2 Kings 1:8
And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite.
The verse describes a hairy man girt with a girdle of leather about his loins, meaning coarse apparel with no outward display to attract admiration. By that description of hairy appearance and leather belt, Ahaziah recognized the messenger who had delivered God's message to him as Elijah. The verse identifies Elijah the Tishbite as still a prophet in Israel during the reign of Ahab at the time Ahab set his heart on possessing Naboth's vineyard near his palace.
In this episode, Elijah's message protested the king's turning from God to Baal-zebub. Ahaziah knew that if the messenger was Elijah, the announced judgment would surely come to pass, so he sent for the prophet in an attempt to avert it. The account of Ahaziah's sin and punishment to which the verse belongs serves as a warning against turning from God to heathen worship and deceptive supernatural counsel. Ahab's dominant trait of selfish covetousness, revealed in taking Naboth's vineyard, disastrously influenced the fortunes of the kingdom under his successors.
John the Baptist resembled Elijah in dress and manner and in coarseness of apparel, recalling the ancient prophet to those who heard John preach. John also resembled Elijah in plain and simple diet, eating locusts and wild honey from the wilderness with pure water.