ISRAEL. 
21 
the whole solemn transaction. It was neither in temple nor in palace, in forest nor in field, 
but on the bold promontory of Carmel, where all must be visible to the multitude below; 
that multitude, gathered from all Israel, serious and subdued by long privation, and anxious 
for the decision on which might depend the national existence. The vastness of the assem¬ 
blage, the royal pomp, the wild and mystic pageantry on the mountain’s brow: even the 
natural magnificence of the scene, the noble mountain-range, the boundless sea, the sky 
unshadowed with a cloud, or only tinctured with the colourings of a Syrian sunset; were 
well calculated to prepare the heart for the still mightier impressions of miracle. 
At length, at the hour of evening sacrifice; that sacrifice so long intermitted by apostate 
Israel; the solitary man of God advances; he builds his altar, the fire from heaven descends, 
the sacrifice is consumed in the sight of all; the idolatrous priesthood, in astonishment and 
terror, see their doom; and the air is rent with the thunder of the thousands and tens of 
thousands, shouting, “ The Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God.” 
But another miracle is at hand: while the prophet prays on the summit of the moun¬ 
tain, the heavens are covered with clouds; the rain which no man had seen for three years, 
pours down in toi’rents; the land is refreshed and lives; and Elijah, like a conqueror 
leading his captives, rushes before the royal troop triumphantly to the city of the king. 
At this period, we have the unparalleled instance of a visible Church reduced to one 
man, and yet sustained. Elijah’s description of the Church is total ruin. “ The children 
of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with 
the sword ; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.” 1 Threat¬ 
ened with death, yet evidently fearing less for himself, than for the extinction of the last 
remnant of the true worshippers, he flies into the wilderness. There he seems to have been 
divinely adopted as the representative of the Church. Like the Mosaic Church he was there 
supported with Divine food; like its pilgrimage of forty years, his journey extended to the 
slow traverse of forty days; 2 and like the Mosaic Church he stood at Horeb in the presence 
of Jehovah, heard the Divine words, and saw the terrors of the Divine Majesty. 
But a most memorable change now begins. As at Horeb the law was revealed to 
Moses, at Horeb a new form of Divine instruction is revealed to Elijah. Like the Mosaic 
Church he sees the mountain shaken by the Divine presence, the whirlwind, the earthquake, 
and the flame; but unlike it, he hears them followed by “ a still small voice.” 
In the giving of the law, when the Almighty ceased to speak in his terrors, He spoke to 
the people no more. But He now conversed with Elijah; and gently rebuking his doubts 
of the Providence that sustains the Church, even when it is lost to the human eye, by 
telling him that there were still “ seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to 
Baal,” gave a direct proof of the Divine retribution on its enemies, by commanding him to 
prepare two private individuals, Hazael and Jehu, for the diadems of Syria and Israel, with 
the express purpose of extinguishing the last trace of the tyrannical and idolatrous dynasty 
in possession of the throne. 
The circumstances of this high interview solve the long-standing difficulty. Why was 
1 1 Kings, xix. 10. 
2 Hales remarks that the distance from Becrsheba to Horeb was but 150 miles, which might have 
been travelled in five or six days.— Chronology, vol. ii. The journey was evidently emblematic. 
