Editorial April 30, 1955 Issue

A PROPHET IN THE WILDERNESS

Robert Ellis Key

One of the gravest warnings ever uttered against the errors of personal sense and self-pity is to be found in Chapter 19 of the first book of Kings where we read of Elijah, who, after the destruction of the false prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, received a malicious message from Jezebel threatening to take his life.

Elijah, an inspired prophet who through an understanding of God had destroyed a widespread idolatry in Israel and ended a great drought, cringed and almost capitulated to the vindictiveness of a wicked queen. "He ... went for his life," we are told, and "went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; ... for," he added, "I am not better than my fathers."

This word picture of the prophet's dejection is vividly descriptive. The day's journey, the wilderness, the juniper tree, his request to God that he might die, and his self-depreciation—each of these adds a distinctive note of dramatic and pathetic melancholy.

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