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Eliakim – Eliseus
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Eliakim
e-li'-a-kim ('elyaqim; Eliakeim, "God sets up"):
(1) The son of Hilkiah who succeeded Shebna as gorvernor of the palace and "grand vizier" under Hezekiah (). The functions of his office are seen from the oracle of Isaiah in which Shebna is deposed and Eliakim set in his place ( ff). He is the "treasurer" (the Revised Version, margin "steward"), and is "over the house" ().
At his installation he is clothed with a robe and girdle, the insignia of his office, and, having the government committed into his hand, is the "father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah" (). The key of the house of David is laid on his shoulder, and he alone has power to open and shut, this being symbolic of his absolute authority as the king's representative ().
One of Solomon's officials is the first mentioned as occupying this position (), and this office was continued in both the Northern and Southern Kingdom (; ; ; ). Its importance is seen from the fact that after Azariah was smitten with leprosy, Jotham his heir "was over the household, judging the people of the land" ().
When Sennacherib sent an army against Jerusalem in 701, Eliskim was one of these Jewish princes who held on behalf of Hezekiah a parley with the Assyrian officers (,,; ,,). As a result of the invader's threats, he was sent by Hezekiah in sackcloth to Isaiah, entreating his prayers to Yahweh on behalf of Jerusalem (; ).
(2) The original name of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, whom Pharaoh-necoh made king of Judah (; ).
(3) A priest who assisted at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, rebuilt after his return from Babylon ().
(4) A grandson of Zerubbabel and ancestor of Jesus ().
(5) An ancestor of Jesus ().
S. F. Hunter
Eliali
e-li'-a-li (Elialei):
/APC 1Esdras 9:34; possibly corresponds to "Binnui" in .
Eliam
e-li'-am ('eli'-am, "people's God"?):
(1) Father of Bathsheba (); in called Ammiel.
(2) One of David's "thirty," son of Ahithophel the Gilonite ().
Eliaonias
e-li-a-o-ni'-as (Elialonias):
A descendant of Phaath Moab ( /APC 1Esdras 8:31); called "Eliehoenai" in .
Elias
e-li'-as.
See ELIJAH.
Eliasaph
e-li'-a-saf ('elyacaph, "God has added"):
(1) Son of Deuel; prince of the tribe of Gad in the Exodus (; ; ,; ).
(2) Son of Lael; prince of the Gershonites ().
Eliashib
e-li'-a-shib ('elyashibh, "God restores"):
(1) A descendant of David ().
(2) Head of the eleventh course of priests ().
(3) The high priest in the time of Nehemiah. He, with his brethren the priests, helped in the rebuilding of the wall (). But later he was "allied unto Tobiah" the Ammonite () and allowed that enemy of Nehemiah the use of a great chamber in the temple (); and one of his grandsons, a son of Joiada, married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite and was for this expelled from the community by Nehemiah ().
See SANBALLAT.
(4, 5, 6) Three Israelites, one a "singer," who had married foreign wives (,,).
(7) Father of Jehohanan (); probably identical with (3) above. Called Eliasib in /APC 1Esdras 9:1.
F. K. Farr
Eliasib
e-li'-a-sib.
See ELIASHIB.
Eliasibus
e-li-as'-i-bus (Eliasibos, the King James Version Eleazurus):
One of the holy singers who had married a foreign wife ( /APC 1Esdras 9:24); called "Eliashib" in .
Eliasimus
e-li-as'-i-mus (Eliasimos; the King James Version Elisimus):
One who had married a foreign wife (1 Esdras 9:28).
Eliasis
e-li'-a-sis (Eliasis):
One who had married a foreign wife ( /APC 1Esdras 9:34); corresponds to "Jaasu" in .
Eliathah
e-li'-a-tha ('eli'-athah, "God has come"):
A Hemanite, head of the twentieth division of the temple musicians (,).
Elidad
e-li'-dad ('elidhadh, "God has loved"):
Prince of Benjamin in the division of the land ();
perhaps the same as ELDAD (which see).
Eliehoenai
e-li-e-ho'-e-ni ('elyeho`enay, "to Yahweh are mine eyes"):
(1) (the King James Version Elioenai) a Korahite doorkeeper ().
(2) (the King James Version Elihoenai) Head of a family in the Return ().
Eliel
e-li'-el, el'-i-el ('eli'el, "El is God," or "my God is God"):
(1, 2, 3) Mighty men of David (,; ).
(4) A chief of Manasseh, east of the Jordan ().
(5, 6) Two chiefs of Benjamin (,).
(7) A chief Levite from Hebron (,):
(8) A Kohathite in the line of Elkshah, Samuel and Heman ().
See ELIAB (4).
(9) A Levite of the time of Hezekiah ().
Elienai
el-i-e'-na-i ('eli`enay):
A Benjamite chief ().
Eliezer
el-i-e'-zer, e-li-e'-zer ('eli`ezer; Eliezer, "God is help"):
(1) The chief servant of Abram (); the American Standard Revised Version "Eliezer of Damascus," the English Revised Version "Dammesek Eliezer." The Hebrew is peculiar: literally, "And the son of the possession (mesheq) of my house is Dammeseq (of) Eliezer." A possible but unlikely meaning is that his property would become the possession of Damascus, the city of Eliezer. Targum Syriac (Revised Version margin) read "Eliezer the Damascene": this supposes a reading, "Eliezer ha- dammasqi" or "mid-dammeseq." The text may be corrupt: the assonance between mesheq and Dammeseq is suspicious. Abram calls Eliezer "one born in my house" i.e. a dependant, a member of his household, and so regards him as his heir, Lot having gone from him (). Eliezer is probably the servant, "the eider of his house, that ruled over all that he had," of .
(2) The 2nd son of Moses and Zipporah, called thus for "the God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh" (; ff).
(3) A son of Becher, one of the sons of Benjamin ().
(4) A priest who assisted in bringing up the ark from the house of Obed-edom to Jerusalem ().
(5) The son of Zichri, ruler over the Reubenites in the time of David ().
(6) The son of Dodavahu of Mareshah who prophesied the destruction of the ships which Jehochaphat, king of Judah, built, because he had done so in cooperation with Ahaziah, king of Israel ( ff).
(7) One of the messengers whom Ezra sent to Iddo, the chief at Casiphia, with the request for ministers for the Temple ( ff).
(8, 9, 10) A priest, a Levite, and one of the sons of Harim who had married non-Israelitish women (,,).
(11) An ancestor of Jesus in the genealogy given by Luke ().
S. F. Hunter
Elihaba
e-li'-ha-ba.
See ELIAHBA.
Elihoenai
el-i-ho-e'-na-i.
See ELIEHOENAI.
Elihoreph
el-i-ho'-ref ('elichoreph, "God of autumn"?):
A scribe of Solomon and son of Shisha ().
Elihu (1)
e-li'-hu ('elihu; Eleiou, "He is (my) God," or "my God is He"):
(1) An ancestor of Samuel (), called Eliel in and Eliab in . See ELIAB.
(2) Found in for Eliab, David's eldest brother (); called "one of the brethren of D."
(3) A Manassite who joined David at Ziklag ().
(4) A Korahite porter ().
(5) A friend of Job. See next article.
(6) An ancestor of Judith ( /APC Judith 8:1).
Elihu (2)
('elihu, 'elihu', "He is (my) God"; Elious):
One of the disputants in the Book of Job; a young man who, having listened in silence to the arguments of Job and his friends, is moved to prolong the discussion and from his more just views of truth set both parties right. He is of the tribe of Buz (compare ), a brother-tribe to that of Uz, and of the family of Ram, or Aram, that is, an Aramean. He is not mentioned as one of the characters of the story until chapter 32; and then, as the friends are silenced and Job's words are ended, Elihu has the whole field to himself, until theophany of the whirlwind proves too portentous for him to bear. His four speeches take up chapters 32-37. Some critics have considered that the Elihu portion of the Book of Job was added by a later hand, and urge obscurities and prolixities, as well as a different style, to prove that it was the work of an inferior writer. This estimate seems, however, to take into account only the part it plays in a didactic treatise, or a theological debate. It looks quite different when we read it as a real dramatic element in a story; in other words, when we realize that the prevailing interest of the Book of Job is not dialectic but narrative.
Thus viewed, the Elihu episode is a skillfully managed agency in preparing the denouncement. Consider the situation at the end of Job's words (). Job has vindicated his integrity and stands ready to present his cause to God (). The friends, however, have exhausted their resources, and through three discourses have been silent, as it were, snuffed out of existence. It is at this point, then, that Elihu is introduced, to renew their contention with young constructive blood, and represent their cause (as he deems) better than they can themselves. He is essentially at one with them in condemning Job (); his only quarrel with them is on the score of the inconclusiveness of their arguments (32:3,1). His self-portrayal is conceived in a decided spirit of satire on the part of the writer, not unmingled with a sardonic humor. He is very egotistic, very sure of the value of his ideas; much of his alleged prolixity is due to that voluble self-deprecation which betrays an inordinate opinion of oneself (compare ). This, whether inferior composition or not, admirably adapts his words to his character. For substance of discourse he adds materially to what the friends have said, but in a more rationalistic vein; speaks edifyingly, as the friends have not done, of the disciplinary value of affliction, and of God's means of revelation by dreams and visions and the interpreting of an intercessory friend ().
Very evidently, however, his ego is the center of his system; it is he who sets up as Job's mediator (; compare ), and his sage remarks on God's power and wisdom in Nature are full of self-importance. All this seems designed to accentuate the almost ludicrous humiliation of his collapse when from a natural phenomenon the oncoming tempest shows unusual and supernatural signs. His words become disjointed and incoherent, and cease with a kind of attempt to recant his pretensions. And the verdict from the whirlwind is: "darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge." Elihu thus has a real function in the story, as honorable as overweening self-confidence is apt to be.
John Franklin Genung
Elijah
e-li'-ja ('eliyahu or (4 times) 'eliyah, "Yah is God"; Septuagint Eleiou, New Testament Eleias or Elias, the King James Version of New Testament Elias):
Contents
I. THE WORKS OF ELIJAH
1. The Judgment of Drought 2. The Ordeal by Prayer 3. At Horeb 4. The Case of Naboth 5. Elijah and Ahaziah 6. Elijah Translated 7. The Letter to Jehoram
II. THE WORK OF ELIJAH
III. CHARACTER OF THE PROPHET
IV. MIRACLES IN THE ELIJAH NARRATIVES
V. ELIJAH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
VI. LITERATURE
(1) The great prophet of the times of Ahab, king of Israel. Elijah is identified at his first appearance () as "Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead." Thus his native place must have been called Tishbeh. A Tishbeh (Thisbe) in the territory of Naphtali is known from Tobit 1:2; but if (with most modern commentators) the reading of the Septuagint in 1Ki is followed, the word translated "sojourners" is itself "Tishbeh," locating the place in Gilead and making the prophet a native of that mountain region and not merely a "sojourner" there.
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I. The Works of Elijah.
In we read of the impieties of Ahab, culminating in his patronage of the worship of the Tyrian Baal, god of his Tyrian queen Jezebel (). mentions as another instance of the little weight attached in Ahab's time to ancient prophetic threatenings, the rebuilding by Hiel the Bethelite of the banned city of Jericho, "with the loss" of Hiel's eldest and youngest sons. This is the situation which calls for a judgment of Yahweh, announced beforehand, as is often the case, by a faithful prophet of Yahweh.
1. The Judgment of Drought:
Whether Elijah was already a familiar figure at the court of Ahab, the narrative beginning with does not state. His garb and manner identified him as a prophet, in any case (; compare ). Elijah declared in few words that Yahweh, true and only rightful God of Israel, whose messenger he was, was even at the very time sending a drought which should continue until the prophet himself declared it at an end. The term is to be fixed, indeed, not by Elijah but by Yahweh; it is not to be short ("these years"), and it is to end only when the chastisement is seen to be sufficient. Guided, as true prophets were continually, by the "word of Yahweh," Elijah then hid himself in one of the ravines east of ("before") the Jordan, where the brook Cherith afforded him water, and ravens brought him abundant food ("bread and flesh" twice daily), . As the drought advanced the brook dried up. Elijah was then directed, by the "word of Yahweh," as constantly, to betake himself beyond the western limit of Ahab's kingdom to the Phoenician village of Zarephath, near Sidon. There the widow to whom Yahweh sent him was found gathering a few sticks from the ground at the city gate, to prepare a last meal for herself and her son. She yielded to the prophet's command that he himself should be first fed from her scanty store; and in return enjoyed the fulfillment of his promise, uttered in the name of Yahweh, that neither barrel of meal nor cruse of oil should be exhausted before the breaking of the drought. (Josephus, Ant, VIII, xiii, 2, states on the authority of Menander that the drought extended to Phoenicia and continued there for a full year.) But when the widow's son fell sick and died, the mother regarded it as a Divine judgment upon her sins, a judgment which had been drawn upon her by the presence of the man of God. At the prayer of Elijah, life returned to the child ().
"In the third year," (; give three years and six months as the length of the drought), Elijah was directed to show himself to Ahab as the herald of rain from Yahweh. How sorely both man and beast in Israel were pressed by drought and the resulting famine, is shown by the fact that King Ahab and his chief steward Obadiah were in person searching through the land for any patches of green grass that might serve to keep alive some of the king's own horses and mules (,). The words of Obadiah upon meeting with Elijah show the impression which had been produced by the prophet's long absence. It was believed that the Spirit of God had carried Elijah away to some unknown, inaccessible, mysterious region (,). Obadiah feared that such would again be the case, and, while he entreated the prophet not to make him the bearer of a message to Ahab, appealed to his own well-known piety and zeal, as shown in his sheltering and feeding, during Jezebel's persecution, a hundred prophets of Yahweh. Elijah reassured the steward by a solemn oath that he would show himself to Ahab (). The king greeted the prophet with the haughty words, "Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?" Elijah's reply, answering scorn with scorn, is what we should expect from a prophet; the woes of Israel are not to be charged to the prophet who declared the doom, but to the kings who made the nation deserve it (,).
2. The Ordeal by Prayer:
Elijah went on to challenge a test of the false god's power. Among the pensioners of Jezebel were 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah--still fed by the royal bounty in spite of the famine. Accepting Elijah's proposal, Ahab called all these and all the people to Mt. Carmel (,). Elijah's first word to the assembly implied the folly of their thinking that the allegiance of a people could successfully be divided between two deities: "How long go ye limping between the two sides?" (possibly "leaping over two thresholds," in ironical allusion to the custom of leaping over the threshold of an idol temple, to avoid a stumble, which would be unpropitious; compare ). Taking the people's silence as an indication that they admitted the force of his first words, Elijah went on to propose his conditions for the test: a bullock was to be offered to Baal, a bullock to Yahweh, but no fire put under; "The God that answereth by fire, let him be God." The voice of the people approved the proposal as fair (). Throughout a day of blazing sunshine the prophets of Baal called in frenzy upon their god, while Elijah mocked them with merciless sarcasm (). About the time for the regular offering of the evening sacrifice in the temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem, Elijah assumed control. Rebuilding an ancient altar thrown down perhaps in Jezebel's persecution; using in the rebuilding twelve stones, symbolizing an undivided Israel such as was promised to the patriarch Jacob of old; drenching sacrifice and wood with water from some perennial spring under the slopes of Carmel, until even a trench about the altar, deep and wide enough to have a two-ce'ah (half-bushel) measure set in it, was filled--the prophet called in few and earnest words upon the God of the fathers of the nation (). The answer of Yahweh by fire, consuming bullock, wood, altar and the very dust, struck the people with awe and fear. Convinced that Yahweh was God alone for them, they readily carried out the prophet's stern sentence of death for the prophets of the idol god (). Next the prophet bade Ahab make haste with the meal, probably a sacrificial feast for the multitude, which had been made ready; because rain was at hand. On the mountain top Elijah bowed in prayer, sending his servant seven times to look out across the sea for the coming storm. At last the appearance of a rising cloud "as small as a man's hand" was reported; and before the hurrying chariot of the king could cross the plain to Jezreel it was overtaken by "a great rain" from heavens black with clouds and wind after three rainless years. With strength above nature, Elijah ran like a courier before Ahab to the very gate of Jezreel ().
3. At Horeb:
The same night a messenger from Jezebel found Elijah. The message ran, "As surely as thou art Elijah and I am Jezebel" (so the Septuagint), "so let the gods do to me, and more also" (i.e. may I be cut in pieces like a sacrificed animal if I break my vow; compare ,,; ,), "if I make not thy life as the life of one of" the slain prophets of Baal "by to-morrow about this time." Explain Elijah's action how we may--and all the possible explanations of it have found defenders--he sought safety in instant flight. At Beersheba, the southernmost town of Judah, he left his "servant," whom the narrative does not elsewhere mention. Going onward into the southern wilderness, he sat down under the scanty shade of a desert broom-bush and prayed that he might share the common fate of mankind in death (). After sleep he was refreshed with food brought by an angel. Again he slept and was fed. In the strength of that food he then wandered on for forty days and nights, until he found himself at Horeb, the mountain sacred because there Yahweh had revealed Himself to Moses (). The repetition of identical words by Elijah in and 14 represents a difficulty. Unless we are to suppose an accidental repetition by a very early copyist (early, since it appears already in the Septuagint), we may see in it an indication that Elijah's despondency was not easily removed, or that he sought at Horeb an especial manifestation of Yahweh for his encouragement, or both. The prophet was bidden to take his stand upon the sacred mount; and Yahweh passed by, heralded by tempest, earthquake and thunderstorm (19:9-12). These were Yahweh's fore-runners only; Yahweh was not in them, but in the "still small voice," such as the prophets were accustomed to hear within their souls. When Elijah heard the not unfamiliar inner voice, he recognized Yahweh present to hear and answer him. Elijah seems to be seeking to justify his own retreat to the wilderness by the plea that he had been "very jealous," had done in Yahweh's cause all that mortal prophet could do, before he fled, yet all in vain! The same people who had forsaken the law and "covenant" of Yahweh, thrown down His altars and slain His prophets, would have allowed the slaughter of Elijah himself at the command of Jezebel; and in him would have perished the last true servant of Yahweh in all the land of Israel (19:13,14).
Divine compassion passed by Elijah's complaint in order to give him directions for further work in Yahweh's cause. Elijah must anoint Hazael to seize the throne of Syria, Israel's worst enemy among the neighboring powers; Jehu, in like manner, he must anoint to put an end to the dynasty of Ahab and assume the throne of Israel; and Elisha, to be his own successor in the prophetic office. These three, Hazael and his Syrians, Jehu and his followers, even Elisha himself, are to execute further judgments upon the idolaters and the scorners in Israel. Yahweh will leave Himself 7,000 (a round number, a limited but not an excessively small one, conveying a doctrine, like the doctrine of later prophets, of the salvation of a righteous remnant) in Israel, men proof against the judgment because they did not share the sin. If Elijah was rebuked at all, it was only in the contrast between the 7,000 faithful and the one, himself, which he believed to number all the righteous left alive in Israel ().
4. The Case of Naboth:
The anointing of Hazael and of Jehu seems to have been left to Elijah's successor; indeed, we read of no anointing of Hazael, but only of a significant interview between that worthy and Elisha (). Elijah next appears in the narrative as rebuker of Ahab for the judicial murder of Naboth. In the very piece of ground which the king had coveted and seized, the prophet appeared, unexpected and unwelcome, to declare upon Ahab, Jezebel and all their house the doom of a shameful death (). There was present at this scene, in attendance upon the king, a captain named Jehu, the very man already chosen as the supplanter of Ahab, and he never forgot what he then saw and heard (,).
5. Elijah and Ahaziah:
Ahab's penitence (,) averted from himself some measure of the doom. His son Ahaziah pulled it down upon his own head. Sick unto death from injuries received in a fall, Ahaziah sent to ask an oracle concerning his recovery at the shrine of Baal-zebub in Ekron. Elijah met the messengers and turned them back with a prediction, not from Baal-zebub but from Yahweh, of impending death. Ahaziah recognized by the messengers' description the ancient "enemy" of his house. A captain and fifty soldiers sent to arrest the prophet were consumed by fire from heaven at Elijah's word. A second captain with another fifty met the same fate. A third besought the prophet to spare his life, and Elijah went with him to the king, but only to repeat the words of doom ().
6. Elijah Translated:
A foreboding, shared by the "sons of the prophets" at Beth-el and Jericho, warned Elijah that the closing scene of his earthly life was at hand. He desired to meet the end, come in what form it might, alone. Elisha, however, bound himself by an oath not to leave his master. Elijah divided Jordan with the stroke of his mantle, that the two might pass over toward the wilderness on the east. Elisha asked that he might receive a firstborn's portion of the spirit which rested upon his master. "A chariot of fire, and horses of fire" appeared, and parted the two asunder; "and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" ().
7. The Letter to Jehoram:
In we read of a "writing" from Elijah to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. The statements of , admit of no other interpretation than that the succession of Elisha to independent prophetic work had already occurred in the lifetime of Jehoshaphat. It has been pointed out that the difficult verse, , appears to mean that Jehoram began to reign at some time before the death of his father; it is also conceivable that Elijah left a message, reduced to writing either before or after his departure, for the future king of Judah who should depart from the true faith.
II. The Work of Elijah.
One's estimate of the importance of the work of Elijah depends upon one's conception of the condition of things which the prophet confronted in Northern Israel. While it is true that the reign of Ahab was outwardly prosperous, and the king himself not without a measure of political sagacity together with personal courage, his religious policy at best involved such tolerance of false faiths as could lead only to disaster. Ever since the time of Joshua, the religion of Yahweh had been waging its combat with the old Canaanite worship of the powers of Nature, a worship rendered to local deities, the "Baalim" or "lords" of this and that neighborhood, whose ancient altars stood "upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree" (). The god imported from Phoenicia by Jezebel bore also the title Baal; but his character and his worship were worse and more debasing than anything that had before been known. Resistance offered by the servants of Yahweh to the claims of the queen's favored god led to persecution, rightly ascribed by the historian to Jezebel (). In the face of this danger, the differences between the worship of Yahweh as carried on in the Northern Kingdom and the same worship as practiced at Jerusalem sank out of sight. The one effort of Elijah was to recall the people from the Tyrian Baal to Yahweh, the God of their fathers. The vitality of the true religion in the crisis is shown by the fidelity of such a man as Obadiah ( f), or by the perseverance of a righteous remnant of 7,000, in spite of all that had happened of persecution (). The work begun by Elijah was finished, not without blood, by Jehu; we hear no more of the worship of the Tyrian Baal in Israel after that anointed usurper's time (; ). To say that Elijah at Horeb "learns the gentleness of God" (Strachan in HDB) is to contradict the immediate text of the narrative and the history of the times. The direction given Elijah was that he should anoint one man to seize the throne of Syria, another to seize that of Israel, and a prophet to continue his own work; with the promme and prediction that these three forces should unite in executing upon guilty Israel the judgment still due for its apostasy from Yahweh and its worship of a false god. Elijah was not a reformer of peace; the very vision of peace was hidden from his eyes, reserved for later prophets for whom he could but prepare the way. It was his mission to destroy at whatever cost the heathen worship which else would have destroyed Israel itself, with consequences whose evil we cannot estimate. Amos and Hosea would have had no standing-ground had it not been for the work of Elijah and the influences which at Divine direction he put in operation.
III. Character of the Prophet.
It is obvious that the Scripture historian does not intend to furnish us with a character-study of the prophet Elijah. Does he furnish even the material upon which such a study may profitably be attempted? The characterization found in , "Elijah was a man of like passions (margin, "nature") with us," is brief indeed; but examination of the books which have been written upon the life of Elijah leads to the conclusion that it is possible to err by attaching to events meanings which those events were never intended to bear, as well as by introducing into one's study too much of sheer imagination. It is easy, for example, to observe that Elijah is introduced to the reader with suddenness, and that his appearances and disappearances in the narrative seem abrupt; but is one warranted in arguing from this a like abruptness in the prophet's character? Is not the sufficient explanation to be reached by observing that the historian's purpose was not to give a complete biography of any individual, whether prophet or king, but to display the working of Yahweh upon and with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah through the prophets? Few personal details are therefore to be found recorded concerning even such a prophet as Elijah; and none at all, unless they have a direct bearing upon his message. The imagination of some has discerned a "training of Elijah" in the experiences of the prophet; but to admit that there must have been such a training does not oblige us to discover traces of it in the scenes and incidents which are recorded. Distrusting, for the reasons above suggested, any attempt at a detailed representation of the prophet's inner life, one may seek, and prize, what seems to lie upon the surface of the narrative: faith in Yahweh as God of Nature and as covenant God of the patriarchs and their descendants; consuming "zeal" against the false religion which would displace Yahweh from the place which must be His alone; keen vision to perceive hypocrisy and falsehood, and sharp wit to lash them, with the same boldness and disregard of self that must needs mark the true prophet in any age.
IV. Miracles in the Elijah Narratives.
The miraculous element must be admitted to be prominent in the experiences and works of Elijah. It cannot be estimated apart from the general position which the student finds it possible to hold concerning miracles recorded in the Old Testament. The effort to explain away one or another item in a rationalistic way is wholly unprofitable. Elijah's "ravens" may indeed be converted by a change of vowel-points into "Arabians"; but, in spite of the fact that Orientals would bring offerings of food to a holy hermit, the whole tenor of the narrative favors no other supposition than that its writer meant "ravens," and saw in the event another such exercise of the power of Yahweh over all things as was to be seen in the supply of meal and oil for the prophet and the widow of Zarephath, the fire from heaven, the parting of the Jordan, or the ascension of the prophet by whirlwind into heaven. Some modern critics recognize a different and later source in the narrative of ; but here again no real difficulty, if any difficulty there be, is removed. The stern prophet who would order the slaughter of the 450 Baal prophets might well call down fire to consume the soldiers of an apostate and a hostile king. The purpose and meaning of the Elijah chapters is to be grasped by those who accept their author's conception of Yahweh, of His power, and of His work in Nature and with men, rather than by those who seek to replace that conception by another.
V. Elijah in the New Testament.
Malachi (4:5) names Elijah as the forerunner of "the great and terrible day of Yahweh," and the expectation founded upon this passage is alluded to in parallel ; parallel parallel ; parallel ,. The interpretation of Malachi's prophecy foreshadowed in the angelic annunciation to Zacharias (), that John the Baptist should do the work of another Elijah, is given on the authority of Jesus Himself (). The appearance of Elijah, with Moses, on the Mount of Transfiguration, is recorded in parallel parallel , and in parallel Jesus again identifies the Elijah of Malachi with John the Baptist. The fate of the soldiers of Ahaziah () is in the mind of James and John on one occasion (). Jesus Himself alludes to Elijah and his sojourn in the land of Sidon (,). Paul makes use of the prophet's experience at Horeb (). In , the work of Elijah affords an instance of the powerful supplication of a righteous man.
(2) A "head of a father's house" of the tribe of Benjamin (, the King James Version "Eliah").
(3) A man of priestly rank who had married a foreign wife ().
(4) A layman who had married a foreign wife .
LITERATURE.
The histories of Israel and commentaries on Kings are many. Those which tend to rationalizing tend also to decrease the importance of Elijah to the history. F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 2nd series, V; Maurice, Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, Sermon VIII; Milligan, Elijah ("Men of the Bible" series); W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet.
F. K. Farr
Elika
e-li'-ka ('eliqa', "God is rejector(?)"):
The Harodite (Uradite), one of David's guard, the "thirty" ().
Omitted from .
Elim
e'-lim ('elim, "terebinths"; Aileim):
The second encampment of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea. It was a contrast to the previous camp called "Marah" because of the bitterness of the waters, for there "were twelve springs of water, and threescore and ten palm trees" (; ; f). The traditional site is an oasis in Wady Ghurundel, circa 63 miles from Suez.
See EXODUS; WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL.
Elimelech
e-lim'-e-lek ('elimelekh, "my God is king"; Abeimelech, Alimelek):
Elimelech was a member of the tribe of Judah, a native of Bethlehem Judah, a man of wealth and probably head of a family or clan (,; ,). He lived during the period of the Judges, had a hereditary possession near Bethlehem, and is chiefly known as the husband of Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ru and ancestress of David the king. Because of a severe famine in Judea, he emigrated to the land of Moab with his wife and his sons, Mahlon and Chilion. Not long afterward he died, and his two sons married Moabite women, Ru and Orpah. Ten years in all were spent in Moab, when the two sons died, and the three widows were left. Soon afterward Naomi decided to return to Judah, and the sequel is told in the Book of Ruth.
See RUTH; NAOMI.
J. J. Reeve
Elioenai
e-li-o-e'-na-i.
See ELIEHOENAI.
Elionas
el-i-o'-nas (Elionas, Elionais): The name of two men who had married foreign wives (), corresponding respectively to "Elioenai" and "Eliezer" in ,.
Eliphal
e-li'-fal, el'-i-fal ('eliphal, "God has judged"):
Son of Ur, one of the mighty men of David's armies (). the Revised Version (British and American) in a footnote identifies him with Eliphelet, son of Ahasbai, the son of the Maachathite (; ef Davis, Dict. of the Bible, under the word "Ur"). See also ,.
Eliphalat
e-lif'-a-lat (Eliphalet; ):
Called "Eliphelet" in ; .
Eliphaz (1)
el'-i-faz, e-li'-faz ('eliphaz, "God is fine gold" (?)):
(1) Son of Esau by Adah, and father of Teman, Kenaz and Amalek (,; f).
(2) See next article.
Eliphaz (2)
The first and most prominent of the three friends of Job (), who come from distant places to condole with and comfort him, when they hear of his affliction.
That he is to be regarded as their leader and spokesman is shown by the greater weight and originality of his speeches (contained in ; ; ; ), the speeches of the other friends being in fact largely echoes and emotional enforcements of his thoughts, and by the fact that he is taken as their representative () when, after the address from the whirlwind, Yahweh appoints their expiation for the wrong done to Job and to the truth.
He is represented as a venerable and benignant sage from Teman in Idumaea, a place noted for its wisdom (compare ), as was also the whole land of Edom (compare ); and doubtless it is the writer's design to make his words typical of the best wisdom of the world. This wisdom is the result of ages of thought and experience (compare ), of long and ripened study (compare ), and claims the authority of revelation, though only revelation of a secondary kind (compare Eliphaz' vision, ff, and his challenge to Job to obtain the like, ).
In his first speech he deduces Job's affliction from the natural sequence of effect from cause (), which cause he makes broad enough to include innate impurity and depravity (); evinces a quietism which deprecates Job's selfdestroying outbursts of wrath (,; compare Job's answer, ,; ); and promises restoration as the result of penitence and submission. In his second speech he is irritated because Job's blasphemous words are calculated to hinder devotion (), attributes them to iniquity (,), reiterates his depravity doctrine (), and initiates the lurid descriptions of the wicked man's fate, in which the friends go on to overstate their case (). In the third speech he is moved by the exigencies of his theory to impute actual frauds and crimes to Job, iniquities indulged in because God was too far away to see (22:5-15); but as a close holds open to him still the way of penitence, abjuring of iniquity, and restoration to health and wealth (22:21-30). His utterances are well composed and judicial (too coldly academic, Job thinks, 16:4,5), full of good religious counsel abstractly considered.
Their error is in their inveterate presupposition of Job's wickedness, their unsympathetic clinging to theory in the face of fact, and the suppressing of the human promptings of friendship.
John Franklin Genung
Eliphelehu
e-lif'-e-le-hu ('eliphelehu, "May God distinguish him," the King James Version Elipheleh):
The eleventh of the fourteen doorkeepers mentioned as "brethren of the second degree" and as appointed in connection with the bringing up of the ark to Jerusalem by David ().
Eliphelet
e-lif'-e-let.
See ELIPHALAT; ELIPHAL.
Elisabeth
e-liz'-a-beth (Elisabet, Westcott and Hort Eleisdbet, from Heb 'elishebha` (Elisheba), "God is (my) oath," i.e. a worshipper of God):
Wife of Zacharias the priest and mother of John the Baptist ( ff). Elisabeth herself was of priestly lineage and a "kinswoman" (the King James Version COUSIN, which see) of the Virgin Mary (), of whose visit to Elisabeth a remarkable account is given in .
See ZACHARIAS.
Eliseus
el-i-se'-us.
See ELISHA.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr (1915). Public domain. Text from the CrossWire Bible Society.