La Elijah's story is undoubtedly very interesting. For this reason, we invite you to read the following article where we are going to delve a little deeper into his life and how God worked through him to prophesy during difficult times.
Elijah's story
To focus on the biblical scriptures, Elijah is mentioned as the prophet chosen by God to warn King Ahab about his plans due to his wickedness and false beliefs.
Who was Elijah?
There are no data on the history of Elijah. Only that he lived before Christ and must have been a great devotee, with a righteous heart and full of true love towards God, we can deduce this because later, God uses him as an instrument to be able to communicate his intentions towards Israel.
The malice of Ahab and his wife Jezebel:
We must remember that by the time the story of Elijah concerns us, the Hebrew people were divided into two kingdoms: the northern one (Israel) and the southern one (Judah).
Ahab was king of the entire northern region of Israel, he was the seventh king and he ruled in a very similar way to his father and went to war constantly to face the Syrians, who were his worst enemies and thus maintain his territory as leader, since that in that aspect, it was very severe.
It cannot be said that he was a bad ruler because of that, even during his reign there were prosperous times, he always tried to reach peace agreements to avoid frequent conflicts with other regions, he managed the economy and power very well, he showed strength.
But it had a dark side, an aspect that God did not like under any circumstances and it was the belief in a false divinity, called Baal.
Ahab was married to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, who for a long time tried to convince her husband to build temples to worship their god. Of course Ahab agreed and began to take faithful devotion to this deity very seriously.
Jezebel had a very strong character and her beliefs were deeply rooted. The people of Israel, who were mostly Hebrew, had constant clashes with the people who were beginning to take the religion of the kingdom for themselves.
As time passed, the king, under the orders of his wife, established a law that said that all people had to immediately change all their religious beliefs and customs and turn to the god Baal.
In this way, an internal conflict begins within the population, but many people, out of fear, decided to accept Baal, as an absolute deity.
Elijah's Story:
It is at this moment in history that Elijah makes his appearance, and under orders from God, he approaches the kingdom of Ahab and warns him that a very strong drought and a great famine will come because they had turned against God and the true sacred word.
Given this, Jezebel decides to attack all the Hebrew prophets who were in the kingdom and had them assassinated, so Elijah flees into the desert and thus begins a great drought and a severe famine in the kingdom of Israel.
During this calamity, Elijah is fed by ravens during his passage through the desert, until he reaches a town and takes refuge in a widow's house and tells her that food will not be lacking because God will always act before them.
So the widow accepts it and in fact, she never lacked food at her table, she had a son who got sick and died, and the first thing that occurred to her was to think that the fault of all the fact, was the presence of Elijah at home.
So the prophet took the body of the young man and prayed deeply, crying out to God to please bring him back to life so that the widow would not think such a thing. God listened to his request and granted life again to the widow's son, so Elijah could stay with them again.
Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal:
Almost three years passed, until God told Elijah that he must meet Ahab. For this, he returns to the town and meets Obadiah, the one in charge of managing the internal affairs of King Ahab, who internally continued to love God.
When Elijah tells Obadiah that he needs to see Ahab to communicate something that God has ordered, he without hesitation went to bring the king before Elijah.
When Ahab arrives, Elijah tells him that all the evil that Israel suffers is because of his kingdom's decision to disobey God's commands and worship a false god like Baal and also tells him that he must gather all the prophets of the temple of Baal on Mount Carmel, in front of all the people.
Ahab accepts this, and sends for all the prophets of Baal, who were to kill a bull and cut it into pieces to offer it as a sacrifice and were to bring wood without setting it on fire, and Elijah would do the same with his bull and the wood, doing emphasized that they had to cry out to their God and Elijah to his.
And so it happened, the prophets of Baal prayed and shouted and even cut themselves with knives, as part of their custom so that their god would listen to them, but nothing happened. The deal is supposed to have been for the true God to set fire to the wood used in the sacrifice.
Then Elijah asked the people to come and build around the sacrifice, a small altar where 12 stones were used, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel and they made a ditch where water would flow.
And Elijah began to ask God for the following: «Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I beg you to please listen to me and act in this place because it was You who ordered me and I have obeyed…».
And God listened to Elijah and sent fire on the animal that had been sacrificed, the wood, the water and even a little earth that was around the altar.
At this, all the people knelt down, apologized to God and believed in his word again. So Elijah ordered the people to kill the prophets of Baal, because this was part of God's orders.
And none were left alive. Elijah approached Ahab, who was surprised and told him that a very heavy rain would come and that he had to go home. And so he did and when he arrived, he told Jezebel everything and she sent a servant to tell Elijah that she was going to kill him.
Then Elijah fled and God was with him at all times, until he told him that he would appear to him, and there was a strong wind, then an earthquake, there was fire and then a strong light that Elijah himself had to hide his eyes to blind himself.
God told him that he should go to the desert of Damascus and consecrate Hazael as king of Syria, Jehu as king of Israel, and Elisha as the prophet who will succeed you. And so Elijah did, and as God had planned, the new king of Syria joins Jehu in combat to overthrow Ahab, who dies in combat and Jezebel dies in the palace when he falls from a balcony.
In the following link, you will be able to learn more about the life and influence of Jezebel in biblical times: jezebel spirit.
Over time Elijah spent his last days teaching Elisha, and when his time came to leave, a great whirlwind of fire descended from the heavens in front of Elisha's eyes, who was left with nothing but an Elijah's mantle in his hands, and he understood that God took him along with him.