He calls this “the way of the still, small voice.” 4 3Įlsewhere, Sacks interprets God’s actions in 1 Kings 19 as supporting a model of the compassionate prophet. The voice that summoned the universe into being is still and small, hardly louder than a whisper. The supreme power cares for the powerless. In an online Jonathan Sacks commentary, the British rabbi and author describes what this textual moment means to him: He hands over his power and becomes a fatherly mentor to the younger prophet Elisha. After Elijah hears this voice, he stops being a zealot and warrior. The small voice is silenced.īut Elijah only hears God once he listens to a sound that is so fragile, it could easily go unheard. I’m not alone in suspecting this is a deliberate strategy: if we spend all of our time ratcheted up about the constant, outrageous insults and threats, we might miss the unjust things being done.

It’s easy to get caught up in the clamor. Dionne, Jr., calls a “cold civil war.” It certainly has been the noisiest, most fractious time in my adult life. Meanwhile, we have been experiencing a political whirlwind in the U.S., with seemingly daily scandals and what E. We shudder to hear of entire families being swept away, burned, or buried alive. As I write this, news is pouring in about a powerful earthquake on the Iran/Iraq border that has killed hundreds and injured thousands. We have been living through a time of destructive winds, earthquakes, and fires: Puerto Rico and Texas, Mexico City, California. It comes after the storm and fury, in “the voice of fragile silence.” 2 God’s voice is not in any of these disasters, though. God tells him to “stand upon the mount,” where he witnesses whirlwind, earthquake, and fire.

An angel restores him with food and drink, enabling him to travel to “the mount of God.” We expect Elijah to be rewarded and celebrated at Horeb, so we are as surprised as he is when God asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”Įlijah states his proud case, caught up in his fears and in blaming the people of Israel for their unrighteousness.

Who is he, and what is he to do now that Jezebel has ordered his arrest? Enervated, afraid, and down on himself, he asks for death. Elijah has just vanquished his foes, but he is at a crisis point physically, spiritually, and vocationally. 1 Like a soft drumbeat, the phrase arrests us as readers or hearers, so we are sympathetic to Elijah, who is stopped and reoriented by the voice he hears. Who can deny how poetically pleasing these verses are (even in translation)? The anaphora achieves its intensifying effect-“and after the wind,” “and after the earthquake,” “and after the fire”-followed by the simple phrase “a still, small voice,” lovely in its consonance but powerful in its percussiveness. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earth-quake, 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 19:11–12, RSVĮlijah at Horeb has been one of my favorite Bible passages since I was a child, and this story continues to unfold and unfurl itself to me.

Elijah bible study voice