1 Kings 19.1-3:
| 19.1 ויגד אחאב לאיזבל | Achavα announces to Itzevelβ |
|---|---|
| את כל אשר עשה אליהו | everything that Eliyahuγ does, |
| ואת כל אשר הרג את כל הנביאים | and that he destroys all the prophets |
| בחרב׃ | with the blade. |
| 19.2 ותשלח איזבל מלאך אל אליהו | Itzevel sends out a herald to Eliyahu, |
| לאמר כה יעשון אלהים | saying, “May God do likewise, |
| וכה יוספון | and do it more, |
| כי כעת מחר | unless by tomorrowδ |
| אשים את נפשך כנפש אחד מהם׃ | I put your lifeε with one of their lives.”ζ |
| 19.3 וירא | He is afraid. |
| ויקם | He gets up. |
| וילך אל נפשו | He walks toward his life. |
| ויבא באר שבע אשר ליהודה | He goes to Be’er Shevaη in Yehuda.θ |
| וינח את נערו שם׃ | He leavesι his boy there. |
Usually this story is presented as if Ahab told on Elijah—that the spineless king went to his domineering wife and said, “Elijah killed all the prophets and I was powerless to stop him.” Because of the Naboth story, (1Ki 21) we have this bizarre idea that Ahab was some kind of wimp and Jezebel was the head of that household. Of course, the Naboth story, especially Ahab and Jezebel’s actions within it, is frequently misinterpreted. I’ll get to that eventually. Meanwhile you need to remember: Ancient Israel was a patriarchal society. Men were in charge. Women had few rights. This definitely wasn’t God’s idea; this was just the way things were. Jezebel had some degree of power because she was the wife of the king, because she was independently wealthy, because she financed the local pagan cults, and because she had a fairly strong will. A strong-willed person can usually overcome just about any roadblock they come across.
But even so, Ahab was king. So when he told Jezebel what Elijah had done, he wasn’t telling on Elijah; he was telling Jezebel how things were going to be in Samaria from now on. He had seen God defeat Ba’al in the Karmel contest. He had approved of the slaughter of Ba’al’s prophets. He had accepted the replacement of his 450 Ba’alist prophets with the one Yahwist prophet. He was on board with the changes that God was making in the country.
The thing is: The Ba’alist prophets were personal friends of Jezebel. They ate at her table. (1Ki 18.19) She had probably known many of them since childhood—either hers or theirs—and their loss was hard. Plus, being a pagan, she absolutely couldn’t relate to the idea that pagan prophets were to be killed. (Dt 18.20) From her perspective, Elijah wasn’t a righteous defender of God; he was a psychopathic maniac who had murdered 450 innocent priests, personal friends of hers, and her god would never condone such behavior.
If Ahab wasn’t going to avenge her priests, Jezebel would have to take matters into her own hands.
But why did she send a herald to tell Elijah she was going to kill him, instead of just killing him? Well, you have to remember that Jezebel couldn’t just kill anyone she wanted. She needed Ahab’s approval. When she killed God’s prophets previously, (1Ki 18.4) she had to do it with Ahab’s permission. But he was certainly not gonna give permission to kill Elijah. (After all, Elijah could stop rain, and Elijah’s God can throw down fire.) So she had to get rid of him subtly. She was no dummy; she sent him a herald to say, “You’re dead meat,” and Elijah responded in exactly the way she expected—he left the country.
It’s interesting: Elijah had the faith to stop rain, to call down God’s fire, and yet he panicked when some pagan queen-consort sent word to him that she wanted him dead. This is an extremely weak moment on his part.
But it stands to reason, you know. Elijah just kicked some major ass at Karmel; he had some major clout among Ahab and the people; he’s feeling good about himself... and he’s not listening to God anymore. He’s been too busy, and a bit too full of himself, to pray. And when you’re not listening to God, your faith is small. You have to stay in constant contact with Him in order to get His encouragement and act upon His commands. Yet in this story, Elijah doesn’t talk with God until he’s gone all the way to Horeb. If it takes a pilgrimage before Elijah feels he can finally make contact with God again, it’s a strong indicator that Elijah hadn’t been speaking to God in quite a while.
Despite being a man of great faith, Elijah obviously made the same mistakes we do.
α. Ahab.
β. Jezebel.
γ. Elijah.
δ. Lit. “by a time tomorrow,” often “by this time tomorrow,” but of course the message couldn’t be that precise as regarding the time.
ε. Or “soul.”
ζ. Or “like one of their lives” or “souls.”
η. Hebrew for “oath well,” a town, founded by Abraham, at the southernmost part of Judah.
θ. Judah. Lit. “which [is] to Yehuda.”
ι. Lit. “dwells” or “rests.”
