There was a tension between the prophet of fire and the prophet of water. Between Elijah and Elisha. A tension between two worldviews.
Elijah is the prophet of fire. Most of the miracles he performed involve fire:
Fire descending from heaven and consuming the offering and the water at the assembly on Mount Carmel. Fire descending from heaven and consuming the two delegations of Ahaziah. The decree of three years of blazing sun-fire without rain. And of course — Elijah ascends to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Elisha is the prophet Elijah’s disciple and successor, yet many of his miracles involve water, of all things:
Sweetening the bitter spring of Jericho. Bringing the great flood of water that quenched the thirst of the Israelite soldiers in the land of Edom. Healing Naaman’s leprosy in the waters of the Jordan. Floating the borrowed axe head in the waters of the Jordan.
Elijah, from the high mountains of Gilead, is the prophet of fire. A zealous, consuming fire. Fire can cast, in a single moment, an immense, bright, powerful light. It spreads quickly and creates drastic changes within minutes. That is the secret of its power. But it is also its calamity — it can burn and wreak enormous damage with the very same speed with which it illuminated and warmed.
Water works slowly: water wears away stones. Water shapes the landscape over long years. Your eye will not notice, but a drop and another drop and another drop over the years — and the landscape is shaped and changed little by little, into a rounded, polished form.
In 1 Kings chapter 19 — one of the most beautiful chapters in the entire Tanakh — we meet this tension in full force.
The people are straying from the path and worshiping idols alongside the worship of the God of Israel. For the first time, this is also institutionalized idolatry; Ahab builds a temple to Baal in the city of Samaria. And Elijah, horrified by the situation, has no time for a process of deep change. After three years of being cut off from the people, he appears suddenly and calls all of Israel to Mount Carmel, to an assembly where he will show everyone the straight path.
Elijah has no time for processes — he wants one swift moment in which everything will be decided and everyone will grasp the shining truth.
At the assembly on Mount Carmel, it seems Elijah succeeds in this. Elijah builds an altar, offers a sacrifice on it and pours twelve jars of water over it. And then: a great fire descends from heaven, consumes the offering and dries up the water. In the face of the open, one-time miracle, the success is sharp and swift:
And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said: The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God!
It would seem Elijah’s method of fire succeeded beyond all expectation.
But then Elijah undergoes an extraordinary lesson.
Immediately after the assembly on Mount Carmel, Elijah discovers that the swift change produced no deep change. Jezebel still seeks his head, there is no revolt from within the people, and there is not even one person to help the lonely prophet. Elijah flees to the desert — and asks to die. What a failure I am! I am not better than my fathers. I have failed in my task, says Elijah. If even after such an assembly the people do not mend their ways, what more can be done?
And then God takes Elijah to a magnificent visual lesson — at Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai.
After forty days of walking, Elijah reaches Mount Sinai, and there, inside a cave, Elijah stands before a mighty spectacle:
And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire a still small voice.
Elijah sees a mighty wind shattering mountains and rocks, and God tells him: this is not the way.
Elijah sees an earthquake overturning the order of the world in an instant, and God tells him: this is not the way.
Elijah sees a fire that illuminates and burns, and God tells him: this is not the way.
And after all of these — God is in a still small voice.
In slow messages that seep in quietly, quietly. In water that wears away stones little by little.
The drop does not carve the rock by its force, but by its persistence.
And it is no accident that Elijah was taken to Mount Sinai to learn this lesson. For at Mount Sinai itself Elijah’s way had already been tried once — and it failed. The revelation at Sinai, with its fire and thunder and great wind, was an impressive one-time event — but it did not bring about a change deep enough. Forty days later the people were already sinning with the Golden Calf. However grand and dazzling, an awe-inspiring spectacle is not enough to drive things deep inside.
Did Elijah take in the message of this powerful lesson?
No.
Elijah insists, word for word, on the message he had voiced before the vision: I am a lone prophet facing a sinful people.
If so, God tells him — you cannot go on educating the people. Someone is needed who is willing to do the work of depth.
This is the moment when Elijah is, in effect, dismissed.
He receives a command:
And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy stead.
Elisha is the man of the valley. From Meholah. The landscape of his homeland is a flat plain through whose heart flows the Jordan River with its sweet waters — very different from the place where Elijah grew up, the jagged mountains of Gilead.
Already at their first meeting we see how different the two are:
Elijah is a wandering man — while Elisha plows behind the oxen, connected to the soil and to earthliness.
Elijah, in all his ways, asks others for food (the woman of Zarephath, the ravens, the angel), while Elisha, already at the first meeting, gives food to all the people of his town (and so too in all the miracles that follow — Elisha gives food to the people).
Elijah with long, wild hair — while Elisha is bald.
And most interesting of all — Elijah appears in a moment and vanishes in a moment; we know nothing of his family — while Elisha asks immediately, at the very first meeting:
And he said: Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee
That is: before I go with you, I must give my father and mother a kiss…
The kissing prophet. In the future, too, Elisha will bring souls back to life with a kiss.
It is important to say:
Elijah, the prophet of fire, succeeded in many of his missions. His fire was needed, and it managed to shake the people awake. In his days the political situation was among the best the people of Israel had ever known. But after the fire came the need for the prophet of water — Elisha, who is connected to the people, eats with them and helps them in great matters, like saving the people from the Arameans, alongside personal help in the smallest of trifles, like finding a lost axe.
When the prophets of fire are beneficial and when they scorch is a weighty question. But almost always, after their era, people are needed who will carry out long-term moves, quietly, quietly — in the still small voice.
