The LORD Appears to Elijah
And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
How does God speak to us today? Through his word. Does that mean that God could never speak through a dream, through a vision, or by a direct revelation? No; not at all. We can never draw a line in the sand around God and say, “God could never do anything beyond this.” But we know that the only means by which God promises to speak to us today is through his holy word. How did he speak to Elijah? The text doesn’t tell us, and it would be saying too much that it was one way and not another. But the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
The root word qanah means “to become red” in just about any Semitic language you can think of (Arabic, Aramaic, Phoenician, Syriac, Ethiopic—I can’t find it in my Ugaritic glossary but that doesn’t prove that they didn’t know it too). It’s no step at all to go from “red” to the idea of “red-faced” or “livid.” Here it means to be either jealous or zealous, and I agree completely with the new NIV’s choice of “zealous.” Elijah had been very energetic for God’s cause. But he goes too far in stating his case. God won’t address that yet. It’s time first to remind the prophet of who he, God, is; of what Elijah’s faith is really in.
11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
God had done this very thing for Moses long ago—six hundred years ago. God set Moses in a cave, a “cleft in the rock,” and passed before him.
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.
This is an exciting scene, and must have sent Elijah’s heart racing. Imagine the very hugeness of a wind that tore mountains apart! The stones flying around just because of a wind! The word for wind here is the ordinary Hebrew word for any wind (ruach), not the word we will see in 2 Kings for “whirlwind” (sa’arah, also the word in Job 40:6). Then an earthquake, which commands the attention like nothing else (my wife and I and our older sons were in the Nisqually Earthquake in 2001). And this was followed by a fire! What kind of fire was it, and how long did it last? Did it rage past or did it linger like the wildfires of California? We’re not told. What we are told is that God wasn’t in the earthquake or in the wind or in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
Everything else was so spectacular; so commanding. Why did God speak in the “gentle whisper,” the “still small voice” (KJV)? I don’t think that God was illustrating the difference between him and the belief people had about Baal, although Baal was supposed to be a storm-god who could command such things as earthquakes, gales and I suppose even fires. But it seems more appropriate to notice that God’s message comes to us especially from his word; from his voice. We can learn some things about God from nature, but we cannot learn his name or his solution to our sin. But God gives us his word in the Bible to reach us and to teach us. The “gentle whisper” of God is more effective and more revealing than all the screams and shouts of nature.
13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (NIV)
Now the Lord repeated his question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah had run from Jezebel because he knew what she was planning; not necessarily that he was afraid of her. He had run and walked, and trudged, and collapsed and even slept his way all the way down to Mount Sinai (Horeb), helped along all the while by God. Now the Lord wanted Elijah to talk. We could use a lot of theologically charged words here: Did God want Elijah to prophesy? Or to challenge? Or to condemn Israel? God doesn’t specify any verb at all. He just wants Elijah to talk. What are you doing here, Elijah? This was for Elijah’s benefit, and for the benefit of the whole church for all time. But spilling his heart, Elijah would preach to himself as well as confess the truth before God. God wanted Elijah to pray, and to invite God’s response.
It would be quite a response; with bigger consequences than any earthquake, wind or fire.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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