For Teaching

1 Kings 19: What the Passage Says

97 claims across 21 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Kings 19 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

After Elijah kills the prophets of Baal, Jezebel swears to have him dead within a day, and he runs south into the wilderness and asks to die. An angel feeds him twice, and he travels forty days to Horeb, where he twice says he alone is left. The LORD passes by in wind, earthquake, and fire, but is in none of them; after the fire comes a still small voice, and Elijah is sent back to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, and is told that seven thousand in Israel have not bowed to Baal. Elijah finds Elisha plowing, throws his cloak over him, and Elisha slaughters his oxen, feeds the people, and follows him.

Claim by Claim

19:1
- Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done.
- Ahab told Jezebel how Elijah had killed all the prophets with the sword.
19:2
- Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah.
- Jezebel's message invoked a curse: may the gods do so to her and more also.
- Jezebel swore to make Elijah's life like the life of one of the killed prophets.
- Jezebel set the time for this as about this time tomorrow.
19:3
- Elijah saw the situation (the Hebrew can also be read as: Elijah was afraid).
- Elijah arose.
- Elijah went for his life.
- Elijah came to Beersheba.
- Beersheba belongs to Judah.
- Elijah left his servant in Beersheba.
19:4
- Elijah himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
- Elijah came and sat down under a broom shrub.
- Elijah asked that he might die.
- Elijah said it is enough.
- Elijah asked the LORD to take away his life.
- Elijah said he was not better than his fathers.
19:5
- Elijah lay down and slept under a broom shrub.
- An angel touched Elijah.
- The angel told Elijah to arise and eat.
19:6
- Elijah looked.
- There was a cake baked on hot coals at his head.
- There was a jar of water at his head.
- Elijah ate.
- Elijah drank.
- Elijah lay down again.
19:7
- The angel of the LORD came again a second time.
- The angel touched Elijah.
- The angel told Elijah to arise and eat.
- The angel said the journey was too great for Elijah.
19:8
- Elijah arose.
- Elijah ate and drank.
- Elijah went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights.
- Elijah went as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
19:9
- Elijah came there to a cave.
- Elijah lodged in the cave.
- The word of the LORD came to Elijah.
- The LORD asked Elijah what he was doing there.
19:10
- Elijah said he had been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts.
- Elijah said the children of Israel had forsaken God's covenant.
- Elijah said they had thrown down God's altars.
- Elijah said they had killed God's prophets with the sword.
- Elijah said he alone was left.
- Elijah said they were seeking his life to take it.
19:11
- God told Elijah to go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD.
- The LORD was passing by.
- A great and strong wind tore apart mountains before the LORD.
- The wind broke rocks in pieces before the LORD.
- The LORD was not in the wind.
- After the wind came an earthquake.
- The LORD was not in the earthquake.
19:12
- After the earthquake came a fire.
- The LORD was not in the fire.
- After the fire came a still small voice (a sound of thin silence).
19:13
- When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle.
- Elijah went out.
- Elijah stood at the entrance of the cave.
- A voice came to him.
- The voice asked Elijah what he was doing there.
19:14
- Elijah said he had been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts.
- Elijah said the children of Israel had forsaken God's covenant.
- Elijah said they had thrown down God's altars.
- Elijah said they had killed God's prophets with the sword.
- Elijah said he alone was left.
- Elijah said they were seeking his life to take it.
19:15
- The LORD spoke to Elijah.
- The LORD told Elijah to go and return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus.
- The LORD told Elijah that when he arrived he was to anoint Hazael king over Aram.
19:16
- The LORD told Elijah to anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel.
- The LORD told Elijah to anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in his place.
19:17
- Jehu will kill whoever escapes the sword of Hazael.
- Elisha will kill whoever escapes the sword of Jehu.
19:18
- The LORD said he had left seven thousand in Israel.
- These are all the knees that have not bowed to Baal.
- These are every mouth that has not kissed Baal.
19:19
- Elijah departed from there.
- Elijah found Elisha son of Shaphat.
- Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him.
- Elisha was with the twelfth yoke.
- Elijah passed by Elisha.
- Elijah cast his mantle upon Elisha.
19:20
- Elisha left the oxen.
- Elisha ran after Elijah.
- Elisha asked to kiss his father and his mother.
- Elisha said he would then follow Elijah.
- Elijah told Elisha to go back.
- Elijah asked what he had done to Elisha.
19:21
- Elisha turned back from following Elijah.
- Elisha took the yoke of oxen.
- Elisha slaughtered the oxen.
- Elisha boiled the flesh using the oxen's equipment as fuel.
- Elisha gave the meat to the people.
- The people ate.
- Elisha arose.
- Elisha went after Elijah.
- Elisha ministered to Elijah.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

19:1: Ahab was king of Israel, the northern of the two Hebrew kingdoms; his queen Jezebel was a Phoenician princess who promoted the worship of her own god, Baal. The prophets Elijah had killed were the prophets of Baal, put to death after the contest on Mount Carmel described in the previous chapter.
19:2: "May the gods do the same to me, and worse" was a fixed oath formula: the speaker calls down on herself the very harm she is threatening, as a way of guaranteeing she will carry it out. The plural "gods" fits Jezebel's Phoenician religion rather than Israel's.
19:3: Beersheba lay at the far southern edge of Judah, the southern kingdom, roughly a hundred miles from Jezebel's court and outside the reach of Ahab's government.
19:4: The KJV's "juniper tree" is a broom bush, a desert shrub that grows to head height in the dry south and offers the only shade in open country. "My fathers" means his ancestors, who are dead.
19:6: The King James "cruse" is a small clay jar. The cake was flat bread laid straight onto hot stones or embers, the normal way to bake while traveling.
19:8: Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai, the mountain where, in Israel's founding story, Moses received the law. "Forty days and forty nights" is the same span the older accounts give for Moses' stay there.
19:9: "The word of the LORD came to him" is a set phrase. It simply means God spoke to him.
19:10: "Zealous" (KJV "jealous") translates a Hebrew word covering both fierce loyalty and the jealousy of someone who will not share what is his. "The God of armies" renders the title "LORD of hosts", hosts meaning armed forces, whether Israel's or heavenly ones. The "covenant" is the binding agreement made at Sinai between God and the people. In this period the LORD was worshiped at many local altars around the country, so "your altars" means those scattered sites, not one temple.
19:11: At this same mountain, God once appeared to Moses in fire, smoke and thunder. So a reader back then would expect God in the wind, the earthquake and the fire.
19:12: "A quiet, small voice" (KJV "a still small voice") translates a Hebrew phrase that is literally "a sound of thin silence." Translators divide over whether it means a low whisper, a faint murmur, or silence itself; the phrase is genuinely obscure.
19:13: The cloak is the heavy outer garment that marked Elijah as a prophet. Covering the face was the customary response of someone who believed himself in the direct presence of God, which was thought too dangerous to look at.
19:14: Elijah answers with exactly the same words as before. Repeating a speech word for word was a way of showing that nothing inside him had changed.
19:15: "Pour oil on" is what older versions call anointing: olive oil poured over the head in a ceremony installing someone in an office. Syria here is Aram, the kingdom centered on Damascus to the northeast of Israel, and a frequent enemy in war.
19:16: "Prophet in your place" means successor, Elisha is to take over Elijah's role. Abel-meholah was a town in the Jordan Valley.
19:17: Hazael's and Jehu's killings are recounted later, in 2 Kings; both men come to power by violence and each destroys much of the ruling house he replaces.
19:18: Baal was the Canaanite storm and fertility god whose worship Jezebel had brought into Israel. Bowing the knee and kissing were standard acts of homage to an image: a worshiper would kiss the statue itself, or blow a kiss toward it from a distance.
19:19: Twelve pairs of oxen indicates a wealthy household; the teams plow in line, with Elisha working the last of them. Throwing the cloak over him is a formal gesture, a prophet's mantle stood for the man and his office, so laying it on Elisha lays a claim on him.
19:20: Elijah's reply is compact in Hebrew and genuinely ambiguous. It can mean "go ahead: I have done nothing to you, you are free," or "go, but bear in mind what I have just done to you." Translators split between the two.
19:21: Elisha slaughters his own plow team and burns the wooden yokes and plows as firewood: the tools and animals of his livelihood are destroyed in the meal, leaving him nothing to return to. "Served him" translates a word used of a personal attendant.

Read 1 Kings 19