>> Jen: Hello and good morning, faithful listeners, and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. We are going to be talking about 1 Kings 19 today, the entire chapter, and discussing depression, fear, and anxiety and how these things are often linked to lies. We'll talk about all of that today on the podcast. Well, faithful listeners, I hope you had a very fantastic weekend. And if you did anything, uh, special this weekend, tell me about it. You can contact me. My information
is listed in the description of this episode. And yes, I do read all of my emails, just to let you guys know, but today we're going to be in First Kings chapter 19, and I want to jump in because it's going to be a long episode. I can already tell just based upon the amount of content that we're going to be covering today. So I'm going to be reading the entire chapter out of the
web version. But of course, feel free to grab your favorite version of the Bible and also your cup of coffee or tea this morning, whatever you guys prefer. I am drinking right now ginger, uh, lemon grass tea. And it's one of my. It's one of my favorite teas. I like this one. All right, faithful listeners, grab your tea or your cup of coffee. Let's go ahead and jump in. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how
he had killed the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, so let the gods do to me, and more also if I don't make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow. About this time, when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that
he might die and said, it's enough now. O Yahweh, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers. He lay down and slept under a juniper tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on the coals and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. Yahweh's angel came again the second time and touched him and said, arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. He arose and
ate and drank and. And went in strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, God's mountain. He came to a cave there and camped there. And behold, Yahweh's word came to him, and he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of armies. For the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only am left, and they seek my
life to take it away. He said, go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh. Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rock before Yahweh. But Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake. But Yahweh was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire passed, but Yahweh was not in the fire. After the fire there was a still, small voice.
When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for Yahweh the God of armies. For the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away. Yahweh said to him, go, return on your way to the wilderness of
Damascus. When you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. Anoint Jehu the son of Neemshi to be king over Israel and anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Mahalah to be prophet in your place. He who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. And he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha, will kill. Yet I reserved 7,000 in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed down to baal, and every
mouth which is not kissed him. So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him, and he went with the 12th. Elijah went over to him and put his mantle on him. Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, let me please kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you. He said to him, go back again,
for what have I done to you. He returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and killed them and boiled their meat with the instruments of the oxen and gave to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and served him. So now that I'm looking at 1 Kings 19, I think that something
I mentioned last week is wrong. So when we talked about how God gave Elijah supernatural speed at the end of the last chapter, that one of the reasons why God might have done that was to let Elijah get to Queen Jezebel first before her husband King Ahab gets to her so that Elijah could tell her the whole story. However, it doesn't seem like in 1 Kings 19 that Elijah talked to Jezebel at all because Jezebel hears the entire story from her husband, King Ahab and
gets super angry. It says in verse one, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me, and more also if I don't make your life as the life of what of them by tomorrow about this time. So it does not sound like Jezebel had talked to Elijah at all about this. It sounds like she heard everything from her husband and her husband, King Ahab,
he's a weird guy. Like, he's in, uh, everything I've seen about Ahab so far. He just kind of seems very wimpy. Like he. He doesn't really stand up for anything or stand up to anything. And he plays the blame game a lot. And we're going to see a lot more about King Ahab in the future and just some of the wimpy things that he does. Ahab blames everything on Elijah, including the death of all of those prophets, which, granted, was justified. Those prophets deserved to die for what they had
done. Considering the fact that they were Israelites who were worshiping baal and partaking in Jezebel's torture and killing of God's real prophets, they deserved to die. But yet it's not clear if Elijah himself killed all 500 of those prophets or if the people also partook in that. Because it kind of seems like if you read the last chapter, the people had a hand in that. And yet Ahab doesn't mention that little detail when talking to his wife and
blames everything on Elijah. So she gets super angry because she's a baal worshipper. She has no regard for Yahweh or Yahweh's prophets. Now, something really interesting about Jezebel. If you look up the meaning of her name on Google, you will not find anything consistent. Some people says, oh, the name Jezebel means baal be honored. Some people say, oh, the name Jezebel means where is the LORD, some people say, oh, the name Jezebel means pure or living in
unity. But the fact of the matter is, nobody knows really what Jezebel's name actually means. But there is one thing I found that makes the most sense to me about Jezebel's name, because, as we know, names had meaning back in these days. I mean, uh, so many times I've talked about, oh, you know, Joshua, his name means salvation, and other examples like that. So names pretty much always had meaning back in
these days, as they kind of do now. But I think people do name their kids less for the meaning of the name and more of how the name sounds. Like, for example, my name is Jennifer, my full name. And, uh, my parents did not choose it because of what it means, which, coincidentally, is, um, white or ghostly, which makes sense for my complexion. But my parents did not choose it based upon what it means. They just liked the way the name sounded. And perhaps that went
on a little bit back in these days. But overall, names had a lot more meaning to them, and that's why people would choose names. So Jezebel had to mean something. So when I did a little bit of a deeper dive into the name Jezebel, I found that it had ties with the name Beelzebul, which I talked about a few episodes ago when we first talked about the introduction of baal worship. One of baal's names was Beelzebul, or Beelzebul, nowadays known as
Beelzebub. And today, the name Beelzebub is translated as the lord of the Flies. But back in these days, Beelzebul meant lord of dung, because baal means God or lord, and Zebul means dung. And it's very interesting that Jezebel's name looks an awful lot like Beelzebub. So it is very possible that Jezebel's parents named her in honor of Beelzebul, but it turns out that her name just
means poop. I'm very sorry for being obsessed with baal and poop worship in the podcast recently, but it was just something so interesting that I did not know before. And it just keeps, like, popping out to me how much you're gonna see the words for dung and excrement used throughout first and Second Kings, because that really is what baal worship represented. And in fact, the local people themselves literally named baal the God of dung.
And Jezebel, which sounds an awful lot like that could just mean dung. So, anyway, Jezebel sends a messenger to Elijah because she's very angry about what Elijah had done. And she says, so let the gods do to me, and more also if I don't make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. Now, this was a threat because Jezebel clearly knew where Elijah was staying because she was
able to send a messenger to him. So if she really wanted to kill him, she could have just gone to where he was, sent her people there, and killed him right on the spot. But she didn't end up doing that. Instead, she threatens his life to try to scare him and his followers and anybody that worshiped Yahweh, and also to try to get Elijah out of her city, because
she did not like him and did not want anything to do with him. But I think she also realized that the people were starting to kind of be on Elijah's side. And that might be one of the reasons why Jezebel didn't just go and kill Elijah immediately was because she was fearing the people. So she sends a threat to Elijah and basically tells him to leave within 24 hours or she will kill him. And it works. Elijah is absolutely
terrified. It says, he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. So he goes to the southernmost part of Israel, which is Beersheba, which is actually controlled by Judah, and he leaves his servant there because he's gonna go off into the wilderness to die. And you might be like, what just happened to Elijah? Because literally, what, like a day or two ago, he was
bold as a lion, showing God's power. And then all of a sudden, two days later, at the threat of this woman, Jezebel, he's terrified and he runs away. Well, this is human nature. Jesus himself said to his disciple Peter, be on guard because the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And we know that Peter, who was pretty courageous acting when he was with Jesus, when push came to shove, he also denied Jesus three
times and kind of ran for his life in a way. He was very scared when the threat of death was right in front of him. So he ran away, just as Elijah did right here. So Elijah was human. I think people forget this when they read the Old Testament because they're looking at all the amazing things that these prophets were able to accomplish with God's power. But they forget the human side of these prophets. Elijah was scared for his
life. And not only that, he was probably extremely discouraged because he probably thought that everything was going to change in Israel. You know, the people just saw this Amazing thing where Yahweh displayed his power so greatly. Elijah, uh, probably thought, this is the revival that we were waiting for. This is it. Everybody's going to change their minds. Maybe even Jezebel will, you know, come to God and stop trying to kill Yahweh's prophets. He
probably thought that. And then he realizes that almost nothing changes. And this discourages him so, so bad. So he runs for his life. He gets to this area of Beersheba. He leaves his servant there and goes on alone into the wilderness to go die. So he lies under a juniper tree, it says. He says, God, let me die. It's enough. When are you gonna just take my life away from me? For I am not any better than my fathers.
So there you go. Elijah was feeling extremely discouraged because the state of Israel hadn't changed at all, really. At least nothing that Elijah could see. To him, the state of Israel had not changed. And he was extremely discouraged. He's like, you know, my forefathers, they were all sinners. They caused all of this. And I am no better. I wasn't able to, you know, change any hearts. I wasn't able to sway any opinions. I am just as
bad as my father. So it could be that Elijah was sinning here because not only was he acting in fear, but he could have also been acting in arrogance or pride as well. And actually, Scripture does insinuate that Elijah was sinning, because even though God doesn't reprimand Elijah exactly, he does ask Elijah what he's doing, but not before really comforting Elijah and giving him something to eat. God sends an angel to Elijah who's sleeping under that juniper tree,
just waiting to die. And the angel actually makes a loaf of bread for him and also brings him a jar of water. So Elijah ate the bread and drank the water, and he laid down again to go to sleep. He's extremely depressed. But Yahweh's angel again, comes the second time. It says the angel touched him and said, arise and eat because the journey is too great for you. So Elijah, uh, needed to eat something because he had a very long journey ahead of him. And God knew this because God knew where
Elijah was headed. Could it be that God led Elijah to Mount Sinai? Or could it be that Elijah just decided to go there on his own? We don't really know. But God knows the future. He knew where Elijah was headed. So God gives Elijah enough food for this journey so that he can fast for 40 days. And this is not impossible to do. You can fast without food for A very extended period of time if you have enough water. And also God can just sustain people. We see that he actually did that for
Moses. Moses went on the top of the mountain back in the wilderness times and stayed up there talking with God for 40 days and 40 nights with no food or water. Moses was in the presence of God, and God can do anything. So God sustains Elijah's life, but gives him some food for the journey ahead. So now Elijah is on his way to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. And he gets to the mountain and he goes into a cave and he camps there. And this was a
special mountain. The last time we really talked about Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb was when Moses, like I said, was up there on the mountain with Yahweh. And that's where the Ten Commandments were done. That's where Israel did a lot of their camping in the wilderness was right near that mountain. That was where Moses went up to visit God. Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai are considered to be God's mountain. And I don't know why they have two different names, but they're used interchangeably
throughout Scripture. Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb are basically the same mountain. But I have heard an idea, not any evidence or anything, an idea that maybe it was two mountains side by side, like Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai. But I don't know anything about that. I haven't researched any of that. Elijah takes this long journey into the wilderness to go to Mount Horeb, and he camps there. So finally, Yahweh comes to him and He asks him, what are you doing here, Elijah?
And that is where it's implied that Elijah might not have been doing the right thing. Because why would God ask, what are you doing here? If Elijah should have been there in the first place? Now, granted, could God have led Elijah to Mount Horeb to show Elijah something great? Yes, absolutely. But there's a difference between God's permissive will and God's will. God's will is when He wants you to do something and He asks you or commands you to go do that thing.
That's God's will. God's permissive will is when He doesn't necessarily want you to do something, but He permits it to happen. A good example of God's permissive will in the Old Testament would be like a law on divorce, because He knew people are sinful and people are going to get hurt and to give protections to people being abused or something along those lines. So there's a difference between God's will and God's permissive will.
And Elijah could have certainly been acting in God's permissive will here, going to Mount Horeb. So Elijah answers God's question. He says, well, I have been very jealous for you, Yahweh, the God of armies, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They've thrown down your altars. They have killed your prophets with the sword. And I am the only one left. They seek my life to take it away. So Elijah's like, I'm at the end of my rope because Israel has done so much damage to
your prophets and to everything you have. And I'm the only person left, and yet they. They can't even let me live. They need to destroy my life too. They can't have a single ounce of evidence of Yahweh in Israel, and I'm just sick and tired of them. So God responds, go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh. So it says, yahweh passed by. It's interesting to note that God passes by Elijah first. And I think God did that to show Elijah what He is like, what His presence
is like, what He feels like. And then suddenly this, like, tornado practically comes and destroys part of the mountain. And it says, but Yahweh was not in that wind. And then after the wind, there was suddenly this earthquake that happened. And it says, but Yahweh was not in that earthquake. And Elijah is seeing and feeling all of these things. And don't forget, he had just felt Yahweh's presence. So he knew what Yahweh's presence felt like. And these two things, these two natural disasters
were not part of it. And then lastly, this forest fire comes through. And Yahweh was not in that forest fire. And I don't know if it was a forest fire that went through or maybe a lightning bolt came down and struck something near Elijah and caused a fire. But regardless, God was not in that fire. In all three of these natural disasters, God's presence was not there. And
Elijah knew that. But then after these three things are gone, there was a still, small voice, this, like, peaceful voice after these horrifying and terrifying disasters where probably Elijah expected God to be in these things, just as people nowadays expect an amazing sign from God in the skies or something, or we expect God to do something really dramatic in our lives. But more often, God is that still small voice talking to you.
And maybe that's in a peacefulness that you sense Maybe that's in a lack of fear that you have, even though things around you are just super scary. Or maybe it's God working in just small ways in your life that you can't necessarily see. Elijah was expecting to see and hear God in these huge natural disasters, but that's not where God was. So this still small voice comes to Elijah, and he knows it's God
because he had felt God's presence. So he goes out, he wraps his face in his mantle as a sign of respect. So he had this, like, robe on that he wraps his face in. He goes out and stands in the entrance of the cave, and it says, this voice came to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? Now, m. Why did God ask Elijah the same exact question twice? To get Elijah to really reflect on why he was there, He shows Elijah a different aspect of Himself, this quiet, still peaceful
aspect about Himself. And then He asks Elijah, why are you here? And Elijah answers, God exactly the same, word for word. I have been very jealous for you, Yahweh, the God of armies, for the children of Israel, have forsaken your covenant, throwed down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left. They seek my
life, too, to take it away. Now, it could be that Elijah, even though he gave the same response, maybe gave it a little bit differently, maybe reflected more deeply on why he was so afraid in the first place. But this time, God answers Elijah completely differently. He says, go and return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, anoint Hazael to be the king over Syria. Anoint Jehu the son of Nemshi, to be king over Israel.
And also anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel, Mahalah to be prophet in your place. He gives Elijah a task to do, because Elijah probably felt, you know, my life is over. I've done my great thing. Nobody listened, nobody cared, and I'm done. But God is showing Elijah, no, you're not done yet. I still have a lot of tasks for you before you are done. To anoint a new king in Syria, to anoint a new king of Israel, and also to anoint a new prophet who will eventually take Elijah's place.
Then He says, he who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. And he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha, will kill. Yet I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, all of the knees of which have not bowed down to baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him, He calms Elijah's fears. At the very end of this statement, He says, elijah, you are not the only one left. Even though you think you are, you are not the
only one left. I have 7,000 people that I know about that have not bowed down to baal in Israel, that have not kissed the lips of baal in Israel. These people are my followers, my worshipers, and I have preserved them and I am taking care of them. Elijah, as you can see from this chapter and the chapter before, really believed that he was the only prophet left, really believed that he was the only Yahweh worshiper left in all of Israel. And this caused him to spiral into deep depression. And
yet that wasn't even the case. It was a lie that Elijah was believing. As we actually discussed in the previous chapter, when Elijah mentioned that multiple times to the prophets of baal, he was like, I'm the only prophet of Yahweh left. You guys have a lot of prophets, but I'm the only. He was believing a lie and it caused him to spiral. And so this chapter we can reflect on a few things here
before I conclude. We have to be very careful about the things we believe about ourselves and about the state of the world or about our circumstances, because sometimes they're just lies and sometimes we don't know the full story. And we have to be really, really careful what we believe, because Satan can use that against us to cause us to spiral into fear and depression. So if you're struggling with fear or depression, dedicate some time today to sit down and really think about the root
cause of your depression. And that might take some time. You might have to reflect for multiple days to get to the root cause of what is stressing you out, what is making you fearful, what is making you depressed. And do this with a lot of prayer and maybe some
journaling as well. But once you get to the root cause, that is when you can begin addressing, is this something I'm believing that is not true, or is this something that I'm believing that is true that I can fix, that I don't necessarily have to be depressed or stressed or fearful about? Or is this something that is completely true and it is something I should be stressed about, but I need to give it to God because God gives me peace. God is in the little details,
as He proved here to Elijah. He's the still small voice. Dedicate some time just sitting down in prayerful worship and really thinking about where your fears and depression and stress truly comes from. And honestly, I can probably guarantee you that 98% of it is something that you believe that isn't necessarily the truth. But Elijah, after hearing God's words, departs from Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, and he goes first to find Elisha, who was going to be the next prophet after Elijah
dies. And yes, their names are very close, Elijah and Elisha. And forgive me, if in the future I do mix the two names up, I'm sure I will at some points. But the name Elisha means God is my salvation. And that is who God, uh, chose to become the next prophet of Israel. So Elisha lived in this area called Abel Maholah, and that was in Israel, not in Judah, which means that Elijah had to travel back up into Israel, even though he was potentially scared to go back that
way. He had to travel back up. And Abel Mahola was a town right on the Jordan river, which is why it mentions here that when Elijah finds Elisha, he's plowing with 12 yokes of oxen, meaning 24 oxen, which actually implies that Elisha's family was very wealthy for two reasons. Is because oxen were a sign of wealth. And if you had 24 oxen for one person, that was a lot of oxen. And secondly, it implies that Elisha's family had a ton of farmland because Elisha was using that many oxen to plow
all of this land. So Elisha came from wealth. But you might be wondering, how did Elisha's family have all this oxen and all this farmland if Israel had just gone through a severe drought? Well, don't forget that Abel Meholah was located right on the Jordan river. And the Jordan river, after three years, would not have dried up. The rest of Israel would have been in some serious trouble. But the Jordan river was still the Jordan river, and people
could water their crops from that. So where Elisha lived was very convenient when the rest of Israel was going through a severe drought. So Elijah goes and sees Elisha plowing the fields with all this oxen. And it says that Elisha goes up to him, doesn't say a single word, and puts his cloak on him and walks away.
Uh, this is funny. And then Elisha is, like, shocked because this famous prophet just put his cloak on him, which Elisha would have known what that meant because only the prophets wore the mantles, you know, the big cloaks that I was talking about. And that would have distinguished you as a prophet. And I'm sure Elijah was very well known in Israel at this time. So Elisha is shocked because Elijah just came up to him and deemed him worthy to be the next prophet of
Israel. So Elisha leaves his oxen and runs after Elijah and is just like, well hang on a second, you know, like I have all this oxen here, I have this farmland, I have my family, like can I go back to my parents and at least kiss them goodbye? And Elijah says to him, go back for what have I done to you? So this could be translated two ways. Either Elijah saying, I could care less what you do. God was the
one who anointed you, not me. Or he could be saying, go on back, but you better remember what I just did to you because you are now the new prophet of Israel. So don't be dilly dallying at your parents house. So Elisha does in fact go back home. But before he does that, he actually slaughters some of the oxen. It doesn't necessarily say he slaughtered all of them, but he slaughtered some of the oxen and killed them and boiled their meat with the instruments of the oxen and gave it to the people
and they ate. So he makes a huge meal out of this oxen meat that he just had. And he uses the wood of the plowing equipment that he had to actually burn the oxen in the water so that he could boil the meat. And then he gave it out to all of his friends and neighbors to show, hey, I'm done being a farmer, I am now going to be a prophet. And after he's done with that, he goes back to Elijah and it says he served Elijah, meaning he was one of Elijah's disciples.
And that is the end of First Kings 19. And we'll talk a lot more about Elisha in the coming uh, chapters. So faithful listeners, I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. If you did tell people that the Bible Explained podcast exists and write a nice review on Apple podcasts. In fact I haven't read a review in quite a while and I do like to read your guys reviews because you take time to write them and I appreciate them and I
like sharing them with other people as well. So this review was written by Brian 124-6532. It says Jen is amazing at reading the Bible and explaining very hard to understand scripture. Her voice is really nice and upbeat. It really is one of the best out there. You won't regret listening. She doesn't rush through the Bible like some. Thank you. I always make the joke that um, you know, my episodes years ago started out as being five minutes long and then a year later they were about 10 to 15
minutes long. Then the year after that, they were about 18, and they kind of hovered around 18 for a while. And now they're at about 28 minutes long. So I joke that when I'm in the Book of Revelation, the episodes are gonna be like two and a half hours long each, every single day. So, yes, I try not to rush through the Bible, but I deeply appreciate that review. Thank you so much to Brian. But faithful listeners, I will see you guys all on the next
podcast, which is tomorrow. And we'll be in the New Testament, because on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm in the New Testament, and then Mondays and Wednesdays I'm in the Old Testament. So tomorrow we'll be going through Second Corinthians, Chapter two. And I hope to see you guys all tomorrow. Happy listening, and God bless.