But if Elijah had expected that the misery of his subjects would bring the wicked King to reason,he was mistaken.On the contrary.This national calamity so greatly incensed Jezebel that she persecuted the followers of Jehovah more unmercifully than ever before.Only a few of the faithful old priests survived,but they depended for their support upon Obadiah,the master of the palace of Ahab,who was a good man,and who hid them in his palace.Before they too should be killed,Jehovah decided to save them.
He ordered Elijah to return to Israel and address the King once more.
Of course,Elijah knew that he took his life in his hands the moment he crossed the border of Israel.
He waited outside the royal residence until he met Obadiah (who was looking for grazing fields for the King's horses),and he bade this excellent man prepare Ahab for another solemn visit of Jehovah's messenger.
Once more,the King and the Prophet faced each other.
Ahab,who was in dreadful fear of Elijah's magic power,listened patiently enough,and did as he was told to do.He called together all the priests of Baal.He told them to come to the top of Mount Carmel,which dominated the great plain of Jezreel,and not to tarry by the way.Unless there was immediate relief from hunger and thirst,there would be a revolution,and this meeting (so Ahab was told)might give him the opportunity to save his country.
From far and wide the priests of Baal hastened to Mount Carmel.
The people,hoping to witness an exhibition of Elijah's strange magic,were present in large numbers.
They saw a lonely old man standing in front in a neglected and half-ruined stone altar which had been erected hundreds of years before when the earliest settlers had taken possession of the land.
When all the Baal priests seemed to be present,Elijah addressed the multitude.
There seemed to be some doubt,so he said,who was mightier,Jehovah or Baal.Very well.That question was to be decided now and for all time.Then he asked for two young bulls.One of these he gave to his enemies,that they might prepare it ready for sacrifice.The other he kept for himself.
When the animals had been killed,the pieces of meat were laid upon the wood of the altars.
“Now we will wait for a miracle,”Elijah announced.“Neither of us will use fire to light the wood of our altar,but we will each pray to our god,and then we will see what happens.”
All day long,the heathen threw themselves upon their faces before Baal,asking him to come to their assistance.But their altar remained as cold as the waters of the river Kishon.They shouted and chanted strange incantations,but nothing happened.
Elijah taunted them.
“A wonderful god,this Baal of yours,”he cried,forgetting the danger in which he stood,“a noble god,who cannot even come to the rescue of his own people.Perhaps your Baal has gone on a journey.Perhaps he is asleep.Shout a little louder.He may hear you yet.”
But nothing happened.
Elijah allowed them until evening.
Then he asked the people to step close and watch him.
He took twelve stones (as a symbol of the twelve tribes of the old Jewish nation)and with these he repaired the altar.Next he dug a trench around it so that it should stand isolated from everybody and everything.
Finally,to impress the crowd,he asked some men to pour out barrels of water over the wood and over the stones.
When this had been done three times,and the whole altar was thoroughly drenched,Elijah called upon the God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel.
Immediately a bolt of fire fell from Heaven.
Amidst the hissing of steam and the crackling of the wet branches,the offering of Elijah went up into smoke.
The power of Jehovah stood revealed before all the people.
Elijah made good use of that moment of victory.
“Destroy these impostors,”he shouted,pointing to the prophets of Baal,and the Israelites fell upon the foreign intruders,and they took them to the bank of the river Kishon,and they killed every single one of the four-hundred-and-fifty false priests.
Then Elijah turned once more to Ahab.Jehovah,he now told him,was satisfied.Before evening,the drought would come to an end.
With this promise ringing in his ears,Ahab returned to his residence.Before he had driven half a mile,the sky was darkened by the clouds which suddenly came up from the sea.A few minutes later it began to rain.The rain poured down upon the parched fields.For the first time in three years and six months,the soil of Israel felt the touch of a drop of water.
When Ahab told his wife what had happened that afternoon,the Queen was beside herself with anger.She gave orders that Elijah be taken and be brought to justice for the murder of her friends.
Elijah,however,had disappeared.He knew that this time he could not hope for mercy,and he hid himself with unusual care.He walked clear through Israel and Judah and did not stop until he had reached the village of Beer-Sheba,on the southern frontier of the southern kingdom.
Even there he did not feel quite safe.Soon he pushed further into the desert and for a moment it looked as if he would perish from hunger and thirst.
But an angel of Jehovah brought him food and he ate it and thereupon he was able to wander forty days without a further meal.
At last he reached Mount Horeb,one of the peaks of the peninsula of Sinai.This was holy ground.Here,a thousand years before,Moses had received the laws of Jehovah amidst the crash of thunder.
The experience of Elijah,when he received his divine message,was quite different.First of all there came a terrible gust of wind which almost blew the Prophet down a precipice.
Elijah listened,but did not hear anything.
Then there was heard the rumbling noise of a mighty earthquake.It was followed by a fire.
Once more,Elijah listened,but he heard nothing.
Suddenly the earth and the wind came to rest.
There was the sound of a thin silence.
And Elijah heard the voice of Jehovah.
