Wednesday Bible Study: A shaggy dog tail

Chapter 19 has Elijah go through an elaborate ordeal and pointless experiences in order to receive a communication from God, all of which begins with a communication from God that could just has easily have been the final information, so we could have skipped the whole thing. To summarize: Ahab tells Jezebel that Elijah massacred the priests of Baal, so Jezebel sends a message to Elijah that she ' s going to have him killed the next day. Elijah goes and sits under a tree and asks God to kill him now. He falls asleep, then an angel wakes him up and gives him a cake and some water. Then the angel gives him more food, tells him to eat it, and tells him to go to Mount Horeb, where he stays the usual forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking. Then he has a conversation with God in which he informs God, who apparently didn ' t know, that the Israelites have destroyed his altars and killed his priests, and now they want to kill Elijah. God tells him to go stand on the mountain. A strong wind broke the rocks apart, but that wasn ' t God. Then there was an earthquake, then a fire, but they weren ' t God either. Then there was a " still, small voice " and that was God. The voice asked him what he was doing there, even though he had already told God which is how this whole thing began, so he repeats the information, word for word. (God is apparently very forgetful.) So God tells him to anointHaz ′ael king of Syria;16 and Jehu king of Israel. How Elijah has ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs