We start with Elijah running before Ahab all the way to Jezreel,
where Ahab tells his wife what had happened on the mountain.
Instead of conceding his theological victory, she tells Elijah
he will die in the morning. He flees to Beersheba, leaves his
servant, and goes on alone for a day’s journey into the desert.
He sits under a tree and longs for death, saying “better to die
than to live, for I am no better than my forefathers.” Dying at
Jezebel’s hands was intolerable, perhaps because it would give a
Baal-worshiper victory over a prophet of God. Death itself,
though, was attractive at that point. Elijah does not get his
wish. Instead, he goes to sleep and an angel rouses him, offers
him a cake baked in the coals and a jug of water, and tells him
to eat. He does and then goes back to sleep, only to have the
angel re-awaken him, tell him to eat again, for he has a long
journey ahead of him. He obeys and, on the strength of that
eating and drinking, went for 40 days, ending at “the mountain
of God, Horeb.” Fro