Elijah

Elijah the Tishbite is the towering prophetic figure of the books of Kings, active in the northern kingdom of Israel in the ninth century BCE under Ahab and Jezebel, whose promotion of the worship of Baal he opposes with uncompromising fury. He appears abruptly, announces a drought as the word of the God of Israel, is fed by ravens and by a widow whose oil and meal do not fail, and raises her dead son.

His defining confrontation is on Mount Carmel, where he challenges the prophets of Baal to call down fire upon their sacrifice; their god is silent through a long day, and then the God of Israel answers Elijah's prayer with fire from heaven. Triumphant yet then in fear of Jezebel, he flees into the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God, where he encounters God not in wind, earthquake or fire but in a still small voice, a sound of thin silence, one of the most quoted phrases in scripture.

Alone among the figures of the Hebrew Bible, Elijah does not die: he is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire, his mantle falling to his successor Elisha. That deathless departure made him, for all that followed, a figure who might return.

Because Elijah did not die but was taken up, tradition looked for his return. The book of Malachi, closing the prophetic canon, promises that God will send Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord, to turn the hearts of parents and children to one another, making him the herald of the messianic age.

In Judaism this expectation runs deep in ritual and folklore. A cup of Elijah is poured at the Passover seder and the door opened for him; a chair for Elijah is set at every circumcision; and countless legends have him appear, unrecognized, to teach, rescue and test. He is the prophet of the world to come, whose coming will resolve disputed questions and announce redemption.

Christianity wove Elijah into its own story. He appears with Moses at the Transfiguration, conversing with Jesus, the prophets and the law bearing witness, and the Gospels present John the Baptist as the returning Elijah who prepares the messiah's way, a role John himself, in the Gospel of John, declines to claim in those literal terms.

Islam honours Ilyas among the prophets, upholding the worship of the one God against Baal. Across the traditions Elijah remains the zealous prophet and the awaited forerunner, poised between a first departure and a promised return.