M-G: 6.18.14 // What are you doing here, 1 Kings 19:9, Part 3 of 17

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We are in a series on attempting to understand the question posed to Elijah on Mt Horeb, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” The underlying truth is whenever we take our eyes off the LORD we wind up in a place where we don’t belong. I am kind of meandering my way to when Elijah high-tailed it out of Jezreel after receiving some encouraging news from a secret admirer of his, Jezebel. Before we get to that event, I thought it might be enriching to look at the political and religious factors leading up to the pagan environment in the Northern Kingdom in order to appreciate what Elijah was up against when he paid Israel a visit (1 Kgs 17:1).

By the time Ahab had taken over the throne in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (874-853 B.C.), he was the seventh to rule over ten of the twelve tribes (minus the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin comprising the kingdom of Judah in the south with its capital in Jerusalem) since Jeroboam (930-909 B.C.). Ahab’s father Omri (885-874 B.C.) had made Samaria the capital city of the Northern Kingdom. There were 19 monarchs in all that ruled over the Northern Kingdom from 930-722 B.C. This set of kings was an ungodly lot to say the least, causing Israel to be seduced by idolatry and into all of its attendant vices: apostasy, temple prostitution, human sacrifices, murdering the prophets of Yahweh, intimidation, control, et cetera. The period of the Judges was characterized as – “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 21:25); the resume of every king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel for the next 208 years could read – “He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin by which he made Israel sin” (1 Kgs 15:34).

Jeroboam, along with the ten tribes north and east of Jerusalem, rebelled against Rehoboam, the unwise son of Solomon, over his excessive taxation policies (1 Kgs 12:4, 14, 16, 17). The splitting of Solomon’s Kingdom after his death was prophesied (1 Kgs 11:11, 12, 13). To avoid tribes desiring to worship Yahweh in Jerusalem and rekindling emotions and politics that might potentially jeopardize his fiefdom, Jeroboam came up with a god of convenience solution; he encouraged the worship of the golden calves, in the beginning, to save pilgrims from having to travel to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh (1 Kgs 12:26-33); the populace of the Northern Kingdom yielded to this god of convenience and became addicted to idol worship. 

By the time of Ahab, Baal worship in Israel was at its height as the official religion. By 722 B.C. the capital city of Samaria suffered a crushing blow from Assyria under Sargon II, and many of its inhabitants were repopulated to Assyria. But the hatred between the Jews of Judah and the Samaritan Jews lingered until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. when the Jews were scattered all over the Roman Empire and beyond.

With 54 years of dark spiritual history under the belt of the Northern Kingdom, Ahab ascended to the throne and eventually made an alliance with a Sidonian king by the name of Ethbaal. Ahab sealed the deal by marrying his daughter Jezebel (1 Kgs 16:31, 32) who worshipped and promoted Baal, the predominate god of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians. Though Baal worship had already infiltrated the tribes long before the time of Ahab (Jdg 2:11, 13; 3:7; 10:6, 10; 1Sam 12:10), Ahab and Jezebel had sensed that the time was ripe for Baal worship as a “state” religion and seized the opportunity to officially embrace Baal worship in the Northern Kingdom by building a temple and altar in Samaria to honor, worship, and serve Baal. Though Jeroboam got the ball rolling on widespread idol worship, Ahab made Jeroboam look like a putty cat in comparison (1 Kgs 16:30-33). Ahab and Jezebel were serious Baal players, and those who didn’t play ball were seen as a liability to the kingdom and ran the risk of jeopardizing their livelihood as well as their life.

Little is known of Elijah who abruptly emerged from obscurity onto the stage of Scripture, pronouncing Divine judgment in the form of famine to Ahab. This severe dry spell was to come upon Israel for the construction of a temple to Baal in the capital city of Samaria and setting up an altar for the people to serve and worship Baal (1 Kgs 16:32-33). Baal worship was in direct violation of the Law of Moses (Ex 20:3-5), and the sin of idolatry carried with it grave consequences (Deut 11:16-17). Even before the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, they were warned of worshipping the gods of the Canaanites (Deut 6:14-15); they fell into idolatry anyway. Here is the first mention of the prophet Elijah in the Bible,

And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word” (1 Kgs 17:1, emphasis mine).

It didn’t take long before Ahab realized that this was no joke. We know that this famine lasted for 3.5 years (Lk 4:25; Jas 5:17b) as punishment for following the Baals (1 Kgs 18:18), and it didn’t take very long for this famine to pose a serious threat to Israel’s economy, not to mention making Baal look like he wasn’t doing a very good job of controlling the weather. The prophets of Baal probably fed the people a line of Baal, “Baal is angry that we have not served and honored him like we should with our offerings, and his displeasure is seen by closing the windows of heaven from providing water for our crops and livestock.” He was considered the weather god, after all! 

Ahab was keenly interested in apprehending Elijah (1 Kgs 18:10) because the prophet of Yahweh was hurting the economy and putting pressure on his official sanctioning of Baal worship. No rain was a huge problem for the state-sponsored Baal religion; people were becoming disgruntled and questioning the validity of dependence on the god of Baal with crop failures and livestock dying (cf. 1 Kgs 18:21). Ahab characterized Elijah as a “troubler of Israel” (1 Kgs 18:17, same Heb word translated “stirred,” Psa 39:2. Ahab accused Elijah of stirring up trouble for Israel, stirring the pot in our vernacular) and later on as his “enemy” (1 Kgs 21:20) which declared Ahab to be, by virtue of his own words, an enemy of Yahweh with indisputable clarity, as if his actions were not enough… The fact that Ahab never worshipped nor served Yahweh is unmistakable. In Ahab’s mind, finding the troublemaker and forcing him to either reverse the curse “willingly” or terminate the troublemaker or both was the only relief from the pressure exuded by the famine, not repentance…

Who was this prophet that came upon the stage of Israel's history like a whirlwind? Elijah is the Hebrew Eliyahu which means “Yahweh is God.” He lived east of the Jordan River near the vicinity of the Jabbok River in a town called Tishbe in the rocky hill country of Gilead. We know nothing of his family, his background, or his call to the ministry. What we do know of Elijah was that he unashamedly and uncompromisingly believed and declared that Yahweh was the One and only true and living God. You have to admire his commitment in the face of hostility. 

All the Baals were false gods; their prophets were liars, and whoever followed after the Baals in worship and service were deceived and apostate. Israel was up to its neck in Baal. So God directed Elijah to hit Baal where it hurt, with no rain. A god who claimed to be a rain god that cannot produce any rain is useless and a liar. Any rain that did fall previously or afterward was by the grace and mercy of God and not because of some demon pretending to be a rain god (Deut 11:14, 16, 17; Psa 135:7; Mt 5:45). 

The spiritual situation in Israel was not an agree-to-disagree theological climate being debated in academic circles over religious tolerance and diversity of opinion. Prophets of the LORD were being killed as Jezebel sought to eradicate them from the Northern Kingdom (1 Kgs 18:13); there was no room for Yahweh and Baal in the kingdom; she was right on that point. Ahab made no attempt to rein in his wife or prevent her from going on any of her killing sprees. 

There was no telling how many demons were attached to Ahab or Jezebel! I mentioned demons because Jesus linked the devil to Baal-Zebub (Mt 12:26-27), and it was Ahab’s son who was as wicked as his parents (1 Kgs 22:51, 52) who had inquired of the god of Ekron or Baal-Zebub, a Philistine deity (2 Kgs 1:2). The Baals were nothing more than demons masquerading as pagan gods, and Ahab and Jezebel were nothing more than tools of the devil. Idolatry is actually demon worship (Deut 32:17; Psa 106:37; 1 Cor 10:20).

It seemed the dryer it got in Israel, the more determined Jezebel became in manifesting her wicked desires upon Israel with a dogged fanaticism and demonic delirium, being spiritually blinded that there was something wrong with Baal; the famine for one thing! Israel worshipped a god that was destroying them in the process and was riding the fence between Baal and Yahweh (the undecided). It was ugly. The undecided are still a rejecter of Yahweh, even today. It is easy to empathize with why Elijah was way out in the desert and stating the obvious answer to Yahweh’s question, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Or is it something deeper than Elijah’s answer? If we take our eyes off the LORD, we will be out of the will of God in short order. <><  

To Part 4