March 27, 2020: Day 55 – I Kings 19

This is also a pretty dense chapter, a lot takes place here.  Ahab does get home before the rain and tells his wife, Jezebel,  all that happened.  Jezebel is furious and puts an even larger bounty on Elijah’s head saying that by tomorrow he will have the same fate as the prophets that he had killed after his God won the battle of the gods.  This terrified Elijah, which is surprising to me because you would think that when your God just brought fire down from heaven that maybe a threat from a queen would be no big deal.  Well, not so much.  He was terrified and he ran away into the wilderness.  

God provides food and water for him and then he spends 40 days and nights in the mount of God.  Does that sound familiar?  Remember Exodus 34:28 where Moses spent 40 days and nights with God and came back down with the 10 Commandments?  Remember the 40 days and nights that it rained upon the earth while Noah was in the ark?  Remember the 40 days and nights that Jesus was in the wilderness while being tempted by the devil?  None of that happens by chance.  And each of those times a new normal is instituted which changed the course of human history.  This is another one of those times.

We also find in this Scripture the still small  voice which speaks to Elijah and gives him the plan forward: you are to anoint two new kings, one for the north and one for the south, and you are to anoint a prophet to take your place.  The whole prophet anointing a king is not that unusual, but a prophet anointing another prophet to take his place is highly unusual.  But that is what happens.  We are now introduced to Elijah’s successor, Elisha.  But before he takes on the mantle he stays home with mom and dad for one last meal.  You would think that is a bit of an inauspicious start, but he ends up pretty well in the end.