1 Kings 19:2, commentary and pictures

After the triumph on Carmel where the people confessed God and He answered by fire and rain, Ahab reported all to Jezebel and she in hardened idolatry sent a messenger to Elijah vowing in the name of her gods to take his life by the same hour the next day in revenge for the slain prophets of Baal. The threat reached him at night as he lay weary and asleep outside Jezreel, and though God had mightily protected him before, his faith failed and he fled for his life toward Beersheba and the wilderness in bitter disappointment. He should have remained at his post and answered the threat by trusting the God who sent him, and had he done so God would have shielded him, judged Jezebel, and used him for a still greater reformation. His fall shows that even the courageous after great success grow fearful and despondent when weary and lose sight of God, and that Satan seizes such moments of weakness to shake confidence and break the hold on God. Yet his failure did not mean God had forgotten him, and his story teaches the despondent to stay in duty, trust God as their defense, and take fresh courage knowing mercy can lift the fallen to conquer again.

Context and Threat

The threat belongs to the next movement after Carmel, when the slaying of the prophets of Baal had opened the way for a mighty spiritual reformation among the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. It followed the terrible day when Elijah had stood undaunted before Ahab and faced the whole nation with four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal at their head, when the false prophets had been slain and the people had confessed their sins and declared their allegiance to God as the living God. On that day Elijah had prayed in strong faith and humility for the withdrawal of the curse and for abundant rain to refresh the land.

The word to kill him came after Ahab told Jezebel what had taken place on Carmel and what Elijah had done in slaying the prophets. Jezebel, devoted to the service of Baal and jealous for her god's glory, was roused to fury by the report, hardened in sin and idolatry, impenitent, infuriated and defiant. She refused to recognize God's overruling providence in proving Jehovah true and Elijah His messenger, despite the display proving Jehovah the Creator of heaven and earth is God. The evidence of God's power had not overcome her hold on Ahab, for her influence over him was stronger than the influence of God's Spirit.

By messenger she swore by her gods, in the name of her pagan gods, invoking them as witnesses to her oath. She vowed that by about the same time the next day she would make his life as the life of one of the slain prophets of Baal, as he had done to the priests of Baal. It was revenge for their death, to do to him in the presence of Israel what he had done to them, boldly and determinedly declaring that he should not live and should die.

The word was delivered at night by a messenger who aroused the weary prophet while he was asleep in his mantle on the bare earth outside Jezreel, amid pouring rain and darkness. The message came while he slept and shook his confidence after victory over the prophets of Baal. That night setting explains his weariness when aroused from sleep in rain and darkness.

Her rage blinded her to God's power and to the fact that He permitted her only to bring about her own ruin. Her fury after triumph in restoring true worship could not see that her plotting was allowed only to work her ruin.

The oath shows the power and influence of one unconsecrated woman devoted to an evil work. Jezebel had more power over Ahab than God had and led him and with him the people into idolatry. When God sent drought upon the land in judgment the people did not discern its object and humble their hearts before Him. Jezebel said the prophets of Jehovah had brought the calamity upon them, that all Israel was suffering because of their reproofs, and that there would be no rest or prosperity until these prophets were put to death. Thus anger was aroused against the men God had sent to entreat the people to repent, many holy men died for their testimony while they looked upon Elijah as a messenger of evil and would not heed his warnings, and Elijah was preserved by a miracle of divine power to proclaim before king and queen the warnings and threatenings of God.

Flight and Its Lessons

Jezebel's oath to kill Elijah by the next day in revenge for the slain prophets of Baal shocked him and brought bitter disappointment immediately after his triumph in restoring true worship. Though God had just revealed His power through him in answering by fire and in sending rain, and though he had many evidences of God's loving care after undaunted courage before Ahab and triumph over king and priests and people, his faith and courage forsook him at this threat. Being weary, weak, exhausted and vulnerable, a man of like passions subject to temptation, he lost sight of God's protecting power and care, forgot that three years before God had directed his course to refuge from Jezebel's hatred and Ahab's search, became bewildered, lost courage, and fled for his life without being sent. The word had been delivered at night by a messenger who aroused him while asleep in his mantle on the bare earth outside Jezreel amid pouring rain and darkness, and he fled to Beersheba and into the wilderness where, crushed and discouraged, he asked to die.

He should not have fled from his post of duty but should have met the threat with appeal for protection to the One who had commissioned him, telling the messenger that the God he trusted would protect him from the queen's hatred, and making God his refuge and strength while standing steadfast for truth. Had he remained steadfast at his post and made God his refuge, the Lord would have shielded him from harm, sent judgment on Jezebel, given another signal victory, and by the impression made on king and people wrought a great reformation. The threat thus turned him away from the greater victories and work opened to him after the triumph on Mount Carmel, and exposed the weakness of his present position compared with the place of trust and strength God wanted him to occupy.

Even one courageous and successful in special work, exalted and strengthened by marked tokens of God's power on Carmel, will lose courage and fail when faith is tested unless he looks constantly to God and trusts implicitly in Omnipotence. High faith and glorious success are often followed by tremendous reaction, fear, depression, and disappointment over failed hope of speedy reform while evil prevails through plotting, with loss of hold on God. Satan took advantage of human weakness in the time of greatest weakness, when strength failed and will power weakened and faith ceased to repose in God, to overcome one who had stood long and valiantly for the right, who had stood undaunted before Ahab and faced the whole nation with four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal at their head after the false prophets had been slain and the people had declared allegiance to God. His policy is to assail servants of God then to shake confidence in God, tempt to distrust Him and question His love, discourage the soul and break hold upon infinite power, and he still attacks weak points of character whenever one is encompassed with clouds, perplexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress. So Moses wearied by forty years of wandering failed just upon the borders of the promised land, and Christ was assailed by fiercest temptations in hunger.

By that one failure of faith in weakness and weariness after bearing a heavy burden for Israel through three and a half years of famine, faithfully warning against national idolatry and watching for repentance, standing alone for God on Carmel where through faith idolatry was cast down and blessed rain testified to showers of blessing, he turned aside and fled before the threat and alone in the desert prayed that he might die. By that failure he cut short his life-work, and the work he had begun he was not to complete, for God bade him anoint another to be prophet in his stead. His despair came when his life-work seemed threatened with defeat, yet in that extreme weakness he learned to trust God under forbidding circumstances. God had marked his heart-service, so he was not to perish in discouragement and solitude in the wilderness nor descend to the tomb, but to ascend with God's angels to the presence of His glory.

The enemy's oath to make him like the slain prophets of Baal and to take his life by the next day put his life in danger, but it did not mean God had forgotten him, for he remained under God's care. The threat stands as an example of the danger faced by God's faithful people, whom God does not forget.

The history of his response to this threat offers help to God's people when they face difficulties. His sinking under this fearful trial, in which his strong spirit sank under temptation though favored of God and entrusted with great responsibility, is faithfully laid bare with the faults and follies of believers to teach that sinful natures through God's grace can gain fresh vigor to rise above the evil nature, take heart again, conquer and renew the conflict, so desponding hearts seeing where he struggled and fell are encouraged to press on and surmount obstacles instead of despairing at a standard more than human. It warns that yielding to human weakness and error brings loss, that sin brings only shame and loss, and that unbelief means failure, but that God's mercy reaches the deepest depths and faith lifts the repenting soul to share the adoption of the sons of God. It teaches them to trust the Lord rather than human wisdom, to remain in the way of duty, not to let fear discourage them, and to wait patiently and prayerfully with confidence in Him as their defense.