The book of the Old Testament, called the Third Kings, writes at the end of the sixteenth chapter, how a king named Ahab son of Afri reigned in the city of Samaria and the suburbs of Jerusalem, but he was an infidel and atheist who did not believe in the true God. He took as his wife Isabel, the daughter of Ethiphial, king of Sidon. He abandoned the God who made heaven and earth, to the point that he erected a pagan temple and erected a great idol, in order to prostrate himself to the God of the Greeks, whom the Greeks called in their language Dias and the Hebrews Baal. In those days, when the Prophet Elijah saw that the king had abandoned the true God and worshiped empty and senseless idols, he and all the people said: “As the Lord lives, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, before whom I now stand, for in these years there will be neither dew nor rain except by words.” my mouth". And when he said that, the word of the Lord came to him, saying: “Go from here and head east, and hide at the Crete River, which faces the Jordan, and drink water from the river, and I will command the crows to feed you there.”

So he went and stayed by the Crete River, which faces the Jordan River, and the crows brought him bread in the morning and meat in the evening. He was drinking water from the river. If one of us asks, why did God command the crows to feed the Prophet and not some other animal? You know that crows hate their children very much, if they are accustomed to not feeding their young, like other birds, but they leave them in the nest and leave. When she is hungry for food, she cries out to God, and He takes pity on her and sends insects to feed her, until she reaches an age where she is able to fly. The truth of this statement is supported by the Book of the Book of Job, when it said in the thirty-eighth chapter: Who prepares for the crow his prey, when its young cry to God and hesitate for want of food? Likewise, the Prophet David said in his one hundred and forty-sixth Psalm: “He who gives to the beasts their food is the young of the crows that cry out.”

Since crows, as we said before, hate their own children and do not fear them, so God sent them to meet the Prophet as a distinctive sign, as if he was saying to the Prophet: “And you, Elijah!” Unmerciful, do not pity animals and people, but rather asked me not to rain so that they would die.” God did this as a compassionate and compassionate person, so that the Prophet could have mercy on the people and ask God for rain.

Let us return to the heart of our topic. After a few days, the river dried up, and there was no filling, because there was no rain at all. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying: “Arise, and go to Zareth from the works of Sidon, and stay there. For, behold, I will command a widow there to strengthen you.” So he got up and went to Sarafat and came to the gate of the city, and there was a woman gathering firewood. So he called her and said: “Bring me a little water in a bowl so I can drink.” So she went to get it, so he called her and said: “Bring me a loaf of bread in your hand.” Then the woman said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing but fresh water in the jar, and a little oil in the flask. And behold, I am gathering two sticks of firewood to go in and prepare it for me and for my son, and we will eat it and die.” Then Elijah said to her, “Be of good courage and go in and do as you have said.” But first make me a small cake and bring it to me, and then make it for yourself and for your son last. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘The pitcher of flour will not be empty, and the jar of oil will not run low, until the day the Lord sends rain upon the face of the earth.’ So she went and did as he said. Elijah, and she and he and her son ate, but the jar of meal was not empty and the flask of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke through Elijah.

You see, blessed Christians! What benefit does a person gain from charity? Did that woman know that he was a prophet and a saint until she gave him bread that she cut from her mouth and the mouth of her son? both. But she treated him like a poor human being, her brother in humanity. As a compassionate, compassionate and hospitable woman, she preferred offering a helping hand to the hungry poor rather than herself and her child. I wish women would imitate this widowed woman and do what she did. We have seen that, with one word from the Prophet, that poor widow deprived herself and her child and presented herself to him. She saw blessings spread throughout her house, and neither her flour nor her oil ran out. The widow not only obtained sustenance, but she also obtained the blessing of resurrecting her son from the dead, as the Prophet raised him up. How did this happen?

While the Prophet was staying in the widow’s house, her son fell ill, and his illness was so severe that there was no breath of life left in him. Then the woman said to Elijah, “What is the matter with you, O man, who has come in to remind me of my sins and kill my son?” “And Elijah said to her: “Give me your son!” And he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. He raised his voice and said: “O Lord, witness to the widow with whom you live, that you have distressed her with the death of her son.” Then he blew on the boy three times, and he called upon the Lord for help and said: “O Lord my God!” May this boy’s soul return to him.” And it was like that, and he cried out, and the Lord heard Elijah’s voice, and the boy’s spirit returned to his stomach, and he came back alive. So Elijah took the boy and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” Then the woman said to Elijah: “Behold, I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is true in you.”

Three years later, the Lord came to Elijah, saying, “Go and see Ahab. For I will bring rain upon the face of the earth.” Ahab was living in Samaria at the time, and the weather there was severe. So Elijah went to him to appear to him. So Ahab called Obadiah who was in charge of the house, and it came to pass when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them in two caves and provided them with bread and water. Ahab said to Obadiah: “Let us go through the land, to all the springs of water and to all the valleys, that perhaps we will find grass and revive the horses and the mules, and not destroy all the livestock.”

So they divided the land between them so that they could cross it. So Ahab went one way alone, and Obadiah went another way alone. And while Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. He recognized him, and fell on his face and said, “Are you my lord Elijah?” He said to him: I am him! Go and tell your master, ‘Here is Elijah.’” He said, “What is my sin that you would hand your servant into the hand of Ahab to put me to death? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to search for you. And they said there was no. He was pleading with the kingdom and the nation that they did not find you. Otherwise, you say, “Go, tell your master, ‘Here is Elijah.’” And it will come to pass, when I depart from you, that the Spirit of the Lord will take you to a place I do not know. And if I come and tell Ahab, and he does not find you, he will kill me. And I, your servant, have feared the Lord since my youth. Did he not tell my master what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord?

Saint, the glorious Prophet Elijah, when I hid one hundred men of the Lord’s prophets in two caves and provided them with bread and water. Now you say, “Go, tell your master, ‘Here is Elijah,’ and he will kill me.” And Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will come today and appear to him.” So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, so Ahab went to meet Elijah.

When Ahab saw Elijah, he said to him: “Are you the one who deceives Israel?” Elijah said to him, “It is not I who deceive Israel, but you and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the Lord our God and followed Baal.

And now send and gather to all Israel, to Mount Carmel, the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the rest of the profession of shame (as the Greeks called them Aphrodite), and the four hundred priests of Astarte who were under the trees and eating Jezebel’s bread.” So Ahab sent to all the children of Israel and gathered all the prophets to Mount Carmel. Elijah said to them: “How long will you falter between the two sides? If the Lord is God, follow him.” And if Baal was a god, then they followed him, and the people did not answer anything! Then Elijah said to the people: “I will prepare the other light, but I will not put fire on it. Then you will cry out, calling on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord my God. Any god who would listen and send fire to burn the bull would be the true God.”

Then all the people answered and said, “What you have spoken is good.” Then Elijah said to the prophets of shame: “Choose for yourselves a calf, and do it first, and call on the name of your God, and put no fire.” So they took the calf and did so, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “We have answered, O Baal, we have answered!” There was no sound, nor was there any heed. “For your God is distracted by conversation, so He will not hear you.” And they continued to circle around the altar, crying out loudly and beating their breasts until they bled, but they labored in vain until evening came and no sign appeared. Then Elijah spoke to the prophets of the first offering, saying: “Step aside from now on, while I will lay down my burnt offering.” Then Elijah said to the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel, as the Lord had spoken to him, saying to him, “Israel shall be your name!” And he built the stones in the name of the Lord, and repaired the altar that had been destroyed. .

And around the altar he made a channel of nine measures of love. Then he put the wood on the altar that he had made, and cut the burnt offering and placed it on the wood. Elijah said to the people, “Fill for me four jars of water and pour it on the altar, on the burnt offering, and on the wood,” so they did! Then he said, “Bend, then bend.” Then he said: “Two-thirds!” So they were two-thirds.” The water ran around the altar, and the channel was also filled with water. The jars are filled three times to symbolize the Holy Trinity.

As for the four jars, they symbolize the teachings of the four Gospels that narrated the souls of the nations. And Elijah cried out to heaven and said: “O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, answer me today with fire. And let all this people know that you alone are the Lord, the God of Israel, and that I, your servant, have done all these things for your sake. And you have turned the hearts of this people behind you.” Then fire came down from the Lord from the sky, and consumed the bull, the wood, the water in the ditch, and the stones, and even the dust was licked up by the fire.

All the people fell down on their faces and said, “The Lord God is truly God.” Then the Prophet Elijah said to the people: “Arrest the priests of Baal and let none of them escape.” They arrested them, so Elijah took them down to the Kishon River and slaughtered them there. Elijah said to Ahab, “Behold, the sound of the rain. So fasten your chariot and go down to the house, so that the rain does not overtake you.” So he did as he was told. And Elijah went up to Carmel, knelt down on the ground, put his face between his knees, and prayed to the Lord. An hour later, he said to his servant, who, as they say, was the Prophet Jonas, the son of the widow who had been raised by the Prophet Elijah, as we previously mentioned: “Go up and look toward the sea.” He went up and looked and said: “It’s nothing!” He said, “Come back seven times.” And for the seventh time, he said: “Behold, a small cloud, the size of a man’s palm, rising from the sea.” Then he said, “Go up and tell Ahab, ‘Fight up your chariot and come down, lest the rain prevent you.’” Then the sky became cloudy with clouds and blackened with winds, and heavy rain came. Instead of Ahab going to the city of Samaria, the center of his kingdom, he went to Jezreel, and the prophet Elijah also went to this city. To escape the intensity and abundance of rain.

After a few days, as soon as the rain stopped, Ahab came to Samaria and told his wife Jezebel everything the prophet had done, and how he had killed the priests of Baal. As soon as that foolish woman heard that the Prophet Elijah had killed the priests, she sent a messenger to Elijah, saying to him: “Thus do to God and more, unless I make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” As soon as Elijah heard that, as a human being, he got up and went away. On his face, he reached Beersheba, which is located on the borders of Judea, and left his servant Jonas there. Then he walked in the wilderness for a day, until he came and sat under a tree called Rathman in Hebrew, and in Arabic, the Juniper Tree (which is a thorny tree), and asked for death for himself and said: “It is enough now, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” And he lay down and slept under the juniper tree.

This place, according to honorable tradition, is the current location of the Monastery of Saint Elias on the Jerusalem-Bethlehem road.

And behold, an angel of the Lord touched him and said to him: “Arise, eat and drink”! He woke up and found a full loaf of bread and a little water at his head. So he ate and drank, then went back and lay down. Then the angel of the Lord came again and said to him, “Arise, eat and drink, for the way is far ahead of you.” So he got up, ate, drank, and walked with the strength of that eater for forty days and forty nights to a mountain with two peaks, one of which is called the Peak of Sinai and the other is the Peak of Horeb. On which Moses saw the bush burning but not burning. So the Prophet walked to this peak. The Prophet Elijah also walked and entered a cave there and stayed there. Then the Lord spoke to him, saying: “What is the matter with you, Elijah?” Then Elijah said: “How have I been jealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I am left alone, and they are seeking my life to take it.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord was passing by, and his wind was great and strong, it split the mountains and broke the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a low, gentle sound. There the Lord will be.” Thus, it is as if he had previously told him about the transfiguration of Christ.

When Elijah heard that, he wrapped his face in his robe and went out and stood at the gate of the loan, and behold, the voice of the Lord said to him: “Go and return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus and anoint Hazael as king of Syria, and Joshua-Nimshi as king of Israel, and anoint Elisha the son of Shephat of Abelmeholah as a prophet, so that he may replace you.” Then he left that place and went there, and he found the ugly man plowing a field, and Elijah immediately threw his cloak over him. So the ugly left everything, followed the Prophet Elijah and became his student and servant.

And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, on the outskirts of Samaria, next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. When Ahab was jealous of that vineyard, he said to Naboth: “Give me your vineyard, so that I can make it a vegetable garden, since it is near my house, and I will give you another vineyard instead of it, or I will give you silver for its price.” Then Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.” So Ahab entered his house distressed and distressed because of the words that Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him, saying, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed, and turned away his face, and ate no bread. Then Isabel his wife came to him and said to him: “Why is your spirit so sad that you do not eat bread? He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money, and if you wish, I will give you a vineyard in exchange for it.’” He said, “I will not give you my vineyard.” The stupid Isabelle said to him: “Take it easy, sir. “And tomorrow I will try for you to inherit it without paying for it.”

So Ahab was comforted that evening. As for the foolish woman, the next morning she wrote a letter, inlaid it with Ahab’s signet, and sent it to Naboth’s citizens and enemies, saying to them: “Put up false witnesses against Naboth, accusing him of cursing the god and the king, and stone him with stones.” Those people testified falsely and slandered him for the sake of the queen and stoned him with stones. After that, they sent a letter to Isabelle in which they said that they had carried out what they were ordered to do. And behold, his inheritance is permissible to the king. So the foolish Isabel told her husband what she had done and said to him: “Can you now annex Naboth’s vineyard to your possession?”

When Ahab left to go to the vineyard, the Lord God said to the prophet Elijah: “Go to meet Ahab king of Samaria, as he is heading to Naboth’s vineyard, and say to him: Are you coming to inherit Naboth’s vineyard?” But this says the Lord God: In the place where you licked up the words, the blood of Naboth, the dogs will lick up your blood also, and the blood of foolish Jezebel, because you envied your neighbor for his generosity and used every means of injustice to inherit him, and no one of your descendants will rest in the kingdom. So the prophet Elijah went and said that to Ahab. When he heard that, he cried, applied anointing to his body, and fasted, regretting his sin. So the Lord accepted his repentance, and said to the Prophet, “Have you seen how Ahab humbles himself before me?” Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring evil in his days, but in the days of his son I will bring evil upon his house.” The matter actually happened, because after the death of Ahab, king of Samaria, his son, called Ahaziah, stopped prostrating to the true God, and was prostrating to hollow, soulless idols.

One day, Ahaziah fell from the balcony of his palace in Samaria, and fell ill, but he did not ask for healing from God, who grants health to the sick. Rather, he sent messengers and said to them: “Go to the city of Ekron, and there is a seer of Baal, so ask her about my illness.” While the messengers of the king of Samaria were on their way, the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tsbitte: “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to them: Is there not a God in Jerusalem who grants health and well-being, and are you looking for Arafat? Therefore, thus says the Lord: “She saw the bed on which the king had ascended, and he would not come down from it, but would surely die.” So the Prophet went and told the messengers that. The messengers returned to their king and informed him that a man had met them on the way and said these words to them.

The king asked them: “What is the appearance of the man who came up to meet you and spoke to you with these words?” And they said to him: “He is a hairy man, and he was girded with a leather girdle around his loins.” Then he said: “It is Elijah the Tseptite. Hurry. Let the leader of the fifty go to the mountain and find the prophet there. He said to him: ‘Man of God, says the king, come down.’ The prophet answered and said: ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and the fifty who are with you.’” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and the fifty who were with him.

As soon as the king learned of the matter, he returned and sent another captain of fifty and the fifty that belonged to him, and what happened to the previous one happened to him.

He sent a third with his soldiers. As for the third, he stood from afar, fell to the ground, and prayed to the saint, saying: “O man of God, do not be angry with me as you were angry with the leader of the first and second fifty and their soldiers.” Rather, have pity on me and come down and come to the king.” Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah: “Come down with him and do not be afraid of him.” So he got up and went down with him to the king. He was denounced according to God's command, and his end occurred as Elijah had previously said. After his death, Joram son of Ahab became king.

During the days of this king, God wanted to take the Prophet Elijah as if to heaven. Then the Prophet Elijah took his hideous disciple and they went to a place called Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha: “Stay here!” As for me, the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” Then the ugly man said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” And the two of them came to Bethel. Then the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel went out to Elisha and said to him: “Do you know that today the Lord will take your Lord off your head? He said: “Yes! I know, so be silent.” Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” He said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” Then the sons of the prophets who were in Jericho came to Elisha and said to him: “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master off your head?” He said: “Yes! I know, so be silent.” Then Elijah said to him: “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” He said, “As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” And they set off together. Then fifty men of the prophets came and stood facing them from a distance. They stood next to Jordan. So Elijah took his cloak, wrapped it around, and struck the waters with it, and the waters parted here and there. And they both passed on dry land. And it came to pass that when Elijah passed by, he said to Elisha: “Ask me what I will do for you before I am taken from you”? Elisha said! “Let the Spirit that is in you be multiplied.” Elijah said: “You have asked a difficult matter, but if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours, and if you do not see me, it will not be yours.” And as they were walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them. Then Elijah ascended in the storm as if to heaven, and Elisha could see him shouting: “O my father! my father! Israel’s chariot and its rider.” The explanation for this is that the Hebrew kings had horses and chariots, and they rode horses as rulers, but you, O Prophet, are a chariot and a rider and ruler over Israel.

While Elisha was saying this, he had not seen him yet. He grabbed his clothes and tore them into two pieces. He patched Elijah's robe that had fallen from him, and he returned and stood on the shore of the Jordan. So he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, but it did not split. He said, “Where is Elijah’s God now?” He struck the waters a second time and they broke, and he crossed over on dry land.

And when the sons of the prophets who were in Jericho opposite him saw him, they said: The spirit of Elijah has rested on Elisha, so they came and worshiped God on the ground.

The biography of the Saint Prophet is taken from the book of the Lives of the Saints (Synaxarium)

About Elijah the Prophet by Saint John Chrysostom

I want to talk about Elijah, this man who was raised to the heights of heaven because of his zeal for the Lord. This is what King Ahab said to him: “You are troubling Israel.” Elijah replied: “It is not me who is troubling Israel, but rather you and your father’s house.” However, when he heard Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, say: “This is what the gods will do to me, and this is what it is, unless I make your life at this hour tomorrow the same as the life of one of the priests whom I killed,” he fled away from the place, a distance of forty days on foot. A word he heard from a woman and he fled because of it. Elijah's behavior in all his actions was arrogant and harsh. When he was isolated from sin, he appeared arrogant to the utmost extent of arrogance. However, God allowed him to stumble and prepared him in that way in order to make the mercy that He bestowed upon him the kindest aspect of his treatment of his neighbor... After forty days, God passed away, and the master approached his servant, as God was full of mercy and compassion. God asked him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” It was as if God was saying to him: “You ran away, so where is the trust in me?” This is a situation that teaches you not to trust yourself...” Elijah answered him, as if he had now changed his previous thoughts. He said: “O Lord, they have abandoned your covenant, undermined your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I am left alone, and they have sought my life to take it.” God said to him: “No, this was not the reason for your flight. You are not the only one, Elijah, who did not bow down to Baal. Rather, I have left seven thousand knees in Israel that have not bowed to Baal.” God blamed him for running away, and not only for running away, but for the fact that the word of a woman had caused such fear in him. God wanted to test Elijah to make him understand that the deeds he performed should not be attributed to himself, but to God’s power. Elijah, who sometimes closed the sky so that it did not rain, and sometimes caused fire to fall from the sky onto the altar of burnt offering, God allowed him to fall a little, so that he would then wear the garment of love...

God lives

“As God lives, before whom I stand”

This was the slogan of the Prophet Elias during his life, and so it remained alive in the conscience of the people, to the point that many would like to give their children his name.

The church hymn calls him “the angel in body, the foundation and pillar of the prophets, the second forerunner of Christ’s presence,” the witness to the truth until the last days, the voice of a living conscience, resisting injustice. His ascetic life in the mountains and desert made him an intercessor for monks and for all those who objected in their lives to the insolence and corruption of the world.

His encounter with the Lord took place neither in a storm, nor in an earthquake, nor in fire, but in “the sound of a gentle breeze.” There the Lord was (3 Kings 19:11-13).

The Lord is not seen in the “Aqqa” because the noise often drowns out the voice, the inner call. This is how we miss God after a great experience that shakes us and almost destroys us. His lack is in kindness and compassion. Therefore, the worship of God in the end does not take place in loud celebrations, nor in luxurious temples, nor even in pontifical religious rites, but in “spirit and truth,” where the voice of the Word of God is heard, the voice of the living God incarnated in us.

The Prophet of God took out his anger on the prophets of Baal and killed them. There is no doubt that every killing is a disobedience to God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” but if the power of anger must be stirred up within us, let it descend upon evil and its agents. This moist wood, our stick immersed in human desires and weaknesses, can only be burned by the fire of divine love that purifies, illuminates, and brings warmth to our hearts. (3 Kings 18:36-38).

His heart was ignited by the divine fire in his love for God, so he no longer belonged to this earth, so he rose bodily, standing in advance and alive, to the proximity of God in the true heavenly homeland (4 Kings 2:11).

And let us not forget his prayer, as he actually trains us in fervent prayer, pure and effective prayer, with which the son of the widow of Sidon embraced the dead man, cried out to God three times, and revived him (as is done symbolically in the first aid for the fainting), conveying to him with all his being the spirit and strength derived from God. (3 Kings 17) : 21).

Likewise, the rain fell after a long drought and after a fervent prayer to God, “prostrating himself to the ground and putting his face between his knees” (3 Kings 18:42).

We mentioned how, through his prayers to God, he sent down fire on the wet wood and the burnt offering, so everything was burned.

Saint Elias dress

We see some people dedicating their children to Saint Anthony or Saint Elias and coming to the priest to sanctify this garment.

These are Western practices. We do not have a church rank to sanctify fabrics. As for priestly vestments, they are sprinkled with holy water for use in service.

Troparia in the fourth tune:
O angel of the body, the foundation and pillar of the prophets, the second forerunner of the presence of Christ, the glorious and venerable Elias, grace was sent from on high to Elisha to expel illnesses and purify lepers, and therefore healing will always flow to those who honor him.

Qandaq with the second tune
O Prophet who foresaw the great deeds of God, the great Elias is his name, O you who with your word stopped the flow of the waters of the clouds, intercede on our behalf to the One who loves mankind alone.