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Prophets and Kings
Determined to keep the people in deception, the priests of Baal
continue to offer sacrifices to their gods and to call upon them night
and day to refresh the earth. With costly offerings the priests attempt to
appease the anger of their gods; with a zeal and a perseverance worthy
of a better cause they linger round their pagan altars and pray earnestly
for rain. Night after night, throughout the doomed land, their cries and
entreaties arise. But no clouds appear in the heavens by day to hide
the burning rays of the sun. No dew or rain refreshes the thirsty earth.
The word of Jehovah stands unchanged by anything the priests of Baal
can do.
A year passes, and yet there is no rain. The earth is parched
as if with fire. The scorching heat of the sun destroys what little
vegetation has survived. Streams dry up, and lowing herds and bleating
flocks wander hither and thither in distress. Once-flourishing fields
have become like burning desert sands, a desolate waste. The groves
dedicated to idol worship are leafless; the forest trees, gaunt skeletons
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of nature, afford no shade. The air is dry and suffocating; dust storms
blind the eyes and nearly stop the breath. Once-prosperous cities and
villages have become places of mourning. Hunger and thirst are telling
upon man and beast with fearful mortality. Famine, with all its horror,
comes closer and still closer.
Yet notwithstanding these evidences of God’s power, Israel re-
pented not, nor learned the lesson that God would have them learn.
They did not see that He who created nature controls her laws, and can
make of them instruments of blessing or of destruction. Proudhearted,
enamored of their false worship, they were unwilling to humble them-
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selves under the mighty hand of God, and they began to cast about for
some other cause to which to attribute their sufferings.
Jezebel utterly refused to recognize the drought as a judgment from
Jehovah. Unyielding in her determination to defy the God of heaven,
she, with nearly the whole of Israel, united in denouncing Elijah as
the cause of all their misery. Had he not borne testimony against their
forms of worship? If only he could be put out of the way, she argued,
the anger of their gods would be appeased, and their troubles would
end.
Urged on by the queen, Ahab instituted a most diligent search
for the hiding place of the prophet. To the surrounding nations, far
and near, he sent messengers to seek for the man whom he hated, yet