hath left no place untouched, into which he hath not sent persons to bring thee back, in order if they could take thee, to have put thee to death?" He also acknowledged he was afraid lest God should appear to him again, and he should go away into another place; and that when the king should send him for Elijah, and he should not be able to find him, he should be put to death. He desired him, therefore, to take care of his preservation, and told him how diligently he had provided for those of his own profession, and had saved a hundred prophets, when Jezebel slew the rest of them, and had kept them concealed; and that they had been sustained by him. But Elijah bade him fear nothing, but go to the king, assuring him upon oath, that he would certainly shew himself to Ahab that very day.

So when Obadiah had informed the king that Elijah was there, Ahab met him, and asked him in anger, "If he were the man that afflicted the people of the Hebrews, and was the occasion of the drought that they lay under?" but Elijah, without any flattery, said, that Ahab was himself the man, and his house, which brought such sad afflictions upon them; and that by introducing strange gods into their country, and worshipping them; and by leaving their own, who was the only true God; and having no manner of regard to him. However, he bade him go his way, and gather together all the people to Mount Carmel, with his own prophets and those of his wife; telling him how many there were of them; as also the prophets of the groves, about four hundred in number. And as all the men whom Ahab sent for ran away to the aforenamed mountain, the prophet Elijah stood in the midst of them, and said: "How long will ye live thus in uncertainty of mind and opinion?" he also exhorted them, that in case they esteemed their own God to be the true and the only Deity, they would follow him and his commandments; but in case they esteemed him to be nothing, but had an opinion of the strange gods, and that they ought to worship them, his counsel was that they should follow them. And when the multitude made no answer to what he said, Elijah desired, that for a trial of the power of the strange gods, and of their own God, he, who was his only prophet, while they had four hundred, might take a heifer, and kill it, as a sacrifice, and lay it on pieces of wood, and not kindle any

fire; and that they should do the same things, and call upon their own gods to set the wood"on fire: for if that were done, they would thence learn the nature of the true God. This proposal pleased the people. So Elijah bade the prophets choose out a heifer first, and kill it, and to call on their gods. But when there appeared no effect of the prayer, or invocation of the prophets upon their sacrifice, Elijah derided them, and bade them call upon their gods with a loud voice; for they might either be on a journey, or asleep. And when these prophets had done so from morning till noon, and cut‡ themselves with swords and lances, according to the custom of their country, and he was about to offer his sacrifice, he bade the prophets go away, but desired the people to come near and observe what he did, lest he should privately hide fire among the pieces of wood. So upon the approach of the multitude, he took twelve stones, one for each tribe of the people of the Hebrews; and built an altar with them, and dug a very deep trench. And when he had laid the pieces of wood upon the altar, and upon them had laid the pieces of the sacrifice, he ordered them to fill four barrels of the water of the fountain, and to pour it upon the altar, till it ran over it; and till the trench was filled with the water poured into it. When he had done this, he began to pray to God, and to intreat him to manifest his power to a people that had been in an error a long time. Upon which words a fire came on a sudden from heaven in the sight of the multitude, and fell upon the altar, and consumed the sacrifice,

* This was the ancient way of God's declaring himself pleased with sacrifices. See Gen. xv. 17.

This is not the first time wherein God had declared his approbation of his wor shippers, by sending down fire to consume the sacrifices, Lev. ix. 24, and Judges vi. 21. and though perhaps it may be possible for evil spirits, who may have great knowledge how to manage meteors and exhalations to their purposes, to make fire descend from the clouds; yet, since they can do nothing without a divine permission, it is absurd to think, that in a matter of competition between him and false gods, he should give evil spirits any license to rival him in his miracles. Le Clerc's Commentary B.

Mr. Spanheim takes notice here, that in the worship of Mithra, the god of the Persians, the priests cut themselves in the same manner as did these priests in their invocations of Baal, the god of the Phoenicians.

A strange method one would think to obtain the favour of their gods! And yet, if we look into antiquity we shall find, that nothing was more common in the religious rites of several nations than this barbarous custom. To this purpose we

till the very water was set on fire, and the place was become dry.

Now when the Israelites saw this, they fell down upon the ground, and worshipped one God, and called him the only great and the only true God: but they called the others mere names, framed by the wild opinions of men. So they caught their prophets; and, at the command of Elijab, slew them. Elijah also said to the king, that he should go to dinner, without any farther concern; for that in a little time he would see God send them rain. Accordingly Ahab went his way; but Elijah went up to the highest top of Mount Carmel, and sat down upon the ground, and leaned his head upon his knees; and bade his servant go up to a certain elevated place, and look towards the sea and when he should see a cloud rise any where, he should give him notice of it; for till that time the air had been clear. When the servant had gone up, and had said many times that he saw nothing; at the seventh time of his going up he said, that he saw a small black thing in the sky, not larger than a man's foot. When Elijah heard that, he sent to Ahab, and desired him to go away to the city before the storm of rain came down. So he came to the city Jezreel. And in a little time the air was all obscured, and covered with clouds; and a vehement storm of wind came upon the earth, and with it a great deal of rain. And the prophet was under a divine fury, and ran along with the king's chariot unto Jezreel, a city of Izar.*

may observe, that (as Plutarch, De Superstitione, tells us) the priests of Bellona, when they sacrificed to that goddess, were wont to besmear the victim with their blood; but the Persian Magi (according to Herodotus, lib. vii. c. 191,) used to appease tempests, and allay the winds, by making incisions in their flesh; that they who carried about the Syrian goddess, (as Apuleius, lib. viii. relates,) among other mad pranks, were every now and then, cutting and slashing themselves with knives, till the blood gushed out and that even to this day some modern travellers tell us, that in Turkey. Persia, and several parts of the Indies, there are a kind of fana tics, who think they do a very meritorious thing, and what is highly acceptable to the Deity, in cutting and mangling their own flesh. "Dii autum nullo deben, colli genere" (says Seneca, as he is quoted by St. Austin De Civ. Dei. vi. c. 10,)" si et hoc volunt. Tantus est perturbatæ mentis, et sedius suis pulsæ furor, ut sic dii placentur, quemadmodum ne homines quidem sæviunt teterrimi, et in fabulas traditæ crudelitatis," &c. Calmet's and Le Clerc's Commentaries. B.

For Izar, we may here read with Hudson and Cocceius, Isachar, i. e. of the

When Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, understood what signs Elijah had wrought, and how he had slain the prophets, she was angry, and sent messengers to him; and by them threatened to kill him,* as he had destroyed her prophets. At this Elijah was affrighted, and fled to the city called Beersheba; which is situate at the utmost limits of the country belonging to the tribe of Judah, towards the land of Edom. And there he left his servant, and went away into the desert.† He prayed also that he might die: for that he was not better than his fathers; nor therefore need be very desirous to live when they were dead; and he lay and slept under a certain tree. And when somebody awakened him, and he was risen up, he found food set by him, and water. So when he had eaten, and renewed his strength by that food, he came to the mountain called Sinai ;+

tribe of Isachar, for to that tribe did Jezreel belong and presently, chap. xv. we may read for Izar, with one MS. nearly, and the Scripture, Jezreel; for that was the city meant in the history of Naboth.

* This certainly was the effect of her blind rage, and not of any prudence in her; for prudence would have advised her to conceal her resentment, until she had been ready to put her design in execution; whereas this sending him word was giving him notice of his danger, and admonishing him to avoid it. But, since he had the confidence to come where she was, she might think perhaps, that be was as courageous as she was furious; that upon this notice he would scorn to fly; and she too, in her pride, might scorn to kill him secretly or surreptitiously, resolving to make him a public sacrifice. Patrick's Commentary, and Pool's Annotations, B.

+1 Kings xix. 3, 4.

Elijah being now come to the same place, where God had delivered the law to his servant Moses, God was minded to communicate the like favour to his servant the prophet, viz. to unveil his Majesty to him, and give him some signal of his immediate presence but there is something very remarkable in the words of the text: And behold the Lord passed by, and a strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind; and, after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and, after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and, after the fire, a still small voice, 1 Kings xix. 11, &c. And various are the speculations which this appearance of the divine Majesty hath suggested to interpreters. The generality of them have looked upor. this as a figure of the gospel-dispensation, which came, not in such a terrible manner as the law did, with storms, thunders, lightnings, and earthquakes, (Exod. xix. 16,) but with great lenity and sweetness, wherein God speaks to us by his Son, who makes use of no other but gentle arguments and soft persuasions. But, if we take this to be a symbolical admonition to Elijah, according to the cir. cumstances he was then in, we may reasonably suppose, that herein God intended to shew him, that though he had all the elements ready armed at his command to destroy idolaters, if he pleased to make use of them, yet he had rather attain his

where it is related that Moses received his laws from God. And finding there a certain hollow cave, he entered into it, and continued to make his abode in it. But when a certain voice came to him, and asked, "Why he came thither, and had left the city?" he said, that because he had slain the prophets of the foreign gods; and had persuaded the people that he alone, whom they had worshipped from the beginning was God, he was sought for by the king's wife to be punished for so doing. And when he had heard another voice, telling him that he should come out the next day into the open air, and should thereby know what he was to do, he came out of the cave the next day accordingly. He then both heard an earthquake, and saw the bright splendour of a fire; and after a silence, a divine voice exhorted him not to be disturbed with the circumstances he was in; for that none of his enemies should have power over him. The voice also commanded him to return home, and to ordain Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be king over their own multitude; and Hazael, of Damascus, to be over the Syrians; and Elisha, of the city Abel, to be a prophet in his stead. And that of the impious multitude, some should be slain by Hazael, and others by Jehu. So Elijah, upon hearing this charge, returned into the land of the Hebrews. And when he found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, ploughing, and certain others with him driving twelve yoke of oxen, he came to him, and cast his own garment upon him. Upon which Elisha began to prophecy; and leaving his oxen, he followed Elijah. And when he desired leave to salute his parents, Elijah gave him leave so to do: and when he had bidden them adieu, he followed him, and became the disciple and the servant of Elijah all the days of his life. And thus have I related the affairs in which this prophet was concerned.

Now* there was one Naboth,† of the city Izar, who had a field

end by patience, and tenderness, and long-suffering, (signified by that small still voice, wherein the Deity exhibited himself,) and consequently, that the prophet should hereby be incited to imitate him, bridling that passionate zeal to which his natural complexion did but too much incline him. Le Clerc's, Calmet's and Patrick's Commentaries.

*About an. 899.

B.

The account of Ahab's coveting Naboth's vineyard, as Abarbinel observes, is immediately set after his treatment of Benhadad, to shew his extreme great wick. edness in sparing him, as Saul did Agag king of the Amalekites, and killing Na