History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

Despite this triumphant vindication, Elijah was unable himself to eradicate paganism, or destroy the. House of Omri, though he predicted its downfall. He was a lone figure, a charismatic man capable of swaying a huge crowd but not one to build up a party or a court faction. He stood for the individual conscience, perhaps the first man in Jewish history to do so; God spoke to him not in the thunder of the Mosaic era, but in ‘a still, small voice’. In his cursing of Ahab’s line over the killing of Naboth, he upheld the principle that a king’s behaviour should be no different from a private man’s: it must be guided by moral principle. Politics was about right, not might.