck this commenter That perhaps Elijah was doing the right thing running to the mountain of the Lord because we tend to run to God in in moments of distress Or is he simply trying to escape a difficult situation? Again, I think you know, those are the kinds of ambiguities with which we can play and wonder about I think the fact that God asks him what are you doing here Elijah? And Elijah's response Does seem as as Ian proven expressed it that he has begun to fall into an exaggerated sense of self-importance And perhaps an exaggerated sense of his isolation. He thinks he's the only one left And so God has said him, you know, why are you here? There's work for you to do there. You didn't need to come all this way. You didn't need to flee Jezebel All right, next time what we're going to do we didn't get to it tonight, but that's fine We'll get to it next time we will deal with Ezra Nehemiah. So please bring out lines of that We'll also talk about the synoptic histories of of the Old Testament and by that I mean Those that big corpus Samuel Kings And also chronicles now. I'm not asking you to even read chronicles I'm not asking you to write an outline of chronicles or anything But I do want to talk about what we can learn from these and so in the back of your outline that I hand it out Perhaps there's a little exercise that may ring a bell if you're Studios and clever or it may not if you work rather quickly I would like you to begin on page 37 where it says section 15 the promise the divine promise to David This is from James Newsom's synoptic harmony of Samuel Kings and chronicles You see the little reduced title page in the lower left hand corner So you can see where that comes from Baker publication if you will look at if you will read in parallel These these two accounts of the divine promise to David one in 2nd Samuel 7 Beginning in 1st 1 and running through verse 17 The other beginning in 1st Chronicle 17 verse 1 and running through verse 15 So it'll be on page 39 right about in the middle that you You should stop If you were just read these two in parallel and just kind of make a mental note or even jot down a written note The kinds of significant differences you discover Working through this It is a very fun and intriguing exercise to take this book or a book like it and simply read the two histories Side by side Because you learn so much about what The apparent Modus operandi the way the ways of working of the biblical historians Were by doing this and if we don't do this kind of thing then sometimes we work in abstract ways thinking what Thinking your own thoughts about what they must have done rather than seeing what they actually did So if you would just read that that section 2nd King 7 1 to 17 1st Chronicle 17 1 to 15 Side by side always always comparing the two and just see what kinds of Difference as you come up with if you would do that before next time Then that will enlighten our discussion as we get into this so that next time and Ezra the Amaya are also I will also try to have some words to say about the final next time