1 Kings 17:1-16
The ravens and the barrel
He announces the drought and is sent to hide. Ravens bring bread and flesh morning and evening, and when the brook dries he is sent to a widow who is gathering sticks for a last meal.
People of the Bible
Elijah
Called down fire on a mountain in front of a nation, and asked to die the next day.
Elijah arrives with no genealogy and no introduction, walks in on the king and announces a drought that will last until he says otherwise, and then disappears for three years. He is fed by ravens at a brook and by a widow whose flour and oil do not run out. On Carmel he gives the people one sentence, how long will you halt between two opinions, and they answer him nothing. Then fire falls. Then a message arrives from the queen, and the same man runs a day into the wilderness and sits under a juniper tree and asks to die.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Elijah
- 01
- 02
1 Kings 18:20-40
How long will you halt
Four hundred and fifty against one, from morning until the evening sacrifice. He mocks them, repairs the altar of the LORD, digs a trench and fills it with water, and prays sixty-three words.
- 03
1 Kings 19:1-8
It is enough, take away my life
One message from Jezebel and he runs a day’s journey and sleeps under a juniper. An angel wakes him twice to eat, and he goes forty days on that food.
- 04
1 Kings 19:9-18
A still small voice
Asked what he is doing there, he says he alone is left. Wind, earthquake and fire pass and God is in none of them. Then the voice, and a job list, and the news of seven thousand others.
- 05
1 Kings 21:17-24
Have you found me, O my enemy
Sent to meet Ahab in Naboth’s vineyard on the day he goes down to take it. The king greets him as an enemy and he agrees, and delivers the sentence on the house.
- 06
2 Kings 2:1-12
The chariot of fire
Three times he tells Elisha to stay and three times Elisha refuses. He strikes the Jordan with his mantle, asks what he can do for him, and is taken up by a whirlwind.
Why it matters
Elijah is the prophet the rest of Scripture keeps reaching for. He does not die; he is taken up in a whirlwind with a chariot of fire between him and Elisha. Malachi closes the Old Testament promising him before the great and dreadful day, the gospels ask whether John the Baptist is him, and he stands on the mount of transfiguration beside Moses. The cave at Horeb is the centre of him: not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but a still small voice.
12 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
