Ahab of Israel [II]

The concluding chapters of 1 Kings and the beginning chapters of 2 Kings focus not on the kings of Israel but on their prophetic opponents: Elijah, Micaiah (whom we met in the previous chapter), and Elisha. The ‘Golden Years’ of the Omride Dynasty are undone by the spiritual corruption Israel endured, and the prophets who warred against such corruption became the linchpins upon which Israelite history turned. The spiritual depravity introduced by Jezebel and which infected the land wouldn’t be the end of Israel’s loyal followers of Yahweh: God preserved a remnant for Himself, and He saw them through these calamitous times and out the other side. 

Elijah the Tishbite

The first – and, without any hint of subjectivity, the greatest – of these prophets was Elijah the Tishbite. Elijah’s name meant ‘my God is Yahweh,’ and he hailed from the town of Tishbe, about eight miles north of the Jabbok River in the rugged area of Gilead. He became known for appearing and disappearing, seemingly at random (but in truth at the direction of God), so that a mythology developed that he was carried hither and thither by the Spirit of God. He was easily recognizable: he was a hairy man, and he wore a distinctive cloak and a wide leather belt. It’s interesting that Assyrian inscriptions around this time portray individuals wearing lion-headed cloaks; one can easily imagine the prophet Elijah wearing such a cloak as he prowled around apostate Israel delivering stinging rebukes to King Ahab and slaughtering false prophets. His rough, hairy garment became his trademark, and when his commission was passed on to his apprentice Elisha, Elisha took the cloak as his own. 

Elijah ministered during the Omride Dynasty reigns of Ahab, Ahaziah, and some of Jehoram. His commission from Yahweh was brought to completion by his successor Elisha (though we may assume that God intended Elijah to see it through to the end). Yahweh summoned Elijah to convince Ahab to get a hold on his domineering wife and wayward kingdom and to warn people away from the ever-growing Baalism. Yahweh endowed him with powers reminiscent of those employed by Moses and Joshua hundreds of years before (such as the ability to ‘split waters’), and these powers are designed to showcase the fact that, despite Jezebel’s claims, Yahweh was alive and well and could unleash the full brunt of His power if He so desired. The biblical narrative highlights a slew of Yahweh’s powers that are direct mockeries of Baal. The power to create drought and bring rain, power over the fertility of the fields and oil in the land, power to resurrect the dead, power to bring lightning upon a mountain, and power to split the waters: Canaanite mythology attributes these powers to Baal, so that when Yahweh performs them, He is, in effect, ‘showing up’ Baal. Even Yahweh’s prophet is a mockery of the pagan god: the powers God gave Elijah were also the powers thought to belong to Baal so that the people understand that not only was Yahweh greater than Baal, but so too was His mortal human prophet. The main thrust of Elijah’s ministry – in both his words and deeds and the miraculous displays of God – was a simple message: ‘Don’t worship Baal, worship Yahweh! Baal is a peon when compared to the Living God of Israel!’

In this vein Elijah’s ministry should be viewed as an ever-strengthening contest between Yahweh and Baal (and in which Elijah earns himself loathing from Ahab and Jezebel). In four episodes, or ‘scenes,’ the narrative of 1 Kings highlights Yahweh’s power and Baal’s impotence. Each episode is more telling than the last, and they culminate with a slaughter of Baal’s state-sponsored prophets. The first contest is a drought in the land which Yahweh initiates and which Baal is too weak to break; the next two take place in Phoenicia – Baal’s homeland – and serve as a double message: not only can Yahweh miraculously provide flour and oil and raise the dead to life (both of which Baal was thought to be able to do), but He could do these things in Baal’s own territory! The fourth and final contest takes place on the top of Mount Carmel, an epic showdown between the roughshod prophet of Yahweh and hundreds of the prophets of Baal. 

The First Contest: Yahweh Withholds Dew and Rain. Elijah began his ministry with an announcement of judgment on Israel for their waywardness; he announced to King Ahab, ‘As Yahweh lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand, there shall surely not be dew nor rain these years except by my command.’ His proclamation asserted that Yahweh, not Baal, was the God of Israel, no matter Jezebel’s intentions, and that Yahweh was a living God, not a figment of the imagination like Baal. Elijah said he ‘stood before’ Yahweh, identifying himself as Yahweh’s spokesman or ambassador. The judgment he announced – the withholding of rain and dew – was forewarned by Moses in Deuteronomy 11.16-17: ‘Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land Yahweh is giving you.’ Any good Israelite with even a modicum of knowledge about the Mosaic covenant stipulations and consequences could connect the dots: Israel was violating the covenant, and Moses’ warnings were coming to pass. 

Elijah fed by ravens at Kerith Brook

Elijah said neither rain nor dew would fall on Israel (the ensuing drought is attested in Phoenician records carried down in Greek sources). The normal rainy season was from December to March, and for the rest of the year the land received moisture from dew that could, at times, be as heavy as a drizzle. The result of such a drought would be famine, as Israel wouldn’t be able to grow the crops needed to feed its hungry mouths, not to mention a lack of water from streams drying up. This judgment was also polemical: Baal was said to govern the elements of nature; he was in charge of the rain and good crops, so that the lack of rain and the resultant poor harvests were a smear against his name. Yahweh had spoken, and neither Baal nor his prophets would be able to overcome God’s decree. Baal was thus rendered impotent for as long as the rain failed to come and the crops failed. The drought would culminate with Elijah’s contest with Baal’s prophets on Mount Carmel: when rain came, it would be evident to all that it was Yahweh’s doing and not Baal finally getting the upper hand.

modern-day Wadi Qelt, which may be the biblical Kerith Brook

After giving his pronouncement of judgment, Elijah fled from Ahab’s presence. No doubt Jezebel soon received word of him and wanted him dead; we know that Ahab ordered scouts to try to find him and bring him to pagan justice; and, of course, Elijah needed to hide himself from common folk who were suffering during the drought and famine (which would last a desolate three and a half years). Yahweh directed Elijah to the Kerith Brook, located in some secluded area of Gilead (some scholars suggest this was the Wadi Kelt, about thirty miles southeast of Samaria). There Elijah was watered by the brook and fed by ravens. Ravens are known to roost in such desolate rocky areas, and their habit of storing excess food in rocky crags would’ve worked to Elijah’s benefit. While it very well may be that God directed the ravens to specifically bring Elijah food, it’s also possible that Yahweh led Elijah to a secluded location with a fresh water supply and a large flock of roosting ravens. Though ravens are known for hoarding carrion, which would’ve been sickening to Elijah, they also have a propensity for fruit, such as dates. Thus at the Kerith Brook Elijah was sustained by God – until the brook ran dry because of the ongoing drought. 

The Second Contest: Yahweh Provides Flour and Oil. When the Kerith Brook ran out, God directed Elijah to migrate to Zerapheth, a Sidonian village in the very heartland of King Ethbaal, Jezebel’s fanatical father. Elijah likely took an indirect route east of the Jordan to avoid any contacts with Ahab’s agents – who were prowling around Israel and the surrounding nations in the hope of spying him out – before approaching Zerapheth’s city gates. Zerapheth was located at the modern city of Sarafand, near the Mediterranean coast between Tyre and Sidon, and as early as the 13th century BC it was noted as a harbor city in Egyptian texts. In Elijah’s day it was a flourishing manufacturing and industrial center, and it would continue to be a commercial hotspot well into Roman times. The very fact that Yahweh directed Elijah to seek sanctuary in Phoenicia is itself an attack on Baal: Yahweh could protect his own anywhere, even in Baal’s territory. Gods were assumed to be territorial, whether they be gods of certain nations or certain topographical features (such as lakes, rivers, mountains, and plains), but Yahweh’s power and ability was able to cross such assumed boundaries. 

Elijah encounters the Widow of Zarapheth

As Elijah entered the city gates, he saw a widow gathering sticks; the Hebrew verb suggests she was foraging for discarded stubble. Traffic through the city gate would’ve been immense, given Zerapheth’s commercial nature, and the jostling of caravans would’ve made the city gates a likely place for a scavenger to find small pieces of wood dropped by passerby anxious to be on their way. Despite the fact that Phoenicia was watered by fresh streams from the Lebanon mountains, she was still suffering the effects of the drought; Phoenicia was largely dependent upon Israel for grains, so failing Israelite crops meant skyrocketing grain prices in Phoenicia and plenty of starving families. Flour and oil were in short supply in the city; because they were two of the city’s major exports, their short supply indicates that the drought had reached them (all surplus was being consumed by the inhabitants). 

Elijah approached the woman and requested food and drink; doing so was well within the range of expected hospitality, but in a time of drought it only served to expose the hardships being endured. The woman somehow recognized Elijah as an Israelite, for she swears by ‘Yahweh your God’ that she didn’t have so much as one small cake of bread. By making her oath in Yahweh’s name, she was following standard protocol in giving her oath in the name of the deity of the person to whom she was addressing; as a common oath formula, it didn’t indicate she was loyal to Yahweh. She bitterly insisted that she didn’t have any food to provide him; her flour and oil – two of the most basic commodities of survival – were running out; she had enough to make food for herself and her son, and after that they would starve. Elijah insisted that she feed him first – basically reminding her of her duties of hospitality – and that afterwards Yahweh would make sure her flour and oil remained topped-off until the end of the drought. The widow agreed, and she took Elijah to her house and provided him food. Sure enough, Yahweh miraculously provided flour and oil for the widow, her son, and Elijah through the coming years. This, too, was an attack against Baal: while the chief Phoenician deity was unable to take care of his people, Yahweh was able to do so. We can assume that the widow and her soon worshipped Baal, as it was the religion of their homeland, and Yahweh’s provision must’ve had a profound affect on their religious inclinations. 

The Third Contest: Yahweh Raises the Dead. Elijah remained with the widow, hiding out from Ahab in enemy territory. At one point the widow’s son became sick and died, and the widow blamed his death on Elijah’s presence. With Elijah in her house, God had a spotlight on her family’s sins. She interpreted her son’s death as divine retribution for some sin that Yahweh wouldn’t have noticed had Elijah not been there. While she appreciated the benefit of limitless flour and oil, the cost of her son was too high. Upon the son’s death, Elijah engaged in an ‘action prayer,’ stretching himself over the child in order to keep the body warm for the expected return of life. Three times he performed the ‘action prayer,’ coupling it with prayers to Yahweh to revive the boy. Yahweh answered Elijah’s prayers, and the boy was brought back to life. Baal, in whose homeland the boy died, was said to have power over life and death; but it was Yahweh who could truly bring life from death.

Undue emphasis has been put upon Elijah’s ‘action prayer.’ Some have taken this as an example of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, since in ancient times death was said to occur when a person stopped breathing. However, Elijah’s full weight on the boy’s body would’ve been counterproductive if he were trying to revive him in this manner. Others have argued that this is a case of ‘sympathetic magic,’ and they point to Elisha resurrecting the dead in 2 Kings 4.34-35. Elisha’s actions are reminiscent of those seen in Mesopotamian incantation literature, in which the touching of one body part to another is a vehicle by which demons exercise power over their victims. It was believed that one’s ‘life force’ could be transferred from one body to another by contact of each part; by imitating the procedure believed to be used by demons, some argue that Elisha, through the power of Yahweh, was able to drive out the demons and restore the boy’s life. More likely is that Elijah’s actions were indicative of his belief that God would raise the boy; by keeping the boy warm with his body, he was keeping the boy ready for when God answered. In this sense the ‘action prayer’ was evidence of a firm faith in Yahweh’s ability.

The Penultimate Contest: Yahweh Displays His Power. Three years into his stay with the widow, Yahweh told Elijah to head back into Israel and meet King Ahab face-to-face, at which point he’d let him know that rain was coming soon. Meanwhile, in Israel, the drought and famine was hurting Israel badly. Ahab was concerned about his horses (which were required to keep his beloved chariots in peak operating condition), so he and his chief officer Obadiah divided the land and went hunting for forage to keep the chariot mounts fed. Obadiah (not to be confused with the literary prophet Obadiah) was a governor of Ahab’s Samarian palace; as such he was likely the steward of the royal lands and possessions, and in time his position would evolve into something akin to a modern-day Prime Minister. Unlike Ahab, Obadiah was devoted to Yahweh, though he kept his faith ‘under wraps;’ were Jezebel to find out, she would no doubt kill him. Obadiah used his high position in Ahab’s government to hide one hundred prophets of Yahweh in two caves and kept them sustained with food and water, quite a task given Israel’s predicament. These prophets-in-hiding were likely part of a ‘school’ of prophets that had existed since the days of the Judges (1 Samuel 10); these groups met together for study and spiritual encouragement and are mentioned several times throughout scripture (2 Kings 4.1, 28; 9.1). Elijah and Elisha may have exercised leadership in some of these groups (2 Kings 2.3-7, 15; 6.1-7). 

While scouring for forage, Obadiah ran into Elijah, who was on his way back from Phoenicia. Obadiah was surprised to see the prophet who’d been on the lam for three and a half years. Elijah instructed him to tell Ahab that he was there; Obadiah protested, telling the prophet that Ahab had been on the hunt for him and was even demanding extradition from foreign powers (ancient Near Eastern protocol often dictated extradition of foreign fugitives or runaway slaves). Obadiah confessed that he was afraid that Ahab would come out to meet him, find the prophet gone, and then take out his rage on Obadiah (Ahab, it seemed, had a temper). Elijah swore ‘by Yahweh of hosts’ that he would meet Ahab that very day; his vow ‘Yahweh of hosts’ was first used by Hannah in 1 Samuel 1.11, and ‘hosts’ can refer to the armies of Israel, the stars in the heavens, or angelic legions. Obadiah relented, informed Ahab, and sure enough Elijah was waiting for the king.

Mount Carmel

Ahab didn’t meet Elijah with a humble and contrite heart but with deep-seeded sarcasm and loathing. He expressed amazement that Elijah had dared to venture back into his presence and accused Elijah of being the ‘troubler of Israel.’ The Hebrew word indicates that Ahab was blaming Elijah for the drought: the prophet, by his actions, had alienated the national deity (likely Baal) so that Baal had withheld the rains. Elijah turned the tables on the king, saying that he was the troubler because he had ‘forsaken the commandments of Yahweh’ and ‘walked after the Baalim.’ He then got to the crux of their meeting: he proposed a final contest, a winner-takes-all extravaganza, in which Baal and Yahweh – through their prophets – would face off on a mountain sacred to both Israel and Phoenicia. The real deity would triumph, and people would know, once and for all, which deity was worthy of wholehearted loyalty. Ahab agreed to the contest and a summons went out. The leading citizens of Israel were invited to come out and watch the contest, and Ahab ‘gathered’ the 450 prophets of Baal (the Hebrew wording implies that the pagan prophets didn’t jump at the idea and were forced by their king to participate). Ahab invited 400 prophets of Asherah, but they didn’t come – they were likely Jezebel’s ministers imported from Sidon and fed from her table, and she probably didn’t allow them to attend the foolishness. The time for the contest drew nigh, and the participants and spectators gathered at Mount Carmel. No number is given for the size of observers that came together, but no doubt the event attracted hundreds if not thousands.

Mount Carmel lies on a twelve-mile ridge of mountains dividing the coastal plain of Palestine. ‘Carmel’ can refer to a mountain range that stretches about thirty miles from its genesis in the Mediterranean southeast toward Megiddo and which runs at the northwest end of the Valley of Jezreel, but here it likely refers to a specific ‘holy mountain’ that would’ve been held sacred by both the Phoenicians and Israelites; such a holy mountain was identified in the vicinity of Acco by Pharaoh Thutmose III in the 15th century. Near the mountain’s summit is a plateau where the contest may have taken place; however, the contest may also have occurred at the foot of the mountain, as sacred mountains usually featured places of worship at their base rather than at the summit (the summit was considered holy and inaccessible to the populace). A spring of water lie close to Mount Carmel which was said to flow even in the driest seasons. Elijah likely chose Mount Carmel as host to the contest because it was a central and convenient location, it was near the sea (from whence the rain would come), it possessed an old altar of Yahweh (which had been dismantled by Jezebel), and it was a site holy to both Phoenicians and Israelites – one wouldn’t be able to argue that topography or location gave one deity an upper hand over the other.

When everyone was gathered together – the 450 prophets of Baal to one side, Elijah to the other, and Ahab with his soldiers watching while thronged with hundreds if not thousands of spectators – Elijah raised his voice and demanded of the people, ‘How long will you waver, hobbling between devotion to Yahweh and devotion to Baal? If Yahweh is God, then follow him! If Baal is god, then follow him!’ People were worshipping both deities in a pluralist manner; they needed to decide one or the other and get on with the business of devotion. They needed to commit themselves wholeheartedly to the true God – and that’s what the contest was all about. After giving his charge to the people, Elijah got the contest started. Two sacrificial bulls were brought forward, and the Baal prophets were given first choice so that they couldn’t claim to have received the lesser of the two (despite given this advantage, the Baal prophets either let Elijah or the people choose the bull for them). Once a bull was selected, they were to cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their altar to Baal but not set fire to it; then they would call out to their god to consume the altar with fire. If Baal was God, then he would surely answer. That they were calling for fire to consume the bull was reassuring; fire was in Baal’s wheelhouse: Baal, after all, was the god of storm and lightning. 

Elijah’s set-up of the contest was ingenious. He gave the Baal prophets first choice of the bull and let them go first, and he would let them supplicate their god for hours: this would eliminate charges of trickery on his part while highlighting Baal’s impotence. When Yahweh answered Elijah’s prayer immediately, it would only serve to showcase Yahweh’s power. The culminating act – fire consuming the sacrifice – had several undercurrents that brought gravity to the contest. First, fire is an indication of God’s presence: in the Old Testament, from Moses’ burning bush to the pillar of fire that led the Israelites in the wilderness, fire was viewed as accompanying theophanies (physical manifestations of God’s presence); by asking for fire from heaven, the prophets were asking the deities to show themselves. Second, fire is connected to the lightning of the storm god. Baal was often portrayed with lightning bolts in his hand; ancient texts speak of him as flashing forth with fire and lightning; and in one text he even uses fire to build a house for himself. Baal’s worshippers considered him to be the master of fire; so when Yahweh brings fire where Baal doesn’t, it’s highly significant: Baal is impotent in the face of Yahweh. Third, fire represents the acceptance of sacrifice. Burnt offerings generally accompanied petitions, and the petition on everyone’s mind was for the drought to come to an end. If both parties had been praying for the drought to end, any resulting rain could be attributed by either group to its own god; to avoid any confusion, Elijah set up the contest to demonstrate which deity was responding to the petitions of his followers. If fire was sent on Baal’s sacrifice and then rain came, it would be known that Baal brought the rain; but if fire fell on Yahweh’s altar and then rain came, it would be known that Yahweh accepted the sacrifice and harkened to the petitions of the people. There was an intimate connection between the sending of the fire and the sending of the rain. 

The Baal prophets, given the spot of honor in the context, went first. They called on Baal to light the fire and burn up their sacrificial bull. They called on Baal from morning until noontime with no answer. They began dancing around the altar, trying to get Baal’s attention. Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Maybe Baal is daydreaming? Or could he be off taking a piss? Maybe he’s away on a trip, or he’s asleep and needs to be woken up? Come on! Shout louder! Wake up your god!’ Elijah’s taunts were rooted in ancient mythology: the gods of the Canaanite pantheon were thought to engage in humanlike behaviors, and Ugaritic literature portraying the cyclical death of Baal is emphatic in the need for Baal to be wakened each spring. The prophets shouted louder and then borrowed swords and spears from the soldiers and began cutting themselves, hoping by acts of self-mutilation to attract Baal’s attention. The prophets, covered in their own blood, ranted and raved in euphoric dancing, crying out for Baal to heed their petitions, but there was no sound, no reply, no response. The fanatical ‘prophesying’ continued for six hours, from the early morning to the time of the evening sacrifice, around three in the afternoon. Elijah let them go on and on because he wanted Baal’s impotency to be showcased to everyone gathered.

Around the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah tired of their foolishness and put a stop to the prophets’ endeavors. They collapsed, exhausted and at the end of their ropes, beside their unfired altar. Elijah called the people close to him (we can assume Ahab was right there in the thick of it; Elijah wanted Ahab to have a front-row seat to what was about to happen). He wanted everyone to have a good view of what he was doing so that there could be no suspicion of hoax or magic. He repaired the altar to Yahweh that had been torn down (assumedly by Jezebel), and he took twelve stones – one for each tribe of Israel – and rebuilt the altar. The altar may have been one of the ‘high places of old’ where the Israelites worshipped before Solomon’s Temple was built in Jerusalem, or it may have been built by some faithful Yahweh worshippers who didn’t bow the knee to Baal or the Golden Calves. Elijah’s use of twelve stones was a silent protest of the schism that had rent Israel in two, and by rebuilding the altar, Elijah presented himself as the restorer of God’s law and true faith. He built the new altar ‘in the name of Yahweh,’ which is to say that he rebuilt it by Yahweh’s authority and for Yahweh’s glory. After rebuilding the altar, he dug a trench around it large enough to hold three gallons of water; he then piled wood on the altar, cut the second bull into pieces, and laid the pieces on the wood. Then he took four large jars filled with water – likely undrinkable water from the nearby Mediterranean, but the water may also have come from the nearby stream if it hadn’t yet dried out – and he poured the water over the butchered bull and the wood. He did this a total of three times so that water filled the trench and soaked the bull and drenched the altar. The pouring of water may have been a symbolic petition for rain or a symbolism of repentance; at the very least it was done to emphasize Yahweh’s power when he burned the water-soaked offering as if it were nothing but dry stubble.

Completing this, Elijah prayed to God that He’d prove He was the God of the patriarchs and that Elijah was His servant. He prayed that God would prove to everyone gathered that He, not Baal, was God and that He was bringing His people back to Himself. At the moment his prayer ended, ‘fire from heaven’ flashed down upon the altar. This was likely lightning, which was a mockery of Baal, who was supposed to wield lightning bolts like spears; what Baal failed to do, Yahweh had no trouble doing. The tongues of fire didn’t just consume the offering and wood; it was so powerful that it also disintegrated the stones, scorched the dust around the altar, and even licked up the water in the trench! The fire from heaven and the acceptance of the sacrifice proved that all which Elijah had said with regard to the famine that started three and a half years ago – and all that he’d done with regard to organizing the confrontation with Baal’s prophets – had been done by Yahweh’s direction. The people recognized the divine presence in the fire, and they prostrated themselves before God, crying out, ‘Yahweh is God! Yahweh is God!’ Terror-stricken, they could only submit to Yahweh. 

The prophets of Baal were mortified – but their terror only grew when Elijah ordered the prophets seized. The people, now desperate to show themselves in alignment with Yahweh, did as Elijah instructed, and Elijah led them down to the Kishon Valley and ordered them executed beside the Kishon River. The river flows northwest from the northern end of the Jezreel Valley to the Mediterranean just east of modern Haifa; fed from the mountains in the Carmel range and from the Galilean hills, the river runs through the valley before emptying into the Mediterranean. The prophets’ corpses were likely hurled into the river so that they could be flushed out of the land and into the sea. Elijah ordered the massacre because the Mosaic Law required the execution of those who followed false gods, especially those who taught others in Israel to worship them (Exodus 22.20; Deuteronomy 13; 17.2-7). Elijah was under obligation to carry out the slaughter even if he didn’t like it –the king should’ve been the one ordering the death of the false prophets, but since Ahab was whipped by Jezebel and would chafe at doing anything that would rile her up, it was left to Elijah to do the king’s work. 

the slaughter of the Baal prophets

Some scholars believe Ahab had a change of heart at this point, that his experience at Mount Carmel rendered him a reluctant penitent, and so he didn’t oppose the massacre (it should be noted that, later in life, Ahab does show contrition before Yahweh, though it’s only after getting caught red-handed in a violent affair); others argue that Ahab didn’t have a change of heart and that he hated seeing the false prophets slain (if only because he knew the kind of rage of which Jezebel was capable), but that he was powerless to intervene and stop the blood-letting. No doubt even his royal bodyguard had been humbled by Yahweh’s power on Mount Carmel, and their swords were making quick work of the pitiful prophets. That Yahweh approved of the slaughter is evident in His acceptance of Elijah’s prayer after the fact; besides, as Jezebel had visited slaughter on Yahweh’s prophets, it was only fair that He visit slaughter on hers.

After the prophets were executed, Elijah confronted the white-faced Ahab and told him to ‘Go up’ and get some food in his belly and to have a drink, ‘because I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!’ The wording indicates that Ahab’s entourage had erected his royal tent somewhere on the slope between the summit (where the sacrifice likely took place) and the valley (where Baal’s prophets were slain); one can see Ahab standing shocked and ashen-faced on the bank of the Kishon River, the waters swollen with bodies and blood, and Elijah cheerfully telling him to ‘take heart’ and refresh himself. Ahab’s lack of appetite wouldn’t have been from witnessing death and gore (he was, after all, a militant man with a knack for warfare); rather, he was likely sickened by imagining Jezebel’s reaction when word reached her of what had happened! Such an event would doubtless set her religious programs back a few steps. Regardless, Ahab followed Elijah’s instructions, and Elijah and his unnamed servant went back up to the summit where Elijah prayed for rain. His servant reported a small raincloud over the Mediterranean; Elijah told the servant to tell Ahab to jump in his chariot and get home to his palace in Jezreel before the rain came, for when it came it’d be so powerful that the Kishon River would overwhelm its banks and the valley would become a flooded cesspit. Soon the sky was heavy with clouds and the rain hammered down. The drought was over.

Ahab’s second palace – his ‘winter capital’ in Jezreel – was fifteen to twenty miles from Mount Carmel. It sat on a fifteen-acre mound between the Hill of Moreh and the ill-fated Mount Gilboa where Israel’s first king died fighting the Philistines. Ahab climbed into his chariot and his entourage was off, the rain thundering on the roof and the bodies of the prophets being swept out to see in the river growing more tumultuous as the storm broke. The biblical narrative tells us that Elijah ‘ran before’ Ahab on the way to the palace and that he reached Jezreel’s city gates before the king. There are three explanations for what this means and how it happened: The first is that Elijah took a cross-country route, running through the rain; by going cross-country, he could approach Jezreel as a bird flies, whereas the chariot had to take the twisting, turning road that was becoming more difficult to traverse as it turned to sucking mud. The second explanation is that Elijah went with Ahab but ‘rode before’ him; in this sense, Elijah ‘running before’ Ahab is a figure of speech rather than a literal account of what he did. To ‘run before’ the chariot of a king or prince in the ancient Near East was to be part of the king’s entourage, heralding his approach; if this is the case, Elijah took the position as Ahab’s chief spiritual advisor and was serving as the new head of Israelite religion, announcing to all and sundry that a change in affairs had taken place. Interestingly, in Hittite texts the gods are portrayed as running before the chariot of the king; if this is the intended image, then Elijah ‘runs before’ Ahab as a representative of Yahweh. A third theory is that Elijah traveled on foot before the king and was enabled to reach Jezreel before him because of miraculous intervention: Baal, remember, was seen as the god of the floodwaters, so some have speculated that Yahweh cut a dry path for Elijah. This would serve as both an echo of Moses and Joshua hundreds of years earlier and as yet another assault on Baal’s reputation: the god of the floodwaters couldn’t keep Yahweh from making a dry path for His prophet. As captivating as this third theory may be (and were Elijah’s life to be made into a movie, it’d make for a great PR stunt), the most likely explanation is the second: Ahab may have had a change of heart and was enlisting Elijah’s help in turning Israel around. If that were the case, then it would be short-lived. Jezebel would see to that.