1 Kings 19.5β-9α:
| 19.5β והנה זה | Look here: |
|---|---|
| מלאך נגע בו ויאמר לו | a heraldα touches himβ and says to him, |
| קום אכול׃ | “Get up. Eat.” |
| 19.6 ויבט | He looks closely. |
| והנה מראשתיו | Look, at his headrest— |
| עגת רצפים וצפחת מים | an ash-cake, a baking-stone, and a water-saucer. |
| ויאכל וישת | He eats and drinks. |
| וישב וישכב׃ | He turns back and lies down. |
| 19.7 וישב מלאך יהוה שנית | Yahweh’s herald turns back again.γ |
| ויגע בו ויאמר | He touches him and says, |
| קום אכל | “Get up. Eat |
| כי רב ממך הדרך׃ | because the journey is long for you.” |
| 19.8 ויקם ויאכל וישתה | He gets up. He eats and drinks. |
| וילך בכח האכילה ההיא | He walks with that food’s energy |
| ארבעים יום וארבעים לילה | forty days and forty nights |
| as far as God’s hill, Chorev.δ | |
| 19.9α ויבא שם אל המערה | He goes to a cave there. |
| וילן שם | He stops there. |
Sleeping under a juniper in the desert, a herald from God appears to Elijah and brings food. Usually the word for “herald” is translated “angel,” but we don’t know if these were spirit beings that had somehow become visible to humans, or if they weren’t just prophets who had been specifically sent by God to perform a task. If you think it takes away some of the supernatural nature of these stories to suggest that these heralds were human, not angelic, then I don’t think you appreciate how truly supernatural it is for a human to be in the right place at the right time with the right message.
The food isn’t described as spectacular; Elijah doesn’t get manna. He gets the same sort of ash-cakes he had been eating in Tsarfatha—plus a baking-stone, which is either meant for him to bake it himself, or indicating that it was freshly baked. (That’s one of the reasons why I wonder whether this herald wasn’t human. Why would an angel provide a baking-stone?) But the food is enough to keep him alive, and it answers his prayer—with “no.” God won’t kill him. If God wanted him dead, He wouldn’t feed him.
The second meal—which might have been eaten immediately after the first one, or perhaps at the next mealtime—is Elijah’s last meal for more than a month. The writer indicates that Elijah’s subsequent travels were entirely taken from the energy from that food. So we’re either talking about some pretty supernatural food, or about God stretching the energy of the food out for a mighty long time, as Elijah walks all the way to Horeb.
Why Elijah decided on Horeb—or whether God picked the place for him; the scripture doesn’t say—isn’t certain. Maybe because God had spoken there in the past to Moses, Elijah was figuring he had a shot at hearing God more clearly there. It wasn’t necessary, as we’ll see in the next bit; but even so, God empowered him to be able to go to Horeb in the first place.
If it ultimately wasn’t necessary for Elijah to go to Horeb, why then did God send a herald to miraculously empower Elijah to go to Horeb? That sounds rather contradictory. It also flies in the face of those who say that God won’t make you do anything unless He absolutely needs you to do it. But in my experience, sometimes God lets us do things—even enables us to do things—that really aren’t central to His plans. He’ll let us do them just because we want to do them, and just because He loves us. So long that they aren’t sinful, or get in the way of His plans, He’s okay with us doing them. He’ll even provide opportunity and means. He does that right here with Elijah: He gives Elijah the ability to slog all the way down the Red Sea coast to Horeb, despite no food and no real reason to go.
α. Or “angel.”
β. Meaning Elijah.
γ. Or “a second time.”
δ. Horeb, also known as Sinai.
