Elijah at Horeb

Elijah is the great prophet of the northern kingdom, in the days when King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had drawn Israel into the service of Baal. His very name, in Hebrew Eliyahu (אֵלִיָּהוּ), means “the Lord is my God”, and by itself denies the false god then worshipped. On Mount Carmel Elijah has just won a striking victory: alone he challenged the prophets of Baal, and the fire of the Lord fell from heaven upon his sacrifice, before all the people. But Jezebel swears his death. The prophet who had stood up to a whole kingdom takes fright and flees into the wilderness. It is there, and then on the mountain of God, that the scene unfolds.

Under the broom tree

In the wilderness Elijah sits down under a broom tree and asks to die: “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 1 Kings 19:4 The moment of this collapse is startling, for Elijah flees just after the greatest victory of his life: he has just seen fire fall from heaven, the people cry out that the Lord is God, the prophets of Baal put to death. A man who has obtained this should not tremble at the threat of one woman. If he collapses, it is because an expectation falls apart: he had thought Carmel decisive, hoped that such a display would break the house of Ahab and bring Israel back. Jezebel's threat teaches him that nothing has changed, that the queen still reigns and that the reform is already dead; in calling himself no better than his fathers, he ranks himself among the prophets who struck before him without lasting result. His fear is not first about his life: it is his cause that he believes lost. Yet God addresses him no reproach. He puts him to sleep, then sends an angel who touches him and gives him food: “Arise and eat.” 1 Kings 19:5 Before speaking to his heart, God raises up his body.

The bread for the journey

The angel comes a second time, touches him again and uncovers the meaning of this food: “Arise and eat, for the journey is too long for you.” 1 Kings 19:7 Strengthened by that food alone, Elijah walks forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. “He walked, sustained by that food, forty days and forty nights to Horeb.” 1 Kings 19:8 A bread given from heaven carries a man far beyond what any food can do, and leads him to the mountain where God lets himself be found. The Church recognises in it the figure of the Eucharist, the bread that nourishes the soul and gives it strength to hold out all along the road toward God.

The mountain

Horeb is the mountain of the Covenant, where God had given his law to Moses. Going up to it after forty days of walking, as Moses had remained there forty days, Elijah goes back to the source. He enters a cave, and the word of God comes to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:9 The question does not seek information: it invites the prophet to say what fills him. Elijah answers with his complaint, his zeal for the Lord, his solitude, his threatened life: “I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.” 1 Kings 19:10

The voice of thin silence

God brings Elijah out and commands him to stand on the mountain, for he is about to pass by. Three forces then break loose, and in none of them is God found. A violent wind tears the mountains and shatters the rocks: “The Lord was not in the wind.” Then an earthquake, then a fire, and each time the same word: “The Lord was not in the earthquake, nor in the fire.” 1 Kings 19:11-12 At last comes something wholly other: “After the fire, the murmur of a light breeze.” 1 Kings 19:12 The Hebrew says qol demamah daqqah (קוֹל דְּמָמָה דַקָּה), a voice of thin silence, the faint sound of a stillness almost without noise. It is there that God stands.

The wind, the earthquake and the fire are the great forces by which God is expected, those that in Scripture escort his manifestations. By letting them pass without being in them, he undeceives the prophet about the way he gives himself. On Carmel, Elijah had seen him answer by fire, in splendour and power, and it is still a God of fire that he awaits; he himself is a prophet of fire, full of an ardent zeal. Yet the one who draws near stands in the faint breeze, in gentleness and silence. His most intimate presence is not found in the crash that terrifies, but in the light breath one perceives only by silencing every noise. Whoever seeks God in the tumult passes him by; it is within, in silence, that he lets himself be reached. This gentleness in which God reveals himself foreshadows from afar that of Christ: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Matthew 11:29

At that breath, Elijah veils his face: “Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle.” 1 Kings 19:13 The gesture acknowledges the presence of God, before whom man cannot keep his eyes open.

Seven thousand

The same question returns, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”, and the prophet repeats his complaint, word for word. The whole of that complaint held in one word, repeated twice: he is left alone. It was on this conviction that his wish to die under the broom tree rested: if he is the last faithful one and is hunted down, all is lost and he with it. God undoes that certainty with a single sentence: “I will keep for myself in Israel seven thousand, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal.” 1 Kings 19:18 Elijah thought himself alone; they are seven thousand. The prophet read his situation backwards: where he saw only defeat and abandonment, God was secretly keeping a whole people that had remained faithful. The cause of God never rests on one man, and his work does not die out when the one who carries it believes himself finished. Raised from his solitude, Elijah is sent back to men: God charges him to anoint kings and to give himself a successor, Elisha, who will prophesy after him.

Later, on another mountain, Elijah will stand again before God: beside Moses, he will appear in glory and speak with Christ transfigured. “And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him.” Matthew 17:3 The one who had sought God in the murmur of Horeb then contemplates him face to face in the Son.