Commentaria in III Regum
Chapter 19
Jezabel threatens death to Elias; he flees, and, fed by an Angel under a juniper tree, goes to Mount Horeb: where, verse 9, he is asked by God what he does there, complains that the prophets are slain, and that he also is sought to be put to death; then God, appearing to him in the whistling of a gentle air, commands him to anoint Hazael king of Syria, and Jehu king of Samaria, and Eliseus a prophet to succeed himself; he presently carries this out, verse 19, and casting his mantle upon Eliseus, adopts him as his companion.
1. And Achab told Jezabel all that Elias had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 2. And Jezabel sent a messenger to Elias, saying: Such and such things may the gods do to me, and add still more, if by this hour tomorrow I make not thy life as the life of one of them. 3. And Elias was afraid, and rising up he went whithersoever his will carried him; and he came to Bersabee of Juda, and left his servant there. 4. And he went forward, one day’s journey into the desert. And when he was there, and sat under a juniper tree, he requested for his soul that he might die, and said: It is enough for me, Lord, take away my soul: for I am no better than my fathers. 5. And he cast himself down, and slept in the shadow of the juniper tree: and behold an Angel of the Lord touched him, and said to him: Arise and eat. 6. He looked, and behold there was at his head a hearth cake, and a vessel of water: and he ate and drank, and fell asleep again. 7. And the Angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said to him: Arise, eat: for thou hast yet a great way to go. 8. And he arose, and ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto the mount of God, Horeb. 9. And when he was come thither, he abode in a cave: and behold the word of the Lord came unto him, and he said to him: What dost thou here, Elias? 10. And he answered: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have thrown down thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. 11. And he said to him: Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord: and behold the Lord passeth, and a great and strong wind before the Lord, overthrowing the mountains, and breaking in pieces the rocks: but the Lord is not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake: but the Lord is not in the earthquake. 12. And after the earthquake a fire: but the Lord is not in the fire: and after the fire a whistling of a gentle air. 13. And when Elias heard it, he covered his face with his mantle, and coming forth stood in the entering in of the cave, and behold a voice unto him, saying: What dost thou here, Elias? And he answered: 14. With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant: they have thrown down thy altars, they have slain thy prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it away. 15. And the Lord said to him: Go, and return on thy way through the desert to Damascus: and when thou art come thither thou shalt anoint Hazael king over Syria. 16. And thou shalt anoint Jehu the son of Namsi king over Israel: and Eliseus the son of Saphat, who is of Abelmeula, thou shalt anoint prophet in thy room. 17. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall escape the sword of Hazael, shall be slain by Jehu: and whosoever shall escape the sword of Jehu, shall be slain by Eliseus. 18. And I will leave me seven thousand men in Israel, whose knees have not been bowed before Baal, and every mouth that hath not worshipped him kissing the hands. 19. So Elias departing thence, found Eliseus the son of Saphat plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and himself was one of them that were plowing with the twelve yoke of oxen: and when Elias was come to him, he cast his mantle upon him. 20. And he forthwith left the oxen, and ran after Elias, and said: Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said to him: Go, and return: for that which was my part, I have done to thee. 21. And when he was gone back from him, he took a yoke of oxen, and killed them, and boiled their flesh with the plough of the oxen, and gave to the people, and they ate: and rising up he went and followed Elias, and ministered to him.
3. AND ELIAS WAS AFRAID (of the fury and power of Jezabel, of which in verse 4. See Abulensis, Question 3), AND LEFT HIS SERVANT THERE,—namely his attendant, that he might flee alone, secret and hidden.
4. AND HE WENT FORWARD INTO THE DESERT, etc., AND WHEN HE WAS THERE, AND SAT UNDER A JUNIPER TREE.—The juniper loves hot and dry places; whence it abounds in Syria, and especially in the desert. Whence Pliny, book 16, chapter 39: “The juniper,” he says, “has the same virtue as the cedar.” And chapter 40: “Cypress, cedar, ebony, lotus, box, yew, juniper feel neither decay nor age.” Hence juniper berries are hot, strong and effective for warming, drying and strengthening the stomach, like pepper and mustard. Such is the zealous man, of whom you may rightly say that Arab proverb: “A grain of pepper (or juniper) is better than ten melons.” For a zealot, like a small pepper or juniper, if he be broken or rubbed, breathes out the fires of divine love, with which he goads, pricks and kindles his hearers to good.
Aptly, then, Elias rested under the shade of the juniper; for juniper berries, which burn like pepper, represent the ardour and zeal of Elias; but this had to be tempered by the shade of patience and humility: for the juniper, being small, gives a small and humble shade. Such was Juniper, one of the first companions of St. Francis, of whom we read thus in Wadding’s Annals, in the year of the Lord 1210, number 35: “St. Francis then also added to his Brotherhood Blessed Juniper, a man of such humility and simplicity that he was thought a fool by the ignorant crowd. The things he did and said for his own lowest abasement seem almost incredible, and no one else was so eager for honour as he for reproach. Therefore when he was heaped with insults by anyone, he spread the hem of his poor cloak and said to him: Friend, proceed bountifully hither, fill my lap with these precious stones, fill it, fear not: calling injuries and insults precious stones.
When he returned home, he used to speak thus with himself: O useless brother, with what face do you return to the fathers? On what title will they admit you? Surely if for hospitality’s sake they gather you under the roof, and give you scant bread and a little water, they will bestow a great thing, greater than your merits: justly will they repel you as unworthy of their company. His simplicity St. Francis, admiring, said to those standing by: Would that, brothers, we had a whole forest of such Junipers!” alluding to the etymology and property of the name, because, as Blessed Isidore testifies, as the ash of juniper keeps for very long the coals of the same wood once kindled, so he kept in his holy breast the love once kindled. And as the juniper is set with prickles, and according to Jerome always flowers, always bears new fruits, and never lays aside its greenness, so he by the compunction and austerity of penance nourished in himself the greenness of divine charity. For “juniper” the Hebrew has rothem, which the Septuagint retaining translate Ratham, as the Complutensian has, or Rathmon, as the Roman has: hence some thought that Rathmon is the rhamnus. Hear St. Methodius, treatise On Chastity, in Photius in the Library: “The rhamnus denotes virginity (for because it is prickly and pricks, it denotes a harsh life and mortification, which is the parent and nurse of chastity): for the rhamnus is a chaste tree, and perhaps from some like nature with the virgin this plant is called agnos: the rhamnus because of its strength and fortitude against pleasures: the agnos because it is chaste and pure on every side. Whence they say also that Elias, fleeing from the face of the woman Jezabel, came first to the rhamnus, and was heard and received food; because to those fleeing the sting of the flesh and the woman and pleasure, the wood sprang up as a refuge and covering of chastity, which was planted by Christ, the author of virginity, for those who embrace virginity.” And so he explains that of Judges 9:8: “All the trees said to the rhamnus: Come and reign over us,” because when the fig, that is the law of nature in paradise, and the vine, that is the law of nature given to Noe after the flood, who found the vine and wine, and the olive, that is the law of Moses and the Prophets (for these were anointed with oil), had not been able to heal the festering wounds of men: “God sent fourthly the rhamnus, that is chastity, to rule over them, which, pleasures being overcome, also for the rest of the time threatened them that unless all obeyed it and came to it sincerely, it would come to pass that all would be consumed by flames: for after this no other law would follow, but judgment and fire. Hence man began to cultivate justice, and to cleave constantly to God through faith, and to separate himself from the devil.” So far St. Methodius.