ABSTRACT
The Books of Kings have their origin in the formal annals of the time, edited after the sixth-century exile of Judah (see p. 132). They are full of incident; those included here represent the non-political side of life in Israel. Elijah (‘Jahweh is God’), who figures largely in 1 Kings, most famous of the early prophets, is a man of action, not a speaker or writer; he denounced corrupt rulers, and those who abandoned Jahweh, no book is devoted to his oratory. He worked during the reign of Ahab (c.870–850) about 50 years after the death of Solomon. In Old Testament eyes, a prophet is not in the first place an orator or poet, but essentially one to whom God spoke personally (see p. 196). Elijah had a special place in later Jewish thought (see p. 269n) as a miracle-worker, one of the select few in the Old Testament who are carried away to God without death. By New Testament times, he was expected to return as a precursor of the Messiah (see pp. 354n, 369).
