In 1 Kings 19, Elijah has fled for his life from Ahab and Jezebel. God meets with him, gives him rest and food, then he tells him to go and stand in his presence, to prepare for the covenant Lord, Yahweh to pass by.
We are then told:
“Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.”[1]
A common interpretation of this passage is that God was not speaking in the fire, wind and earthquake but that it was his still small voice that spoke. Application includes the words in the hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.
“Speak through the earthquake, wind and fire oh still small voice of calm.”
And this can lead to a thinking that God speaks in quiet moments so that we have to find places of calm and stillness to hear him, away from the busyness of life. Now, I think that there is practical benefit to finding those times and places, not because of any limitation on God’s part but because of our own weaknesses and limitations.
However, the point of the passage is not that God starts speaking in a quiet voice or whisper. In fact, the point was not about God speaking, rather, it was the point when he was going to allow his manifest presence to pass by. God is everywhere and so, he caused the fire, earthquake, wind but those were not the instruments he used for that particular encounter. There is something different about the whisper, or “silent voice.” It caused Elijah to go prepare himself and come out of the cave.
However, God had already been speaking before this. It was God who had told him to prepare himself for this encounter. And notice these words at the end of verse 13.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
It is after the “still small voice” or “sound of silence, that Elijah hears God speak again, not during it.
One suggestion has been that in effect, God plays out the history of his people in a short space of time, the earthquake, wind and fire reflecting the great miraculous and redemptive acts of the Old Testament but there were also those times of apparent silence. There would in fact be 400 years of silence with no new revelation or prophecy before God spoke specifically again through the arrival of The Word made flesh.
Practically for us, then the lesson is not that we need to seek God in the stillness as opposed to anywhere else. We are not to extrapolate that lesson from these immediate circumstances. In fact, we don’t need to second guess where God is from mystical interpretations of Bible passages.
We know
- That God is present with us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
- That God speaks clearly and powerfully through his word, through Scripture.
Practically, then I think we can get on with our lives, knowing that God is present and speaking.
[1] 1 Kings 19: 11b -13.
Faithroots 