1 Kings 19:13

_AND AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE A FIRE; BUT THE LORD WAS NOT IN THE FIRE: AND AFTER THE FIRE A STILL SMALL VOICE._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

9-13 The question God put, What doest thou here, Elijah? is a reproof. It concerns us often to ask whether we are in our place, and in the way of our duty. Am I where I should be? whither God calls me, where my business lies, and where I may be useful? He complained of the people, and their obstinacy in sin; I only am left. Despair of success hinders many a good enterprise. Did Elijah come hither to meet with God? he shall find that God will meet him. The wind, and earthquake, and fire, did not make him cover his face, but the still voice did. Gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord, than by his terrors. The mild voice of Him who speaks from the cross, or the mercy-seat, is accompanied with peculiar power in taking possession of the heart....

Verse 1 Kings 19:13. _WRAPPED HIS FACE IN HIS MANTLE_] This he did to signify his _respect_; so Moses hid his face, for he dared not to look upon God Exodus 3:6. _Covering the face_ was a token of respect among the Asiatics, as _uncovering the head_ is among the Europeans....

MANTLE - The upper garment, a sort of short cloak or cape - perhaps made of untanned sheepskin, which was, besides the strip of leather round his loins, the sole apparel of the prophet (compare Matthew 3:4). For the action compare the marginal references. THERE CAME A VOICE UNTO HIM ... - The question heard before in vision is now put again to the prophet by the Lord Himself. Elijah gives no humbler and more gentle answer. He is still satisfied with his own statement of his case....

EXPOSITION ELIJAH'S FLIGHT THE THEOPHANY OF HOREB AND THE CALLING OF ELISHA.—We can readily understand with what a sense of humiliation and shame the weak and excited king, who must have been awed and impressed by the strange portent he had witnessed, would recount the day's proceedings to his imperious and headstrong consort, and with what intense mortification and rage she must have heard of the triumph of the proscribed religion and of the defeat and death of the priests of Baal. One might almost have expected that the testimony of an eyewitness, and that her husband, to the greatness and completeness of Elijah's victory; that his unprejudiced, and indeed unwilling, account of the sacrifices, of the descent of the heavenly fire, of the cries it wrung from the people, etc; w

AND IT WAS SO, WHEN ELIJAH HEARD IT, THAT HE WRAPPED HIS FACE IN HIS MANTLE,.... Through reverence of the divine Majesty he perceived was there, and through shame and confusion under a sense of his impurity, imperfections, and unworthiness, as the seraphim in Isaiah 6:2, and as Moses, Exodus 3:6, and went out and stood in the entering in of the cave; he attempted to come forth out of the cave upon the divine order, 1 Kings 19:11, but was stopped by the terrible appearances of the wind, earthquake, and fire, a little within it; but now he came quite out, and stood at the mouth of it, to hear what the Lord would say unto him: AND, BEHOLD, THERE CAME A VOICE UNTO HIM, AND SAID, WHAT DOST THOU HERE, ELIJAH? the same q

3. ELIJAH IN THE WILDERNESS AND UPON MOUNT HOREB CHAPTER 19 _ 1. Elijah's flight and despondency (1 Kings 19:1)_ 2. Upon Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:9) 3. Elisha called (1 Kings 19:10) Elijah perhaps stopped at the very door of the palace where wicked Jezebel dwelt. He would remain with Ahab to the very last before he went in to face the queen. Should not Elijah have remained and gone even before Jezebel to bear his testimony? Instead he becomes terrified of wicked Jezebel. Had he hoped that what had taken place on Carmel would result in bringing not alone Ahab back to Jehovah, but also influence Jezebel? If such was his expectation he must have been bitterly disappointed. Jezebel s

1 Kings 19:1. ELIJAH'S FLIGHT TO HOREB. HIS COMMISSION. Jezebel, it will be noticed, can do no more than threaten Elijah: her power is limited. Elijah escapes to the southern extremity of Judah, to Beersheba, a sacred place of pilgrimage frequented (Amos 5:5; Amos 8:14) even by N. Israelites. In the desert, under a juniper or broom tree, he received his vision (1 Kings 19:5), and went to Horeb, the Mount of God. Horeb is Sinai: the name is employed in the N. Israelite Hexateuchal narrative E and in Deuteronomy. It was supposed to be Yahweh's special dwelling-place (Judges 5:4;

WRAPPED: as Moses at the bush (Exodus 3:6). SAID. Some codices, with Syriac, add "unto him". Compare 1 Kings 19:9....

_wrapped his face in his mantle_ The revelation was not one for the eye, but for the spirit, of the prophet. Like Moses -he was afraid to look upon God" (Exodus 3:6). in _the entering in of the cave_ The command given before had been -Go forth and stand upon the mount," but this only applies to such an advance as would bring him out of the cave and into the open air, not to any climbing to the mountain top. _What doest thou here?_ This repeated question seeks to know whether the prophet has understood the manifestations that have been made to him, and whether he is able to apply them to his own circumstances. The answer coming in the same words as before seems to declare that Elijah is still ignorant of what is meant. God therefore gives him direct charges which shall make it clear that, though his own success has not been such as he expected, yet God's work is still going forw