WHO WAS ELIJAH?

Elijah was the last and one of the foremost Hebrew prophets and a supernatural worker in the two Books of Kings in the Old Testament. His name means "my God is YHWH." Elijah's home was in Tish'Beth, a village in the land of Gilead, East of the Jordan River. He started his long career as prophet during the reign of King Ahab of Israel and his Phoenician-born queen Jezebel, and continued as such during the reign of Ahab's son Ahaziah. The last time he is mentioned serving as a prophet (this time for Judah) is toward the end of the 8th Year reign of King Jehoram of Judah (2 Chronicles 21; 2 Kings: 8).
Israel, still united under Solomon, it was ripped in two as it is mentioned in the Scripture:- the Northern kingdom of Israel and -the Southern kingdom of Judah which retained Jerusalem along whit its Temple.
The first king of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel, Jeroboam, was the son of Nebat, one of Solomon's officers in the village of Zered'Ah; of the tribe of Ephraim. At an early age Jeroboam was left fatherless, to be raised by his widowed mother Zeru'Ah (1King 11). When Solomon observed that Jeroboam was not only a valiant, mighty man but also a hard worker, he was put in charge of the compulsory labor force of the House of Joseph. Subsequently, God's prophet Ahij'Ah approached him with specific news. After tearing his new garment into 12 pieces the prophet told Jeroboam to take 10 of them in a way to symbolize how God would rip Solomon's kingdom in 2 and make Jeroboam king over 10 of the tribes.This was a governmental division and not a departure from true worship centered at the temple in Jerusalem, the capital of the Southern Kingdom. So God assured Jeroboam that He would bless and prosper his reign and build him a lasting House of Successors as long as he keeps God's Law and Commandments (1King11:40).
It was upon learning of these events that Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam. He fled to Egypt and there under the sheltering protection of Pharaoh Shishak he remained alive until the death of Solomon. Upon the news he quickly returned to his homeland where he joined his people that at that specific time were demanding that Solomon's son, Rehoboam, lighten their burdens if he wanted the support of the 10 tribes to his kingship. Rehoboam disregarded the good advice of the older counselors in taking the supporting offer, preferring to take the advice of his younger companions who told him to increase the workload of the people. The 10 tribes responded to this harshness by making Jeroboam their king. This turn of affairs took place in order to make Jeroboam the one to carry out the task that God had spoken by means of Abij'Ah the prophet (1Kings 12; 2 Chronicles 10). Jeroboam immediately set about to build up Shechem as his royal capital, and East of Shechem, on the other side of the Jordan, he fortified the settlement of Penuel (Peniel), the place where Jacob had wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32).
Jeroboam, upon seeing his subjects streaming up to the temple in Jerusalem to worship God, he thought in a human way that in time his subjects might switch their allegiance to Rehoboam and kill him.
So, to secure himself in his post, Jeroboam designed a religion centered around 2 golden calves, which he set up, one at Beth'El in the South, the other at Dan in the North, with his own non-Aaronic priest-hood, composed of those among the people in general who were willing to procure the office by offering 1bull and 7 rams. These designed religion then served for the high places, for the goat-shaped demons and for the calves that he had made. He also invented special holy days and personally led the people in sacrificing to his newly created gods (1 Kings 12; 2 Kings 22; 2 Chron 11; 13).
Omri, succeeded him as King of Israel and continued the policies of king Jeroboam, contrary to God's Law. He also encouraged the building of local temple altars for sacrifices and worship of Baal. He, for a time, achieved economic prosperity and domestic security using a marriage alliance between his son Ahab and princess Jezebel, a priestess of Baal and daughter of the king of Sidon. But the marriage did not bring peace between the spiritual forces at stake. The true prophets of God exercised at that time a very strict interpretation and application of God's Law to the people who followed the true worship of the God of Israel. The tensions grew and this was the time when the spiritual and moral condition of the people of Israel fell to an alarmingly low state. Ahab, committed to build a strong worship for Baal and Asherah, his wife Jezebel, a priestesses and queen of the Northern kingdom, brought a large entourage of Baal &Asherah's priests, priestesses and prophets into their territory.
It is in this context that Elijah is introduced in 1Kings 17 as Elijah "the Tish'Bite." He is sent by God to announce chastisement. With his first reported words: "As the Lord, the God of Israel before whom I do stand Is Living," he pointed out that the living God of Israel made a decree that no sacred rain or dew will occur for a period of Years, except at Elijah's word (3 Years and 6 Months). After this, God directed Elijah to the Torrent Valley of Cherith to the East of the Jordan in the territory of the Tribe of Gad. Here ravens brought food to him. He got sacred water from the Torrent Valley, which in God's due time dried up. God continued to guide him, sending him across to the Western side of Ahab's land to Zarephath, between Sidon and Tyre, where Ahab's father-in-law Eth'Baal was ruling (1 King 16).
In this place, Elijah meets a widow preparing a final meal for herself and her son with their very last bit of sacred flour and oil. He requested the widow to make a cake for him promising that the provision of the God of Israel would protect her and her son during the sacred drought. Because she recognized him as a man of God she complied to his request and she received the blessing. During Elijah's stay in her home the widow's son died. Elijah prayed to God, and God brought him to life. Many believers have the thought that the widow's son was Jonah, the prophet who disobeyed God's command, and since the Scripture teaches God's Law in a very symbolic way, the thought is correct.
Eventually God instructed Elijah to show himself to Ahab requesting a meeting with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asher'Ah on Mount Carmel. Elijah proposed a test to prove Who is the True God to be followed in front of all the people of Israel. Whichever god answer by consuming a bull sacrificing to him is to be acknowledge by all. Baal is first called on, but in vain, no proof that Baal is a living god, although his prophets kept praying to him even cutting themselves according to their ritual.
Elijah mercilessly mocked them, increasing their frenzy (1 Kings 18). Now Elijah was free to perform his act. He mended an altar that had been torn down using 12 stones. Then he had the priests soaking in water the offering and the altar 3 times with the trench around the altar circumscribing the squared area filled with the water. About the time of the daily evening Grain Offering, Elijah payed once to the God of Israel, the only living God, and Fire came from the heavens consuming not just the offering, but also the wood, the stones of the altar and the water in the trench. The people seeing this, fell upon their faces saying: "God is the true living God of Israel!" Then Elijah slaughtered all the 450 prophets of Baal at the torrent Valley of Kish'On. Then God answered Elijah's prayer and broke the drought by a downpour of sacred rain.
On being informed of the death of Baal's prophets, Jezebel vowed to have Elijah put to death. Elijah fled in fear Southwestward of Beer-Sheba, to the West of the lower Dead Sea. Leaving his attendant there, he went still farther into the wilderness, praying to die. Here the angel of the Lord appeared to him, to prepare Elijah for a long journey to the sacred mountain of the True God, Horeb. Sustained for 40 days by what he ate on his journey, he arrived at Horeb. Then God spoke to him after a display of His Power in an awe-inspiring wind, earthquake and fire. Unlike the personalized and idolized power of Baal as the god of sky, storm, weather and vegetation, that represent natural forces, God showed to Elijah that He is not in these manifestations, which are merely expressions of His Active Force. Then God manifested to Elijah His Power with the purpose of correcting Elijah's thought about considering himself the lone worshiper of God in Israel. God showed him the 7,000 ones who have not bowed to Baal's power. Elijah was sent back to his assignment, naming 3 persons who were to be anointed or commissioned to do a work for God: Hazael as king over Syria, Jehu as king over Israel, and his own successor Elisha (1 Kings 19). Time later, the greedy Baal-worshiper Ahab, illegally seized a sacred vineyard, the hereditary possession of Nab'Oth the Jezre'Elite, by allowing his wife to use false charges, false witnesses and unrighteous judges to have Nab'Oth murdered. Elijah met Ahab at the vineyard and told him that his blood will be licked up by dogs at the same place where the dogs licked up the blood of Nab'Oth. Elijah also announced a similar fate for Jezebel. Three Years later Ahab died in battle. His war chariot was washed by the pool of Samaria and the dogs licked up his blood. Time later, his wife was executed and also her blood was licked by dogs.
Then the time for Elijah to transfer his sacred mantle of his prophetic office to Elisha, came. Elijah went to Beth'El, from there to Jericho and then down to the Jordan. Elisha sticked close to him all the way. Because of his faithfulness Elisha is rewarded by seeing a fiery war chariot with fiery horses and Elijah ascending to the heavens in a windstorm, and at the same time Elijah's garment fell off him and it was received by Elisha and the two parts (like a firstborn son's portion) of Elijah's spirit.
In Matthew 10, Jesus shadows the same circumstances that occurred in Elijah's time by saying: "Those who declare publicly that they belong to Me, I will do the same for them before My Father in heaven. But those who reject Me publicly, I will reject them before My Father in Heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the world. No, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I came to set sons against their fathers, daughters against their mothers, daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law, your worst enemies will be the members of your own family. Those who love their father or mother more than me are not fit to be My disciples; those who love their son or daughter more than me are not fit to be My disciples.Those who do not take up their cross and follow in My steps are not fit to be My disciples. Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it."
Ahab and his queen Jezebel, stand at the end of a line of kings of Israel who are said to have "done evil in the sight of the Lord" it projects the same end of times in which all believers are going to be tested and the circumstances of today proved to be the same.
Elijah is the one who holds the keys of the priesthood and is portrayed as the leader of the school of prophets known as "the sons of the prophets," that was continued by his successor Elisha.