THE RIGHTS AND PATIENCE OF GOD IN TESTIMONY (3)
[p. 40] THE RIGHTS AND PATIENCE OF GOD IN TESTIMONY (3)
1 Kings 19: 1 - 21; 1 Kings 20: 13 - 21
JT It seems as if it is required that we should pay special attention to the vessel in whom God intervened in a positive way, so that the Spirit brings us back to the history of Elijah, personally, in this chapter, though alas! to record his failure. This is a feature of the subject that enters into our own times; for God graciously brought about a state of things through which He intervened in christendom in great power, bringing about the exposure of all its features and ramifications. But there was failure, as in the case of Elijah, yet not irretrievable failure, for, through grace, the testimony still goes on in conditions more or less suitable to God: and, as we see in Elijah, we may look for a triumph at the end, for he is received up into heaven. The culmination of the present activities of the Spirit in the saints will be their catching up into heaven. Elijah’s history furnishes light as to this, and encouragement; but it also rebukes us, and that is seemly, so that saints should feel the terrible failure that has come in in that which God raised up, and through which He spoke and acted towards the whole of christendom. As we have part in the revival that continues, through grace, we have also our part in the failure; and, if there is to be any culmination according to God of the present service, we must be cast upon God and His faithfulness and patience with us. He has to bear with us every day, He suffers our manners, but He goes on with us. So this chapter begins with Ahab’s disloyalty as to what had come about — he told things to Jezebel; and her true character comes out for she “sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So do the gods to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time!” She makes no allusion to Ahab, it is what she
[p. 41] will do: showing in the system that is symbolised by her, the persistence of open opposition now, to that which God owns and uses; for Elijah is signalised, according to the previous chapter, as God’s servant. There had been the acknowledgment that Jehovah was God, and Elijah was His servant, so that her sin is all the more glaring and bold, in that it is directed now against the vessel as owned of God.
HB Do you speak of Ahab as the outward responsible element in the profession, and of Jezebel as being the spirit of opposition and idolatry that finds its place and is permitted there?
JT That is right. Ahab represents the responsible element, including all that are in the place of responsibility, whether the Roman hierarchy or any other of the elements of responsibility. Ahab represents all these; and Jezebel is the subjective state that prevails, especially in Rome, for the New Testament leaves us in no doubt as to what she sets forth, for there are children of Jezebel, and later, daughters of Babylon.
HCL What is before us would carry us back to the Reformation.
JT Yes, but Jezebel continues on. The Reformation is more especially typified in Jehu’s service of destruction — that is, morally — for it is not yet literally. It is said in Revelation 18: 8 that “strong is the Lord God who has judged her”, showing it is beyond man’s power to deal with her finally, but she is dealt with morally. The Reformation was the testimony to the power of God in overthrowing her system in a moral sense, so that men were able to escape from it, to come out of it. Here, Ahab and Elijah are still alive, but she is continuing on in her brazen opposition to what God owns. She had slain the prophets before and cut them off; but here is a prophet God has signally owned and she would kill him, so there is no veil now as to her motives, she is opposed to God.
HCL There were the exercises of spiritual [p. 42] men before the Reformation: there were glimmerings of light.
JT Yes, there was always something. The addresses to the assemblies in Revelation 2 and 3 really form the history of the assembly. What we have as histories of the assembly are most useful, but the authentic history of the assembly spiritually is in those two chapters. We find in the addresses that there is something in each one of the assemblies which God can own to some extent.
WCG Does verse 3 indicate decline of faith? Previously Elijah had stood before God, now he flees before a woman.
JT Yes, his faith is failing. “When he saw that, he arose and went for his life”, he is concerned about himself. The Lord did not go for His life; He laid down His life.
PL The day after the conflict and victory becomes the most testing day for us? Is the Lord, in the first day of His resurrection and the forty days after, the great model for us as to how to act consequent on victory, and how to gather the fruit of the spoil?
JT Exactly. Elijah had some agility; according to the end of the previous chapter he outran Ahab and went to Jizreel. There would be no lack of energy, he could easily have got out of the way of Jezebel. What you find with the Lord is that, when an attack was made, He got out of the way till His hour was come. No enemy can interfere with a servant of the Lord till his hour is come. There was a power operating in Elijah which Obadiah understood: it was proved in the rapidity with which he went to Jizreel; but here he fled for his life, and I do not believe he went nearly as quickly as he did when he went from Carmel to Jizreel; he went in his own strength now.
WH Is there a voice to us in connection with Ahab that, as cherishing what the Lord has given us, we should be very careful and wise to whom we speak [p. 43] of it, and when, so that neither the testimony nor the saints are unnecessarily attacked?
JT I think that is right. Ahab was treacherous in this, he knew well enough what Jezebel would think of it. It is like the case of the man in John 5 who told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well, and the Jews persecuted Jesus because of it. So that we have to be on our guard not to disclose things to persons who will make bad use of them, we must not cast our pearls before swine; but Ahab had none of these holy qualities. This chapter brings out that though he was not so virulent in his opposition as Jezebel, he was nevertheless collaborating with her. One of the features of our readings is to consider the patience of God, but in due course no wicked person can escape the just judgment of God: what seems to be a bow at a venture will bring him down, it was thus Ahab’s sin found him out. So there is no hope of escape for christendom, everything will come under the just judgment of God; but meanwhile in the exercise of His patience, God selects the wickedest man to display what His patience is, not because he is a wicked man, but as a wicked man in office, in the place of responsibility he affords the opportunity for the display of God’s patience.
JC Do you think that the elements represented in Ahab and Jezebel, might be found inside?
JT Well, it is the flesh, and you and I are as capable of these things as Ahab. If our own hearts are not searched, these meetings are not of much value. As the Lord said, “One of you ... shall deliver me up”; the greatest sin of all is put in that way; I am capable of betraying the Lord.
Ques Would it be right to say that Ahab represents protestantism and Jezebel Rome, making a covenant one with another to slay the prophets?
JT Ahab is more than protestantism, he gives the general thought of responsibility in christendom, including even the Greek church. There is responsibility [p. 44] attaching to each, and God owns them in so far as they are prepared to do anything for Him, but not, in any sense, passing over their sin — “by no means clearing the guilty”. There is a sphere that belongs to God and He is operating in it; it is well to see that. Ahab represents the responsible element generally. It is one of the features of the policy of Rome to wax bolder and bolder; the more her wickedness is exposed, the bolder she becomes. So, after the Reformation, there was the Council of Trent, in which she asserted her wickedness with greater effrontery than ever. Then, in our own times, after the revival and the assertion by the Spirit of the headship of Christ and the truth of the assembly, Rome asserted the infallibility of the pope. That is her policy, to become bolder in wickedness: she has got out of hand, but “strong is the Lord God who has judged her”. You see her boldness here: she would fix the hour for what she would do to Elijah.
Ques Do you regard Elijah as suggesting the revival a hundred years ago?
JT That is the idea. We are sharing in the benefits of it, but we cannot evade the responsibility for its failure.
Ques Would Jerusalem in Matthew’s gospel set forth God’s centre, and the patience of God be seen in Luke’s gospel in relation to it?
JT Luke brings out the patience of God in regard to that city; Matthew takes the opposite view, he generally casts a slight on Jerusalem, for he is making room for the assembly. In Luke, Jerusalem is still the centre on earth.
HB The patience of God, as seen towards Ahab in his official capacity, is very different from God’s gracious care of the prophet when he fled.
JT Yes. It is well to keep our eye on the prophet, for it is a question how we are to behave ourselves as having part in this very thing. It says, “he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there”. Why should it [p. 45] be mentioned that it belongs to Judah? Judah, and Beer-sheba itself, ought to have reminded him of the faithfulness of God, and that God would not forsake him, that his life was God’s property and that precious life would be defended as a treasure by Jehovah. Then, in going south, he passed territory which ought to have spoken to him every moment of what God is — Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem — all these landmarks of divine faithfulness and power; and he went to the extremities of the land, to Beer-sheba, which in itself is the city of the oath, where God entered into covenant with Jacob (Genesis 46: 14).
Rem Paul says they “were excessively pressed beyond ... power, so as to despair even of living. But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have our trust in ourselves, but in God”, 2 Corinthians 1.
JT That is a very suitable scripture to bring in here. We can reckon that God will come in at the extremity. We find in the history of Jehoshaphat, according to the record in Chronicles, that as the enemy was about to kill him, Jehovah diverted them at the last moment (2 Chronicles 18: 31). The lives of the servants of God, are specially precious in His sight.
Rem In Acts 9 Paul was threatened with his life and he gave himself into the hands of the disciples. Instead of fleeing from the danger, he was let down from the wall in a basket, and he went to Jerusalem, to the very seat of the danger, thus expressing his confidence in God.
JT Just so, and at Lystra, when surrounded by the brethren, he rose up and went back to the city, showing the courage he had.
WHM What led to this sudden and great failure? Was it spiritual pride on the part of the prophet?
JT You just question your own heart. You have a successful preaching, for instance, or a sense of the support of God in your ministry, and how often the [p. 46] flesh rises and takes credit for it! You lose faith. The need is to go to Gilgal, so to speak.
WHM God answered by fire previously; in this chapter God told him He had others.
JT That is what comes out to prevent undue exclusivism amongst us. As the apostle Paul says so forcefully, “what says the divine answer to him?” The divine answer — “I have left to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed knee to Baal” (Romans 11: 4), so that we have to bear that in mind all through these chapters.
Ques By exclusivism, do you mean we may get the idea that God is working only through us and so we may despise others?
JT That is what I thought. Exclusivism is right of course, up to a point, “hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” — but then we should be loving the brethren, in whatever circumstances they may be. Let us not be afraid of the word ‘hate’; that may be called exclusivism, it is exclusivism, and more, it is a judgment: hating a thing is a judgment on it, and God says, He has “judged your judgment upon her” in Revelation 18: 20. So we have to gather up the thoughts of God as to things right down to the smallest independent company in christendom, it is that we have to judge.
WCG Has not Elijah moved away from the first position of faith, when he said, “Jehovah, ... before whom I stand”?
JT Yes, he is thinking of himself. That is very humbling, how it arises with one — concern for oneself.
PL So he ought to have left himself at Gilgal, instead of leaving his servant at Beer-sheba. Does not God answer that by showing He will not leave His servant, and does He not give him a servant too, in Elisha, who later will not leave him? (2 Kings 2).
JT Yes. That is very beautiful. He “went for his life and came to Beer-sheba ... and left his servant there” — the servant is in the same circumstances now, he is in Beer-sheba. “And he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a certain broom-bush, and requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough”. Well, he might as well have died in harness; you had better die gloriously in the conflict, than die in the wilderness alone under the hand of the Lord!
PL “Blessed the dead who die in the Lord”.
Rem Nehemiah says, “Should such a man as I flee?” Nehemiah 6: 11.
JT Quite so. The brethren often bring up such things as they did in Nehemiah’s day — See what is going to happen! — but we must stand our ground; that is the simplest and safest thing to do. Why should God slay His servant? He “requested for himself that he might die”: his mind is running in a very poor channel.
PL Can you resign the commission the Lord has given you?
JT That is what he did; he resigned his commission. There is no speed now, like on the journey from Carmel to Jizreel! It is a toilsome journey — “a day’s journey into the wilderness” — this is poor work! And the Lord would teach us by these things; if we are selfish and cowardly, this is the sort of thing we may expect. Elijah’s undertaking was very great physically, and what comes out is what God is to a failing servant, and we ought all to understand that. What marks our position, the failure that attaches to it, cannot be forgotten, but what God is to what has failed, is the lesson of the chapter; what God is to us. So he said, “It is enough: now, Jehovah, take my life; for I am not better than my fathers”. He wants Jehovah to do what he would not let Jezebel do. There certainly would be no honour in Jehovah taking his life, nor would there be any honour to God in it; it is the mixed feelings you find in people who are in the pathway [p. 48] of unbelief.
Ques What would Judah speak to us of?
JT Well, we know the place Judah had with God, for the history of David and Solomon lay behind it; he was perfectly conversant with all that. When you are dealing with souls in unbelief, you feel you are dealing with darkness; the most positive witnesses on the part of God are there, and yet they do not affect such persons. The Lord wept over Jerusalem — He felt things. All this seemed to have been absent from Elijah; it is just unbelief, the most powerful witnesses are unavailing.
AWR “In Judah is God known” — does that come in here?
JT Quite so, all that would be known to him, the place Judah had in the testimony. “The Sceptre will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come”, Genesis 49: 10. He would know all that. But then, with people who have turned aside from the path, you may bring to their attention the most powerful evidences of what God is, and it all seems unavailing. Beer-sheba had a wonderful history, it goes back further than Jerusalem, to what God had been to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob there. Later on, Elijah comes back to the idea of spiritual geography before he is received up into heaven, that is to say, he went with Elisha from Gilgal to Bethel, and Jericho, and the Jordan; but here he has lost all thought of it. It shows how it is possible with the most spiritual of us to drop suddenly into the realm of darkness and unbelief.
WJRB Do you see the same principle in Mark 16? The disciples disbelieved the news Mary brought.
JT That is the idea. Mark stresses the unbelief of the greatest servants, that is, the apostles. Why should they disbelieve a woman like Mary Magdalene? But what she and the others said was “as an idle tale” to them (Luke 24: 11).
Ques Had Elijah forgotten the bush in Exodus 3?
JT Quite so, unbelief forgets everything in this [p. 49] sense! As a matter of fact, even though one rise from the dead, the state of unbelief will not be affected: God has to come in afresh; there has to be another conversion. Most people need several conversions, and that involves a fresh work of God, in the believer.
JPH Will you say a little more about Elijah leaving his servant there?
JT Well, it was to the advantage of the servant, I think. There was something there in the place which spoke of the faithfulness of God, and that is what the apostle brings out in 1 Corinthians — “God is faithful. …” In 2 Corinthians he shows that that same faithfulness is in Christ — “For whatever promises of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen”.
Ques Would Chloe be somewhat like the servant left in the faithfulness of God?
JT Exactly. She is there and the house of Stephanas: there is always someone there, however obscure.
Rem The apostle strengthened Timothy by saying — “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”, and “take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”.
JT Quite so. Things in Christ Jesus are fixed. The great point in 2 Timothy is what is “in Christ Jesus”. It says of Elijah that “he lay down and slept under the broom-bush. And behold, an angel touched him”, (chapter 19: 5). There is not simply something objective now, the bringing up of promises would not help him; he could tell you more than anybody; it is a divine touch people need. You feel that in dealing with unbelief you are powerless, God only can affect a man in unbelief.
PL Was the food put at his head, because his thoughts were wrong?
JT God has not given up His thoughts: the cake was at his head, as we see, and set forth the truth of the assembly. As the great failure came in, Bethesda [p. 50] made a travesty of the truth of the assembly, brought it down to the human level and lost it; but then God has not lost it: and if there is one man or woman who holds the truth of the “cake”, — the one body — that is the truth of the assembly, all is there. Somebody holds the thing, if it is only one or two.
Rem I have looked upon the cake as Christ; you make it the assembly?
JT The suggestion of the cake is that. Of course it is food; but it is a question of interpreting the thing spiritually, as to the suggestion of it. It is a whole idea, it sometimes denotes Christ, but you carry the thought into the assembly: “So also is the Christ” (1 Corinthians 12: 12) — that is not Christ personally, but the anointed vessel here, the assembly; it is the same thing carried through.
PL Would the hot stones be an allusion to an appreciation of the sufferings of Christ for the assembly?
JT You have in the types the idea of dough; that is what is needed in your soul’s exercises, but it cannot be made into a cake unless it is baked, and that is the judgment of God.
JW Simeon and Anna were morally clean themselves and never gave up God’s thoughts.
JT Yes, and that is what had marked Elijah himself up to this point. In the “little cake” and the “twelve stones” of the altar, no one held to the whole idea more than he. But now it is very beautiful to see how God comes in and draws attention to “a cake baked on hot stones, and a cruse of water”; there is a cruse now; he would not forget he had had to do with a cruse and the cake before — everything is as it should be here.
HB Do you think the process of conversion with us a second or third time is often a recall as to our original impression? Here the cake is recalled and the cruse.
JT Yes, so you are set up in relation to all the previous light you have had; that is the [p. 51] idea.
Rem No ravens are employed now.
JT No, it is an angel. There is no repetition of the word cake in verse 7, that is already there. The angel says “Arise, eat”: eating and drinking now are a general thought.
WCG Would the cruse suggest the operations of the Holy Spirit in the assembly?
JT That would be the suggestion, that it is the Holy Spirit in a vessel. The torrent is not that, it is the sovereign action of the Spirit to revive one.
Ques What journey was too great for him?
JT The going to Horeb, the retracing the journey of Israel. He would be reminded by every step he took, that he was going the reverse way; the Lord’s purpose does not move this way. Faith has moved far away from Horeb, but I am going back to it; still he went “in the strength of that food”.
Rem He had to learn he was no better than his fathers.
JT Exactly. “All flesh is as grass”, even Elijah’s flesh!
WHM I get the sin question settled, but then I have to learn “that no flesh should boast before God”. That is what you would speak of as a second conversion?
JT Quite so, and we often get away from faith: Peter had to have a second conversion. It is interesting to read the four accounts of that Second conversion, and how the Lord’s word came to his mind — “Peter remembered the word that Jesus Said to him”.
JMcCR Would you say Elijah recognised that God could carry on the testimony without him?
JT Yes. It says he “went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God” (chapter 19: 8). We have spiritual touches here, it is the mount of God still; that is, the law is not abrogated, it has force. Horeb denotes the law in the way of the covenant. So that it has force. We are now being led into spiritual surroundings — it is “Horeb the mount of God”, and it is no small matter for a man to go forty days and forty nights on two meals. He is in wonderful company in the duration of his fasting, the company of Moses and the company of the Lord Jesus, now. So there is encouragement for anyone who may have turned aside from the path, in the way God comes in and touches him, and enables him to take a journey like this. He is on spiritual ground now, he is at Horeb, the mount of God. “The word of Jehovah came to him, and he said to him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for Jehovah the God of hosts; ... And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before Jehovah”. Now he is to be brought back to earlier history, he is to stand before Jehovah: God brings us back to earlier history, and sets us up in all that we have been. Then these three things come out: first, “Jehovah passed by”, that is exactly what Moses was privileged to see on the mount earlier; but Jehovah came down full of grace to Moses; here it is that Jehovah passed by in relation to His power in creation. It says, “and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, ... Jehovah was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake: Jehovah was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire: Jehovah was not in the fire. And after the fire, a soft gentle voice”. He is in the voice — that is the idea, there is a voice in all this.
PL That brings us back to the Revelation — what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
JT Quite so. So John “turned back to see the voice”, — an anomalous thing — he turned to see the voice because he had a Person in his mind. There must be a person behind the voice. Here it is Jehovah Himself in His own voice, not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, for it is not a question of His attributes, or His power in creation, it is what He is Himself, in His own voice.
GHP There is progress. First an angel [p. 53] came to to him, then the word of Jehovah came to him, but now a voice came to him.
JT Yes, a voice has something distinctive about it; it denotes a person. The voice here is God speaking in Christ.
PL Is the voice peculiarly attached to the thought of the cake? Paul heard the voice from heaven saying, “Why persecutest thou me?”
JT The “me” is the cake. You have the sound from heaven in Acts 2: the voice from heaven in Acts 9: and the sheet from heaven in Acts 10. The voice is very appealing: the bridegroom in Canticles says, “Let me hear thy voice” — the Lord loves the voice of His people. But what an appeal has the “soft gentle voice” to anyone who has turned aside from the path of faith! God has been touching him in his circumstances in one way or another, and now He would speak to him, ‘It is I myself’.
Rem So the food has the end in view, not the journey through the wilderness exactly.
JT Quite so; but here, it is the mouth of Jehovah, and never more tenderly apparent than here; for Jehovah is there Himself, not as He had spoken in thunder, but in a soft gentle voice: there is nothing to alarm the heart, but to attract it. He says, as it were, ‘It is I myself’.
PL Do you not think Elijah with Moses would take on the soft and gentle voice, as they spoke to that same Person about His decease on another mount?
JT Yes, the mount of transfiguration. Elijah “wrapped his face in his mantle”, it says here, “and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave”. I suppose the mantle had some virtue: there is some encouragement in his soul in relation to the mantle, so that he goes out, he is now moving towards God. The mantle has its own place, he will use it at the end of the chapter in relation to Elisha; and he will use it again at [p. 54] the Jordan.
PL Does the mantle suggest that in his soul he is returning to the dignity of his commission?
JT Yes, I think it is his measure spiritually; he is coming back to that. After all, every christian has a measure, lack of faith robs him of it; but now Elijah is coming back to it, to what he is in Christ. The next thing is, “he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave”. That is, now he is facing God according to the soft gentle voice, and then he is there according to his measure. I think faith is coming back. Think of what Peter was as he came back! All that he had been enters into it, he lost nothing. We lose nothing, the work of God stands, and faith comes back to it. It is not only what God has done in Christ, but what God has done in me, that is unalterable too; the work of God is indestructible: it is very encouraging to come to that. So he is wrapped in his mantle, and he said, “I have been very jealous for Jehovah the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I am left, I alone, and they seek my life, to take it away”. This is repeated now — it had been said before. Well, he is not going to have any fellowship, he is going to be a poor isolated man all his life, on his own showing, whereas when God began at Horeb, one of the first things He spoke of there was the “thousands of them that love me”. We must never forget that: not the thousands of those that should love Him, but the thousands of those that do. And apparently Elijah has no thought that there are any who do, so that he is going to be a lone man all his days! But that is not God’s thought, there are those that “call upon the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2: 22), those with whom we are to follow “righteousness, faith, love, peace”. But Elijah says, “... I alone”.
PL When a man has himself as his theme, vain repetition marks him, for he has not much to say;
[p. 55] whereas, if we have Christ as our theme with our brethren, we have like David many psalms — there is great variety in the praise?
JT The Lord now has to say something definite: He says, “Go return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when thou comest anoint Hazael king over Syria; and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint prophet in thy stead”. There are three persons anyway that are worthy of anointing, so that he is not alone! God has three persons, and seven thousand besides. It says, “Yet I have left myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him”.
WHM Is that the same seven thousand as are spoken of in verse 15 of the next chapter?
JT Well, there is a link there, I think. They are seven thousand warriors there, but here they are to be reserved for God. Notice He takes account of their mouths.
PL Do these men use their mouths effectively; Naboth in relation to the inheritance, and Micah in relation to the throne?
JT Yes, that comes out. No one knows the number of christians in christendom; who can tell them, except God? But He knows them — “The Lord knoweth them that are his”. But God says, ‘I will work in relation to them too, I am going to slay what is in the way: these three men will execute My judgment here’. The first who came into the account is Elisha, and he does not slay people, it is a question of grace; that is the position; instead of actual slaying, you have bringing people down in grace — that is Elisha’s ministry.
PL So that no one escapes him. With the other two the work is not complete, but the spirit of grace in the present dispensation brings everything [p. 56] to completion.
JT Quite so. God tells Elijah how to go back, “Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus”, but, instead of that, “he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing with twelve yokes before him”. Here is a man who is doing something positive, there is going to be a crop out of all this. God always has that in mind; and, if we are to have a crop, we must plough. This man is ploughing; there are twelve yokes ploughing, and he is with the twelfth.
Rem We do not usually connect with the wilderness ploughing with twelve yokes of oxen: he does not seem to have gone the way he was told, by the wilderness.
JT I think it is what he is doing himself; the man’s recovery is now in view, ‘I do not want to give up office’, would express his feelings if he was not recovered — ‘I will go to Elisha last’. But he goes to Elisha first, he is ready to be displaced; and that is, I believe, the ground of the honour put on him later.
Rem Actually Elijah never did anoint Hazael and Jehu.
JT No, we may say it was by Elisha. So I think his action was that of a recovered man, as he goes to the man who is to replace him, and he is ploughing with a crop in view — that shows his moral greatness.
PH Are the twelve yokes of oxen suggestive of the whole thought of Israel?
JT That is the idea. They are all before him; he is with the last.
PH So the recovery of Elijah brings great thoughts into view, nothing less than the whole of Israel.
JT That is what I understand, the idea of a crop comes in. I think the recovery of Elijah is seen in the fact that the mantle comes into view again. It is what you are that affects another person; that is a question of what influence I have; and that is not a matter of light merely, but of what I am myself. So it says, “Elijah went over to him, and cast his mantle on him”.
RKC Do you connect that with Paul asking for the cloke? 2 Timothy 4: 13.
JT Yes, I would connect this mantle of Elijah’s with Paul’s cloke. Every step Timothy took with that cloke, he would say as it were, ‘That suggests something greater than I’ Such a thought keeps us right, it balances us.
HB Do you think this is a feature of the man of God throughout scripture? Moses and Joshua; Elijah and Elisha; Paul and Timothy: each would take care as to a successor.
JT I think that is right. The idea of someone coming in begins with Genesis 3, with the Seed of the woman. So Eve says, “I have acquired a man with Jehovah” — that is, someone to carry on. So right through Scripture, it is a question of someone to continue.
PL Does one often qualify for succession in an obscure locality like Abel-meholah? It is only mentioned elsewhere once. Would it suggest a brother in a meeting engaged in promoting the food supply, like Gideon?
JT Yes. One like that gives dignity to the place, “The village of Mary and Martha”.
All this brings out the completeness of Elijah’s recovery, that he looks for the man who is to replace him first; that is a very great test, for we naturally want to keep office as long as we can. David set Solomon on the throne alongside himself before he died. So we have to encourage the young brothers to come forward, to make room for them.