22 
ISRAEL. 
Elijah the representative of Prophecy, as Moses was of the Law, at the Transfiguration, 
when he was neither the earliest of the prophets even in his own age, nor has left any 
prophetic book behind him ? The obvious reason is, that to him was first declared, and 
declared with the most awful and impressive solemnities, the approaching change in the 
character of the Divine communications. Man was still to be addressed by the undi¬ 
minished terrors of Jehovah, but persuasion was to be mingled with those terrors; the guilt 
of rebellious kings and nations was to be punished with all the ancient severity, yet the 
declaration of wrath was to be connected with appeals to the heart; the fear of the senses 
was to be seconded by the awakening of the conscience; the thunders were still to echo 
overhead, but the “ still, small voice,” was to be at the side of man. 1 The apostate 
nations, no longer confronted with the startling and rare presence of a prophet coming only 
to announce doom, were to be given into the constant tutelage of a race of inspired servants 
of Heaven, living among them, alternately consoling and condemning, warning them of their 
wanderings, as man with man, and, amid the sternest threats of judgment, commissioned to 
speak the most benignant language of mercy. 2 
The ways of Providence are the noblest study of man; and if the Jewish history had 
been given for this purpose alone, the force and fulness of its sacred developments would 
render it invaluable. The missions of Elijah and Elisha signally exhibit a Divine operation 
—the adoption of means above man to meet a strong emergency. They were summoned, 
in the darkest time of religion and the state, to sustain the state, and, by the influence thus 
acquired, to sustain religion. Their powers, and the direction of those powers, were 
rendered strikingly adequate to those seemingly discordant objects: and we see them, 
without violating the simplicity of the prophetic character, exercising the most resistless 
public impression in all the struggles of the country; without assuming the office of the 
statesman or the soldier, directing national council and achieving national victory. When 
the danger is dispersed, they retire alike from popular admiration and royal gratitude; 
when it again clouds the horizon, they come forward once more, moving before the people, 
like the pillar of flame in the wilderness, lofty and intangible; at once throwing light on the 
darkness of the hour, and raising the general eye to heaven. 
1 The commentators have generally conceived this change to allude to the preaching of the Gospel. 
But this explanation will not account for the presence of the thunders of Sinai. In addition, the 
preaching of the Gospel was still at the distance of almost a thousand years, while the national prophetic 
teaching began before the close of the century ; Amos and Hosea prophesying about b.c. 810, followed 
by thirteen prophets, until the close of the prophetic period in Malachi, b.c. 436—a wondrous time, 
almost four hundred years of continued inspiration ! Jonah, who makes up the number of the sixteen, 
had prophesied only to Nineveh. 
2 Davidson justly remarks on this subject, “ I observe that the Moral Revelation made by the succes¬ 
sion of prophets holds an intermediate place between the Law and the Gospel: it is a step beyond the 
Law, in respect of the greater fulness of some of its doctrines and precepts ; it is a more perfect exposi¬ 
tion of the principles of personal holiness and virtue.In the prophets there is a more luminous and 
more perfectly reasoned rule of life and faith than in the primary Law.”— Sermons on Prophecy , p. 44. 
