Elijah found God not in wind or fire but in a quiet voice
Few biblical figures are claimed by so many traditions. Elijah, a prophet of ninth-century BC Israel, is remembered at Jewish Passover tables, seen beside Jesus at the Transfiguration, and honoured in the Quran. His stories swing between fiery public showdowns and a lonely, exhausted man hiding in a cave.
The setting is a split kingdom. According to the Bible, the northern Kingdom of Israel had drifted from worship centred on Jerusalem, and under King Ahab and his queen Jezebel temples to Baal flourished. Baal was the Canaanite god of rain, thunder and dew, so when Elijah the Tishbite, a man given almost no background, announced a drought so severe that not even dew would fall, he was striking at Baal's own territory as well as at the royal couple. His name means "My God is Yahweh", possibly a title earned by that challenge.
Sent into hiding, he was fed by ravens beside a brook and then sheltered by a poor widow in Zarephath whose flour and oil never ran out. After more than three years, he returned to face Ahab, who called him the troubler of Israel. The famous contest on Mount Carmel followed: 450 prophets of Baal prayed all morning for fire to light a sacrifice, while Elijah mocked them, asking whether their god was asleep or travelling. Then he soaked his own altar with water, and fire fell from the sky to consume it.
Triumph gave way to despair. Threatened by Jezebel, Elijah fled south, sat under a shrub and asked to die, until an angel woke him twice with bread and water. He walked forty days to Mount Horeb, where Moses had received the commandments. There came a great wind, an earthquake and fire, yet God was in none of them, speaking instead as a still, small voice that sent him out again to anoint new kings and his successor, Elisha.
His afterlife in religion is remarkable. The Book of Malachi promised his return before the great day of the Lord, which made him a herald of the Messiah. Jews invoke him at Havdalah as Shabbat ends and at circumcision ceremonies. The Gospels identify John the Baptist as the promised Elijah, and Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians venerate him widely enough that he became patron saint of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Source: Elijah
