vengeance and a sudden reformation of which his own eyes might hope to see the fulfilment, but of the slow steady progress of that kingdom of God that cometh not with observation. He was taught this practically in the threefold commission laid upon him, which implied in each part of it that the work of vengeance and of reformation alike were to be fulfilled by other hands and in a succeeding age. He was to return to Damascus and anoint Hazael king of Syria ; he was to anoint J ehu the son of N imshi as king of Israel in place of Ahab ; and as his own successor in the prophetic office he was to anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat. The revelation at Horeb closed with an announcement that must have been at once a comfort and a rebuke to the prophet. In his allegiance to Jehovah he was not alone, as in sadness of spirit he had supposed; there were no less than seven thousand in Israel who had not
bowed to Baal.Leaving Horeb and proceeding northwards, Elijah found the opportunity of fulfilling the last of the three commands that had been laid upon him. He met Elisha engaged at the plough probably near his native place, Abel—meholah, in the valley of the Jordan, and, by the symbolical act of cast- ing his mantle upon him, consecrated him to the prophetic office. As it happened, this was the only command of the three which he fulfilled in person; the course of events left the other two to be carried out by his successor. After the call of Elisha the narrative contains no notice of Elijah for several years. It was not until Ahab, at the prompting of Jezebel, had committed his crowning iniquity in the matter of Naboth’s vineyard that he again appeared, as usual with startling abruptness. Without any indication of whence or how he came, he is represented in the narrative as standing in the vineyard when Ahab entered to take possession of it, and as pronouncing upon the king and his house that awful doom (1 Kings xxi. 17—24) which, though deferred for a time, was ultimately fulfilled to the letter.
With one more denunciation of the house of Ahab, Elijah’s function as a messenger of wrath was fully dis- charged. When Ahaziah, the son and successor of Ahab, having injured himself by falling through a lattice, sent to inquire at Baal—zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he should recover, the prophet was commanded by God to appear to the messengers and tell them that, for this resort to a false god, the king should (lie. The effect of his appearance was such that they turned back without attempting to fulfil their errand. Their description of the prophet left the king in no doubt as to his identity: “ It is Elijah the Tishbite.” With the true Jezebel spirit he resolved to des roy the enemy of his house, and despatched a captain with a band of fifty to arrest him. They came upon Elijah seated on “the mount,”——probably Carmel. The imperious terms in which he was summoned to come down—perhaps also a tone of mockery in the appellation “Thou man of God ”——were pun- ished by fire from heaven, which descended at the bidding of Elijah and Consumed the whole band. A second captain and fifty were despatched, behaved in a similar way, and met the same fate. The leader of a third troop took a humbler tone, sued for mercy, and obtained it. Elijah then went with them to the king, but only to repeat before his face the doom he had already made known to his messengers, which was almost immediately afterwards fulfilled.
The only mention of Eli jah’s name in the book of Chronicles ('3 Chron. xxi. 12—15), where he is represented as sending a letter of rebuke and denunciation to J ehoram, kin g of Judah, furnishes a chronological difficulty, owing to the fact that Elijah’s translation seems to have taken place before the death of Jehoshaphat, "the father of Jehoram. 'lhere 1s reason, however, to suppose that J ehoram reigned for some years before the death of his father; and on the other hand, though the account of Elijah’s translation (2 Kings ii.) immediately follows that of his last public act in denouncing the doom of Ahaziah (2 Kings i. ), a considerable interval may have elapsed between the two events. What- ever its duration, the time was spent in close and continu- ous fellowship with Elisha, his disciple and successor, who, though thrice entreated to leave him, showed the true disciple spirit in the solemn vow, “ As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” The approaching translation seems to have been known, not only to Elijah and Elisha, but also to the schools of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho, both of which they visited in their last east- ward journey. At the Jordan their progress was stopped only until Elijah, wrapping his prophet’s mantle together, smote the water with it, and so by a last miracle passed over on dry ground. When they had crossed, the master desired the disciple to ask some parting blessing. The request for a double portion (1'.e., probably a first-born’s portion) of the prophet’s spirit Elijah characterized as a hard thing ; but he promised to grant it if Elisha should remain with him to the last, so as to see him when he was taken away. The end is told in words of simple sublimity : “ And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder ; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings ii. 11). There is in this, as Stanley has truly remarked, an “inextricable interweaving of fact and figure.” It is scarcely necessary to point out, however, that through the figure the narrative evidently means to convey as fact that Elijah passed from earth, not by the gates of death, but by miraculous translation. Such a supernatural close is in perfect harmony with a career into every stage of which the supernatural enters as an essential feature. For whatever explanation may be offered of the miraculous element in Elijah’s life, it must obviously be one that accounts not for a few miraculous incidents only, which might be mere excrescences, but for a series of miraculous events so closely connected and so continuous as to form the main thread of the history.
Elijah occupied an altogether peculiar place in later Jewish history and tradition. Of the general belief among the Jewish people that he should return for the restoration of Israel the Scriptures contain several indications, such as the prophecy of Malachi (iv. 5—6). Even if this be applied to John the Baptist, between whom and Elijah there are many striking points of resemblance, there are several allusions in the gospels which show the currency of a belief in the return of Elias, which was not satisfied by the mission of John (Matt. xi. 14, xvi. 14; Luke ix. 8; John i. 21).[1]
Elijah is canonized both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his festival being kept in both on the 20th J ul_v, —the date of his ascension in the nineteenth year of J ehoshaphat, according to Cornelius a Lapide.
(w. b. s.)
of North America,” was born at Nasing, in Essex, in 1604, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1623. He there displayed a partiality for philology which may have had some in- fluence in stimulating the zeal he afterwards displayed in acquiring the language of the native Indians. After leaving the university he Was employed as an usher in a school near Chelmsford under the Rev. Thomas‘ Hooker. While in the family of Mr Hooker, Eliot received serious impressions, and resolved to devote himself to the work of the Christian ministry. As there was then no field for non-
conformist preachers in England, he resolved to emigrate
- ↑ For curious facts indicating the survival of the same belief among the Jews at the present day, see Stanley s Jewish Church, lect. xxx.
