1 Kings 19:9-14
And [Elijah] arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.
And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire a still small voice.
And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave.
And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts…
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Elijah housed in a cave at Mount Horeb, which is called “the mount of God,” because on it God had formerly manifested His glory. And perhaps this was the same cave, or cleft of a rock, in which Moses was hidden when the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed his name, Exodus 33:22.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The parallel between Moses and Elijah is very real. The associations of the place are marked by the use of the definite article, which is missed in the Authorised King James Version, “the cave,”―the divine manifestation which followed is evidently meant to recall that granted to Moses on the same spot. “The Lord passed by” is all but verbally quoted from Exodus 34:6, and the truth that had been proclaimed in words to Moses was enforced by symbol to Elijah.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Elijah was now called upon to witness a most remarkable and awe-inspiring display of God’s power.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): It is, however, necessary to explain in what sense it is said that God was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. It is certain that, in one sense, He was in each of them―they were all the effect of His power; they were all proofs of His presence, and in all of them some of His natural perfections might be seen. But in another sense He was in none of them. They were rather the precursors, the heralds of the approaching Deity, than the Deity Himself.
WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): These were the demonstrations of God; but for Elijah there was something deeper, holier, more personal; he learns the superiority of the still small voice of God to all the outward demonstrations.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): These first terrible apparitions might well be to humble the prophet, and to prepare him to hearken more heedfully to the still voice, and to whatsoever God should say unto him.
MATTHEW HENRY: At last Elijah perceived a “still small voice” in which the Lord was, that is, by which He spoke to him, and not out of the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Those struck an awe upon him, awakened his attention, and inspired humility and reverence; but God chose to make known His mind to him in whispers soft, not in those dreadful sounds.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): A still small voice―not rough, but gentle, more like whispering than roaring; something soft, easy, and musical.
TERTULLIAN (160-240): This was scintillatio Divinitatis―a small sparkle of the Deity.
JOHN TRAPP: It was a sweet expression of God’s mind, and in this gentle and mild breath there was omnipotency; in the foregoing fierce representations there was but powerfulness.
MATTHEW HENRY: When Elijah perceived this, “he wrapped his face in his mantle,” verse 14, as one afraid to look upon the glory of God, and apprehensive that it would dazzle his eyes and overcome him. The angels cover their faces before God in token of reverence, Isaiah 6:2. The wind, and earthquake, and fire, did not make him cover his face, but the still voice did.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Prophet did not come out of the cave until he heard that voice―a mystic whisper, and God was there, as He often is in little things. He was called upon by God to come out and stand in the open before the Most High, but as I read it, he had not done this until the still small voice called him and drew him in the way of the command.
MATTHEW HENRY: Gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord than by His terrors. Elijah stood at the entrance of the cave, ready to hear what God had to say to him.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: That question, ‘What doest thou here?’ can scarcely be freed from a tone of rebuke.
MATTHEW HENRY: Lay the emphasis upon the pronoun thou. “What thou! So great a man, so great a prophet, so famed for resolution―dost thou flee thy country, forsake thy colours thus?” This cowardice would have been more excusable in another, and not so bad an example. “Should such a man as I flee?” Nehemiah 6:11…Elijah hid his face in token of shame for having been such a coward to flee from his duty when he had such a God of power to stand by him in it.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): When the Lord interrogated him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” he thought of nothing but his own services, and the sins of others: yea, when the question was repeated, he returned the same answer [again]. How strange that he should not, on the repetition of the question especially, suspect himself, and acknowledge that he had come thither without any call or direction from his God! So it too often is with the best of men: they are more ready to look with complacency on their virtues, than with contrition on their sins; and to censure with severity the faults of others, whilst they overlook their own.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: A true answer would have been, “I was afraid of Jezebel.”
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): But this his guiltiness would not let him do. He is at it, therefore, as before.
ALEXANDER MacLAREN: He takes credit for zeal, and seems to insinuate that he had been more zealous for God, than God had been for Himself. He forgets the national acknowledgment of Jehovah at Mount Carmel, 1 Kings 18:39, and the hundred prophets protected by good Obadiah, 1 Kings 18:13. Despondency has the knack of picking its facts. Elijah’s ministry was of such a sort, and he had now to learn the limitations of his work, and the superiority of another type, represented by the ‘sound of gentle stillness.’―It is the same lesson which Moses learned there, when he heard that the Lord is “a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth,” Psalm 86:15.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): What are we to think of Elijah? The Apostle James tells us that he “was a man of like passions with ourselves,” James 5:15. Reader! mark in the circumstances of God’s best servants, how much all men need grace to subdue their angry passions.
A. W. PINK: And is it any different today? Not a whit. So it is in His dealings with our souls―the Lord is not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the “still small voice.”
D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): It is as a still small voice that God speaks to His children.
