# Elijah ## Intro Elijah was a prophet of Israel in the 800s BC. He is best known for one day on Mount Carmel, when he challenged 450 prophets of the storm god Baal to a public test: each side would build an altar, call on its god, and the god who answered by fire would be God. Baal's prophets shouted all day and nothing happened. Elijah soaked his altar with water three times, prayed a short prayer, and fire fell from heaven and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the water. The people fell on their faces and cried out, "Jehovah, he is God" ([1 Kings 18:39](/codex/1-kings-18-39/)). His name says what his life was about. *Eliyahu* means "my God is Yahweh." He spent his ministry insisting that the God of Israel, not Baal, sends the rain, gives life and answers prayer. He did not die. Scripture says he was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, with a chariot of fire separating him from Elisha ([2 Kings 2:11](/codex/2-kings-2-11/)). Centuries later the prophet Malachi promised that God would send Elijah again before the great day of the LORD, and the Gospels say that promise was fulfilled in John the Baptist. ![Elijah carried up in a chariot of fire as Elisha kneels below with arms raised, oil painting by Giuseppe Angeli, about 1740 to 1755](/codex/assets/elijah-chariot-of-fire-angeli.jpg) *Elijah is taken up in a chariot of fire while Elisha watches ([2 Kings 2:11](/codex/2-kings-2-11/)). Giuseppe Angeli, c. 1740-1755, National Gallery of Art, Washington. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.* ## In full Elijah the Tishbite (Hebrew *Eliyyahu*, "my God is Yah[weh]"; Greek *Ēlias*), from Tishbe in Gilead, is the dominant prophetic figure of the Omride period, active c. 870-850 BC under Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram of Israel. His narrative cycle runs from [1 Kings 17](/codex/1-kings-17/) through [2 Kings 2](/codex/2-kings-2/), with a letter to Jehoram of Judah recorded in [2 Chronicles 21:12-15](/codex/2-chronicles-21-12-15/). The cycle is organized as a sustained polemic against the Baal cult that Ahab's Phoenician queen Jezebel promoted in the Northern Kingdom: a drought announced in Yahweh's name against the god credited with rain ([1 Kings 17:1](/codex/1-kings-17-1/)), life restored to a widow's son in Baal's own Sidonian territory, the fire contest on Carmel, and the return of rain at Elijah's prayer. The cycle then turns inward. After Carmel Elijah flees Jezebel to Horeb, the mountain of Moses, where God passes by in wind, earthquake and fire but is "not in the fire," and speaks instead in "a still small voice" ([1 Kings 19:11-13](/codex/1-kings-19-11-13/)). The scene deliberately revisits Sinai and qualifies the Carmel victory: God is sovereign over fire, but He is not identified with it. Elijah is recommissioned to anoint Hazael, Jehu and Elisha, a three-part commission that Elisha finishes. In the canon that follows, Elijah becomes an eschatological figure. [Malachi 4:5-6](/codex/malachi-4-5-6/) promises "Elijah the prophet" before the day of the LORD. The New Testament reads John the Baptist as that promised Elijah, coming "in the spirit and power of Elijah" ([Luke 1:17](/codex/luke-1-17/)), places Elijah beside Moses at the Transfiguration, and uses him as the model of effective prayer ([James 5:17-18](/codex/james-5-17-18/)). Second Temple Judaism praised him as a prophet "like fire" (Sirach 48:1), and later Jewish practice keeps a cup for Elijah at the Passover seder. ## Biographical sketch - **Origin.** "Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead" ([1 Kings 17:1](/codex/1-kings-17-1/), ASV). Gilead lies east of the Jordan. Nothing is recorded of his family, call or age; he enters the narrative already speaking in Yahweh's name before the king. - **The drought.** Elijah announces to Ahab that there will be neither dew nor rain "but according to my word" ([1 Kings 17:1](/codex/1-kings-17-1/)). The New Testament gives the length as three years and six months ([Luke 4:25](/codex/luke-4-25/); [James 5:17](/codex/james-5-17/)). - **Cherith and Zarephath.** God feeds him by ravens at the brook Cherith, then sends him to a widow at Zarephath near Sidon, whose flour and oil do not run out. When her son dies, Elijah stretches himself on the boy three times and he revives ([1 Kings 17:17-24](/codex/1-kings-17-17-24/)), the first resurrection recorded in Scripture. Jesus later cites the Zarephath widow as a sign of God's mercy to Gentiles ([Luke 4:25-26](/codex/luke-4-25-26/)). - **Carmel.** Elijah confronts Ahab ("Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?"), summons the people and the prophets of Baal and Asherah to Mount Carmel, and asks the question of the whole cycle: "How long go ye limping between the two sides? if Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him" ([1 Kings 18:21](/codex/1-kings-18-21/), ASV). The fire falls, the people confess Yahweh, and the prophets of Baal are executed at the brook Kishon ([1 Kings 18:40](/codex/1-kings-18-40/)). Elijah then prays on the summit seven times until a small cloud rises from the sea and the rain returns ([1 Kings 18:42-45](/codex/1-kings-18-42-45/)). - **Horeb.** Threatened by Jezebel, Elijah flees to Beersheba, asks to die under a broom tree, is fed by an angel, and travels forty days to Horeb. There God asks twice, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" and answers his despair with the still small voice and the news that seven thousand in Israel have not bowed to Baal ([1 Kings 19](/codex/1-kings-19/)). - **The call of Elisha.** Elijah throws his mantle over Elisha at the plow ([1 Kings 19:19-21](/codex/1-kings-19-19-21/)). See [Elisha](/codex/elisha/). - **Naboth's vineyard.** After Jezebel arranges the judicial murder of Naboth so that Ahab can take his land, Elijah meets Ahab in the vineyard and pronounces judgment on the dynasty ([1 Kings 21](/codex/1-kings-21/)). Ahab's repentance delays it. - **Ahaziah and the captains of fifty.** When Ahab's son Ahaziah sends to Baal-zebub of Ekron to ask whether he will recover, Elijah intercepts the messengers. Two companies sent to arrest him are consumed by fire from heaven; the third captain pleads for mercy and is spared ([2 Kings 1](/codex/2-kings-1/)). - **Taken up.** Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan on dry ground when Elijah strikes it with his mantle. Elisha asks for a double portion of his spirit. "There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" ([2 Kings 2:11](/codex/2-kings-2-11/), ASV). With Enoch, he is one of two people in the Old Testament who do not die. ## Carmel: a public test between gods The Carmel narrative is the clearest Old Testament example of a deliberately *public, falsifiable* test of a religious claim, and it is worth reading that way. 1. **The terms are agreed in advance.** "The God that answereth by fire, let him be God" ([1 Kings 18:24](/codex/1-kings-18-24/)). The people accept the terms before either side acts. 2. **The test targets Baal's claimed domain.** In the Ugaritic texts Baal (Hadad) is the storm god who rides the clouds and wields lightning. A drought and a contest by fire from the sky attack Baal precisely where his worshippers located his power. 3. **The opponent goes first and gets every advantage.** Baal's prophets choose their bull, outnumber Elijah 450 to 1, and are given from morning until the evening offering. Elijah's taunts ("cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth," [1 Kings 18:27](/codex/1-kings-18-27/)) mock the idea of a god with human limits. 4. **Elijah removes every natural explanation he can.** He rebuilds the altar of Yahweh with twelve stones for the twelve tribes, digs a trench, and has the sacrifice drenched with water three times ([1 Kings 18:32-35](/codex/1-kings-18-32/)). 5. **The prayer is short and names its purpose.** "Let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel... that this people may know that thou, Jehovah, art God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again" ([1 Kings 18:36-37](/codex/1-kings-18-36-37/), ASV). 6. **The result is total.** The fire consumes the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust and the water in the trench ([1 Kings 18:38](/codex/1-kings-18-38/)). The narrative is the Old Testament's own rebuttal of the idea that biblical faith asks for belief without evidence. Elijah does not ask Israel to believe blindly. He asks them to stop limping between two opinions once the evidence is in. See [Faith is Belief Without Evidence Objection](/codex/faith-is-belief-without-evidence-objection/). ## Horeb: God is not in the fire The sequel matters as much as the victory. At Horeb "a great and strong wind rent the mountains... but Jehovah was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but Jehovah was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but Jehovah was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" ([1 Kings 19:11-12](/codex/1-kings-19-11-13/), ASV). - **The setting is deliberate.** Horeb is Sinai, where wind, earthquake and fire had accompanied the giving of the law ([Exodus 19:18](/codex/exodus-19-18/)). Elijah, the prophet who had just called down fire, is brought to the place of Moses. - **The point is not that fire is false.** God really sent fire on Carmel. The point is that God is not a force of nature to be identified with storm and flame, which is exactly what Baal worship did. The God who commands the fire speaks personally. - **The Hebrew phrase is striking.** *Qol demamah daqqah* is literally something like "a sound of thin silence" or "a voice of gentle stillness." Translators have rendered it as "still small voice" (ASV, KJV), "gentle whisper," and "sound of sheer silence." The exact nuance is debated; the contrast with the preceding violence is not. See [Fire of God in Scripture](/codex/fire-of-god-in-scripture/) for the wider pattern. ## Elijah in the New Testament | Text | Use of Elijah | |------|---------------| | Malachi 4:5-6 | The promise behind every later use: "I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come." | | Luke 1:17 | The angel says John will go before the Lord "in the spirit and power of Elijah." | | Matthew 11:14; Matthew 17:10-13 | Jesus identifies John the Baptist as the Elijah who was to come. | | John 1:21 | John himself denies being Elijah. | | Matthew 17:3 | Elijah appears with Moses at the Transfiguration, the Law and the Prophets standing with Christ. | | Mark 15:35-36 | Bystanders at the cross mishear "Eloi" as a call for Elijah. | | Luke 4:25-26 | Jesus cites the widow of Zarephath as God's mercy reaching a Gentile. | | Luke 9:54-55 | James and John ask to call down fire on a Samaritan village; Jesus rebukes them. | | Romans 11:2-5 | Paul uses the seven thousand of 1 Kings 19 as the pattern of a faithful remnant. | | James 5:17-18 | Elijah, "a man of like passions with us," as the model of effective prayer. | Two of these need comment. - **Is John Elijah or not?** Jesus says of John, "this is Elijah, that is to come" ([Matthew 11:14](/codex/matthew-11-14/)), yet John says "I am not" ([John 1:21](/codex/john-1-21/)). The two statements answer different questions. John denies being Elijah literally returned from heaven, which is what his questioners were asking. Jesus affirms that John fulfils Elijah's prophetic role, which is how [Luke 1:17](/codex/luke-1-17/) had already put it: "in the spirit and power of Elijah." Jesus even qualifies His own statement, "if ye are willing to receive it" ([Matthew 11:14](/codex/matthew-11-14/)). This is a standard case of an apparent contradiction resolved by asking what each speaker meant; see [Bible Contradictions Objection Defeater](/codex/bible-contradictions-objection-defeater/). - **Fire on the Samaritans.** In [Luke 9:54](/codex/luke-9-54/) James and John ask whether to call fire down "as Elijah did." That last phrase appears in the KJV, which follows the Textus Receptus, but is absent from the earliest manuscripts and from the ASV. Either way the allusion is to [2 Kings 1](/codex/2-kings-1/), and Jesus' rebuke marks a deliberate contrast between the prophet of fire and the Son of Man who came to save. ## Objections ### "Elijah slaughtered 450 prophets" The execution at the brook Kishon ([1 Kings 18:40](/codex/1-kings-18-40/)) is a standard objection to the Elijah cycle. - **It is described within Israel's covenant law, not prescribed for anyone today.** The Mosaic law treated a prophet who led Israel to other gods as guilty of a capital offence against the covenant ([Deuteronomy 13:1-5](/codex/deuteronomy-13-1-5/); [18:20](/codex/deuteronomy-18-20/)). Elijah acts as a covenant prophet inside a theocracy, not as a model for private believers. - **The Baal cult was not harmless.** Jezebel had already "cut off the prophets of Jehovah" ([1 Kings 18:4](/codex/1-kings-18-4/)), and the Naboth episode shows the regime killing for land. The prophets at Carmel were the religious arm of a state that persecuted Yahweh's prophets. - **The New Testament closes the door on imitation.** When disciples want to imitate Elijah's fire, Jesus rebukes them ([Luke 9:54-55](/codex/luke-9-54-55/)). Christians read Elijah's judgments as belonging to his covenant setting. See [OT Atrocities Descriptive vs Prescriptive Objection](/codex/ot-atrocities-descriptive-vs-prescriptive-objection/). ### "The fire was a trick" Some naturalistic readings propose that the liquid poured on the altar was not water but a flammable substance. The narrative gives no support for this. It names the liquid as water drawn in jars, at the end of a long drought, and the fire consumes the stones and the dust as well as the wood. A reader is free to doubt that the event happened, but rewriting the details so that it becomes a conjuring trick is not a reading of the text. ### "There is no evidence Elijah existed" No inscription names Elijah, which is unsurprising for a prophet from the countryside who confronted rather than served the crown. The world of the narrative is well attested outside the Bible, though. The Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III lists "Ahab the Israelite" with 2,000 chariots at the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC, and the Mesha Stele names Omri, Ahab's father, as king of Israel. Phoenician Baal worship in the region is extensively documented. The narrative sits in a real political setting. ## Theological significance - **Monotheism under pressure.** Elijah's question, "How long go ye limping between the two sides?", is the classic statement that the God of Israel cannot be one option among several. See [Israelite Monotheism](/codex/israelite-monotheism/). - **Prayer.** James chose Elijah as his model precisely because he was ordinary: "a man of like passions with us" ([James 5:17](/codex/james-5-17/)). Both the drought and the rain came by prayer. - **The prophet in despair.** Elijah's collapse after his greatest victory, and God's answer with food, sleep, presence and a new task, is one of Scripture's most humane portraits of spiritual exhaustion. - **Forerunner.** Through Malachi, Elijah becomes the figure who prepares the way for the Lord, which the Gospels apply to John the Baptist and so, by implication, identify the "Lord" who follows with Jesus. ## See also - [Elisha](/codex/elisha/), his successor, the prophet of mercy beside the prophet of judgment - [Fire of God in Scripture](/codex/fire-of-god-in-scripture/), Carmel, Horeb, Isaiah's coal and Pentecost compared - [Moses](/codex/moses/), the prophet whose mountain Elijah revisits at Horeb - [Malachi 4.5-6](/codex/malachi-4-5-6/), the promise of Elijah's return - [Isaiah the Prophet](/codex/isaiah-the-prophet/), the later prophet whose lips were touched with fire - [Israelite Monotheism](/codex/israelite-monotheism/), the conviction Carmel dramatizes - [OT Atrocities Descriptive vs Prescriptive Objection](/codex/ot-atrocities-descriptive-vs-prescriptive-objection/), the frame for the Kishon executions - [Prayer](/codex/prayer/), James' use of Elijah as the model of effective prayer
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What happened between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel?** Elijah challenged 450 prophets of Baal to a public test: whichever god answered by fire would be acknowledged as God. Baal's prophets called on him all day with no answer. Elijah drenched his altar with water three times and prayed, and fire fell and consumed the sacrifice, the stones and the water ([1 Kings 18](/codex/1-kings-18-39/)). **Q: Did Elijah die?** No. Scripture says Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind while a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated him from Elisha ([2 Kings 2:11](/codex/2-kings-2-11/)). Enoch is the only other Old Testament figure said not to have died. **Q: Is John the Baptist Elijah?** Jesus said John was the Elijah Malachi promised ([Matthew 11:14](/codex/matthew-11-14/)), while John denied being Elijah himself ([John 1:21](/codex/john-1-21/)). Both are true in their sense: John was not Elijah returned from heaven, but he came "in the spirit and power of Elijah" ([Luke 1:17](/codex/luke-1-17/)) to prepare the way for the Lord. **Q: What is the still small voice in [1 Kings 19](/codex/1-kings-19/)?** At Horeb God passed by in wind, earthquake and fire but was "not in" them, then spoke in "a still small voice," a phrase that can also be rendered "a sound of gentle stillness" ([1 Kings 19:11-13](/codex/1-kings-19-11-13/)). The scene teaches that God commands the forces of nature without being identified with them, the very mistake of Baal worship. **Q: Why did Elijah kill the prophets of Baal?** The narrative places the act inside Israel's covenant law, which treated a prophet who led the people to other gods as guilty of a capital offence ([Deuteronomy 13:1-5](/codex/deuteronomy-13-1-5/)), and inside a regime that was killing Yahweh's prophets. It is described, not commanded for later believers, and Jesus rebuked disciples who wanted to imitate Elijah's fire ([Luke 9:54-55](/codex/luke-9-54-55/)).