1 Kings 19:20

_AND HE LEFT THE OXEN, AND RAN AFTER ELIJAH, AND SAID, LET ME, I PRAY THEE, KISS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER, AND THEN I WILL FOLLOW THEE. AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, GO BACK AGAIN: FOR WHAT HAVE I DONE TO THEE?_ What have I done to thee? - i:e., Go, but keep in mind the solemn ceremony I have just performed on thee. It is not I, but God, who calls thee. Do not allow any earthly affection to detain you from obeying His call....

19-21 Elijah found Elisha by Divine direction, not in the schools of the prophets, but in the field; not reading, or praying, or sacrificing, but ploughing. Idleness is no man's honour, nor is husbandry any man's disgrace. An honest calling in the world, does not put us out of the way of our heavenly calling, any more than it did Elisha. His heart was touched by the Holy Spirit, and he was ready to leave all to attend Elijah. It is in a day of power that Christ's subjects are made willing; nor would any come to Christ unless they were thus drawn. It was a discouraging time for prophets to set out in. A man that had consulted with flesh and blood, would not be fond of Elijah's mantle; yet Elisha cheerfully leaves all to accompany him. When the Saviour said to one and to another, Follow me, the dearest friends and most profitable occupations were cheerfully left, and the most arduous duti...

Verse 1 Kings 19:20. _LET ME - KISS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER_] Elisha fully understood that he was called by this ceremony to the prophetic office: and it is evident that he conferred not with flesh and blood, but resolved, immediately resolved, to obey; only he wished to bid farewell to his relatives. See below. _WHAT HAVE I DONE TO THEE?_] Thy call is not from _me_, but from God: to _him_, not to _me_, art thou accountable for thy use or abuse of it....

LET ME, I PRAY THEE, KISS MY FATHER ... - Not an unnatural request before following his new spiritual father. Elijah sees in his address a divided heart, and will not give the permission or accept the service thus tendered. Hence, his cold reply. See Luke 9:61. GO BACK AGAIN ... - i. e., “Go, return to thy plowing ... why shouldest thou quit it? Why take leave of thy friends and come with me? What have I done to thee to require such a sacrifice? for as a sacrifice thou evidently regardest it. Truly I have done nothing to thee. Thou canst remain as thou art.”...

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 HE LEFT THE OXEN, AND RAN AFTER ELIJAH,.... His heart being touched by the Lord at the same time, and his mind enlightened to understand what was meant by that action: AND SAID, LET ME, I PRAY THEE, KISS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER; take his leave of them in this way, which was what was used by friends at parting, see Ruth 1:9 AND THEN I WILL FOLLOW THEE; which he understood was meant by his casting his mantle over him: AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, GO BACK AGAIN; to his plough: FOR WHAT HAVE I DONE TO THEE? he had only cast the skirts of his mantle over him, and had said nothing to him; this he said to try him, and get out of him what was in his heart, and how it had been touched by the Spirit of God; and if so, then he suggests it was not what he had done, but what the Lord had impressed upon him, that would oblige him to return,

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;

WHAT HAVE. DONE. ? Figure of speech _Erotesis_ (App-6), or "what is the meaning of what. did? ...

_kiss my father and my mother_ He was sensible that the separation was to be permanent, and that a higher call than that of earthly parentage was laid upon him. This is the ground for his petition. Thus will he make known to his parents the reason of his departure. _Go back again: for what have I done to thee?_ Elijah grants his request, but accompanies the permission with words which must remind Elisha that he cannot now stay amid his home duties, -Go back again," he says, -but let it be only for the filial leave-taking, for what have I done to thee? Have I not chosen thee to be my companion and helper? Is not God's voice calling thee, through me, to do Him service?...