1 Kings 19:4

_BUT HE HIMSELF WENT A DAY'S JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS, AND CAME AND SAT DOWN UNDER A JUNIPER TREE: AND HE REQUESTED FOR HIMSELF THAT HE MIGHT DIE; AND SAID, IT IS ENOUGH; NOW, O LORD, TAKE AWAY MY LIFE; FOR I AM NOT BETTER THAN MY FATHERS._ Went a day's journey into the wilderness - on the way from Beer-sheba to Horeb [a wide expanse of sand-hills, covered with the _ ROTEM_ (H7574) (not juniper, but broom shrub), whose tall and spreading branches, with their white leaves, afford a very cheering and refreshing shade]. 'The Rothem, or Retem,' says Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 1:, p. 299), 'is the largest and most conspicuous shrub of these deserts, growing thickly in the valleys and water-courses. Our Arabs always selected the place of encampment (if possible) in a place where it grew, in order to be sheltered by it at night from the wind; and during the day, when they often went o...

1-8 Jezebel sent Elijah a threatening message. Carnal hearts are hardened and enraged against God, by that which should convince and conquer them. Great faith is not always alike strong. He might be serviceable to Israel at this time, and had all reason to depend upon God's protection, while doing God's work; yet he flees. His was not the deliberate desire of grace, as Paul's, to depart and be with Christ. God thus left Elijah to himself, to show that when he was bold and strong, it was in the Lord, and the power of his might; but of himself he was no better than his fathers. God knows what he designs us for, though we do not, what services, what trials, and he will take care that we are furnished with grace sufficient....

Verse 1 Kings 19:4. _A DAY'S JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS_] Probably in his way to Mount Horeb. See 1 Kings 19:8. _JUNIPER TREE_] A tree that afforded him a shade from the scorching sun. _IT IS ENOUGH_] I have lived long enough! I can do no more good among this people; let me now end my days....

Elijah did not feel himself safe until he was beyond the territory of Judah, for Ahab might demand him of Jehoshaphat 1 Kings 18:10, with whom he was on terms of close alliance 1 Kings 22:4. He, therefore, proceeds southward into the desert, simply to be out of the reach of his enemies. A JUNIPER-TREE - The tree here mentioned רתם _rethem_ is not the juniper but a species of broom (_Genista_ _monosperma_), called “rethem” by the Arabs, which abounds in the Sinaitic peninsula. It grows to such a size as to afford shade and protection, both in heat and storm, to travelers. REQUESTED FOR HIMSELF THAT HE MIGHT DIE - Like Moses and Jonah (marginal references)

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

BUT HE HIMSELF WENT A DAY'S JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS,.... Of Paran, which began near Beersheba, and was the wilderness of Arabia, in which the Israelites were near forty years; this day's journey carried him about twenty miles from Beersheba southward, as the above writer reckons: AND CAME AND SAT DOWN UNDER A JUNIPER TREE; Abarbinel supposes that Elijah chose to sit under this tree, to preserve him from venomous creatures, which naturalists say will not come near it; and Pliny o indeed observes, that it being burnt will drive away serpents, and that some persons anoint themselves with the oil of it, for fear of them; and yet Virgil p represents the shade of a juniper tree as noxious; hence some interpreters take this to be a piece of carelessness and indifference of the prophet's, where he sat: AND HE REQUESTED FOR HIMSELF THAT HE MIGHT DIE; for though he fled from Jezebel to prese...

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;

HIMSELF. his soul. Hebrew. _nephesh._ App-13....

_a day's journey into the wilderness_ The wilderness here spoken of is the desert of Paran, through which the Israelites had of old wandered from Egypt toward the promised land. _under a juniper tree_ The LXX. merely represents the Hebrew name רֹתֶם by a transliteration ὑποκάτω Ραθμέν. The plant is one of the broom kind. It was stout enough to be used for fuel (Psalms 120:4), and in time of famine its roots could be eaten (Job 30:3-4). The last quoted passage marks it as a tree growing in the wilderness. The Hebrew says literally - _one_juniper tree," and thus depicts for us the desolate country just on the borders of the wilderness. _that he might die_ The prophet had probably had some hope that Ahab would disown the idolatrous worship after the scene on Carmel and the destruction of