Elijah also went to the top of Carmel, not to the symbolic feast, but in spirit and in truth to commune with God, reverentially hiding his face between his knees.  He felt the approach of the coming storm, even when the sky was clear, and not a cloud was to be seen over the blue waters of the Mediterranean.  So he said to his servant:  “Go up now, and look toward the sea.”  And the servant went to still higher ground and looked, and reported that nothing was to be seen.  Six times the order was impatiently repeated and obeyed; but at the seventh time, the youthful servant—­as some think, the very boy he had saved—­reported a cloud in the distant horizon, no bigger seemingly than a man’s hand.  At once Elijah sent word to Ahab to prepare for the coming tempest; and both he and the king began to descend the hill, for the clouds rapidly gathered in the heavens, and that mighty wind arose which in Eastern countries precedes a furious storm.  With incredible rapidity the tempest spread, and the king hastened for his life to his chariot at the foot of the hill, to cross the brook before it became a flood; and Elijah, remembering that he was king, ran before his chariot more rapidly than the Arab steeds.  As the servant of Jehovah, he performs his mission with dignity and without fear; as a subject, he renders due respect to rank and power.

Ahab has now witnessed with his own eyes the impotency of the prophets of Baal, and the marvellous power of the messenger of Jehovah.  The desire of the nation was to be gratified; the rains were falling, the cisterns and reservoirs were filling, and the fields once more would soon rejoice in their wonted beauty, and the famine would soon be at an end.  In view of the great deliverance, and awe-stricken by the supernatural gifts of the prophet, one would suppose that the king would have taken Elijah to his confidence and loaded him with favors, and been guided by his counsels.  But, no.  He had been subjected to deep humiliation before his own people; his religion had been brought into contempt, and he was afraid of his cruel and inexorable wife, who had incited him to debasing idolatries.  So he hastens to his palace in Jezreel and acquaints Jezebel of the wonderful things he had seen, and which he could not prevent.  She was transported with fury and vengeance, and vowing a tremendous oath, she sent a messenger to the prophet with these terrible words:  “As surely as thou art Elijah and I am Jezebel, so may God do to me and more also, if I make not thy life to-morrow, about this time, as the life of one of them.”  In her unbounded rage she forgot all policy, for she should have struck the blow without giving her enemy time to escape.  It may also be noted that she is no atheist, but believes in God according to Phoenician notions.  She reflects that eight hundred and fifty of Baal’s prophets had been slain, and that the nation might return to their allegiance to the god of their fathers, who had wrought the greatest calamity her proud heart could endure.  Unlike her husband, she knows no fear, and is as unscrupulous as she is fanatical.  Elijah, she resolved, should surely die.