"
The story begins abruptly; we require to know that Ahab, stirred
up by Jezebel, has been propagating in Israel the worship of the
Tyrian Baal, and has killed the prophets of Jehovah by hundreds:
this is the reason of the punishment which comes on him and his
land (xviii. 13, 22). Elijah vanishes as suddenly as he appeared.
We find him again at the brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan;
then in the land of Baal with a widow at Zarepta; while following
his fortunes we are made to feel in a simple and beautiful way
the severity of the famine. Ahab in the meantime had sent out
messengers to take him, and had required of every state to which
the vain search had extended, an oath that he was not to be found
there. Now, however, necessity obliged him to think of other
things; he had to go out himself with his minister Obadiah to
seek fodder for the still remaining war-horses (Amos vii. 1). In
this humiliating situation he all at once met the banished man.
He did not believe his eyes. "Is it thou, O troubler of Israel?"
"I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house!"
After this greeting Elijah challenged the king to institute a
contest between the 450 prophets of Baal, and him, the only
prophet of Jehovah left remaining.
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