Evidently thunder accompanied the falling of the fire (lightning?) from heaven (v. 41).201Elijah told Ahab, who had personally witnessed the contest, that he could celebrate by eating (v. 41). Perhaps he had been fasting to end the drought. Ahab evidently went up Mount Carmel from the Jezreel Valley below to eat, but Elijah went up higher to pray for rain (v. 42). His posture evidenced humility and mourning as well as prayer.
Rain normally came on Carmel from the west, from the Mediterranean Sea (v. 43). Elijah persisted in prayer doubtless basing his request on the people's repentance and God's promise to bless with rain (Deut. 28:12). Perhaps the cloud shaped like a man's hand (v. 44) represented God's hand returning to the land to bless His people again (cf. v. 46). Jezreel (v. 45) was Ahab's winter palace that stood 10 to 20 miles southeast of Carmel, depending on where on Mount Carmel these events took place, in the Jezreel Valley. Perhaps Elijah ran along the ridge of Mount Carmel while Ahab's chariot got bogged down in the muddy valley below (v. 46).
This concludes the account of Israel's three and one-half year drought (17:1-18:46; cf. Luke 4:25; James 5:17; ca. 860-857 B.C.).202The major motifs of this section are Yahweh's superiority over Baal and His faithfulness to withhold blessing (rain) as a punishment and to send it in response to repentance.
"Often in the history of the world great issues have depended on lone individuals, without whom events would have taken a wholly different turn. Yet few crises have been more significant for history than that in which Elijah figured, and in the story of the Transfiguration he rightly stands beside Moses. Without Moses the religion of Yahwehism as it figured in the Old Testament would never have been born. Without Elijah it would have died. The religion from which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all in varying ways stemmed would have succumbed to the religion of Tyre. How different the political history of the world might have been it is vain to speculate. But it is safe to say that from the religion of [Baal] Melkart mankind would never have derived that spiritual influence which came from Moses and Elijah and others who followed in their train."203
"Without question Elijah is one of the most distinctive and diversely talented individuals in the Bible. He is prophet, preacher, political reformer, and miracle worker all at the same time. At the heart of this multifaceted person, though, rests one overriding conviction. Elijah hates Baalism as much as Jezebel loves the cult, and he desires to magnify Yahweh over Baal and defeat the interloping religion once and for all. He makes it his mission to teach that Yahweh lives, that Baal does not exist, and that ethical standards flow from a commitment to the living God."204
