Almost nothing is known of the early history of Elijah.  The Bible simply speaks of him as “the Tishbite,”—­one of the inhabitants of Gilead, at the east of the Jordan.  He evidently was a man accustomed to a wild and solitary life.  His stature was large, and his features were fierce and stern.  His long hair flowed upon his brawny shoulders, and he was clothed with a mantle of sheepskin or hair-cloth, and carried in his hand a rugged staff.  He was probably unlearned, being rude and rough in both manners and speech.  His first appearance was marked and extraordinary.  He suddenly and unannounced stood before Ahab, and abruptly delivered his awful message.  He was an apparition calculated to strike with terror the boldest of kings in that superstitious age.  He makes no set speech, he offers no apology, he disdains all forms and ceremonies; he does not even render the customary homage.  He utters only a few words, preceded by an oath:  “As Jehovah the God of Israel liveth, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word.”  What arrogance before a king!  Elijah, an utterly unknown man, in a sheepskin mantle, apparently a peasant, dares to utter a curse on the land without even deigning to give a reason, although the conscience of Ahab must have told him that he could not with impunity introduce idolatry into Israel.

Elijah doubtless attacked the king in the presence of his wife and court.  To the cynical and haughty queen, born in idolatry, he probably seemed a madman of the desert,—­shaggy, unwashed, fierce, repulsive.  To the Israelitish king, however, with better knowledge of the ways of God, the prophet appeared armed with supernal powers, whom he both feared and hated, and desired to put out of the way.  But Elijah mysteriously disappears from the royal presence as suddenly as he had entered it, and no one knows whither he has fled.  He cannot be found.  The royal emissaries go into every land, but are utterly baffled in their search.  The whole power of the realm was doubtless put forth to discover his retreat, and had he been found, no mercy would have been shown him; he would have been summarily executed, not only as a prophet of the detested religion, but as one who had insulted the royal station.  He was forced to flee and hide after delivering his unwelcome message.

And whither did the prophet fly?  He fled with the swiftness of a Bedouin, accustomed to traverse barren rocks and scorching sands, to a retired valley of one of the streams that emptied into the Jordan near Samaria.  Amid the clefts of the rocks which marked the deep valley, did the man of God hide himself from his furious and numerous persecutors.  He does not escape to his native deserts, where he would most probably have been hunted like a wild beast, but remains near the capital in which Ahab reigns, in a deeply secluded spot, where he quenches his thirst from the waters of the brook, and eats the food which the ravens deposit amid the steep cliffs he knows how to climb.