1 Kings 19:18

18. I have left me seven thousand Better, as in the margin, I will leave seven thousand in Israel. That is, in the judgments that are to come by the hand of the ministers I have named, all Israel shall not be cut off. There will be found seven thousand who have never worshipped Baal. Here Elijah learns, to his confusion, that he is not the only Israelite who remains true to God. As seven is the covenant number, the number of perfection, the seven thousand need not be pressed here to mean an exact designation of the number of true worshippers of God in Israel, but a round number ever symbolical of the elect of God. So the apostle (Romans 11:4) uses it of that “remnant according to the election of grace,” the true Israel that embraced the saving truth of Christ. So, too, in all the history of the Church in the darkest times of apostasy the Lord reserves to himself his faithful seven thousand, though for a time they be driven by persecution into the wilderness, or into caves and dens of the earth.

Kissed him It was an ancient practice to adore idols both by kissing them and kissing the hand at them. Compare Hosea 13:2.

The lessons Elijah learned at Horeb were full of instruction. The symbols of wind, earthquake, and fire, followed by the still small voice, have a wide and varied significance and application.

The central lesson of these symbols is, that there are mightier influences at work in human history than physical force. Men are ever prone to think otherwise, or, at least, to disregard this fact. That which is tangible to the outer senses which blows and shakes and burns before the eyes of men, confounding and confusing, and, for the time, overwhelming and crushing all opposition that is too apt to exhaust all our ideas of mightiness. We should, therefore, be reminded that in the silent workings of mind and heart there are often developed forces stronger than the whirlwind, mightier than the earthquake shock, and fiercer in their burnings than fires which many waters cannot quench. In this we may discover just the relation of miracles to the truth which they have often served to introduce or confirm. We are in danger of esteeming the former above the latter, whereas the law and the prophets and Christ have taught a different lesson. The seven thousand devout hearts in Israel are a mightier power for good than even all the miracles of Elijah. So, too, Jesus taught his disciples that it is better to have one’s name written in heaven than to have power to work miracles, (Luke 10:20,) and that the true believer, led by the Spirit, shall do even greater works than the Messiah.

The immediate application of this lesson was to Elijah’s undue estimate of the miracles at Carmel. He seems to have supposed that the answer by fire that consumed his sacrifice, and the mighty wind and rain that came so quickly after, together with the slaughter of the false prophets, would accomplish the speedy reformation of Israel; and because they did not, he yielded to discouragement and despair. His radical error was in placing too much confidence in the outward and the marvellous. So the still small voice, as it developed itself into the sure word of prophecy, showed him how groundless was his despair, how mistaken his notions of Jehovah’s ways, and how manifold might be other agencies of judgment yet at God’s command.

At the same time the lesson might remind him that the impious Jezebel from whom he fled, and who now, after all his work against her gods, seemed to be triumphant still, was trusting in the outward appearance of power at her command. She might array against him and his fellow-prophets all the forces of government, and all the pomp and pretensions of the idolatry to which she was devoted, but these would soon exhaust themselves, for God would not be in them. The wind and fire of her presumptuous wrath would soon pass by, and after all its fury was spent, there would rise the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal; a silent force, perchance, but with God in them mightier far than all that could come against them.

But the deeper and grander lesson of these symbols is the contrast they present between the old dispensation and the new the Law and the Gospel. The miracles of the exodus, the clouds and thunders and lightnings that attended the giving of the law at this same Sinai, and all the later marvels in the sacred history of Israel, only prepared the ear of men to catch more readily and appreciate more fully the gentle voice of Him who did not cry or lift up his voice in the streets, but still spake as no other man spake. The sweetest, holiest sound that ever steals upon the soul of man is the voice of the WORD that was made flesh; and that voice, ever speaking in the Gospel, shall go forth throughout the earth, and its words unto the end of the world, until all idols fall, and all tongues confess, that Jesus is the Christ.