Deep study
1 Kings 17-19; 2 Kings 2 - drought, fire on Carmel, the still small voice, and a prophet's despair
Elijah stands alone against a nation's idolatry and calls down fire from heaven - then collapses under a broom tree and begs to die. Scripture insists he was a man with a nature like ours (James 5:17), so that we would learn both the power of God through prayer and the tenderness of God toward the worn-out.
Israel under Ahab and Jezebel had given itself to Baal, the Canaanite storm-and-fertility god believed to send rain and harvest. Elijah's first word is a frontal challenge: there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word (1 Kings 17:1). If Baal rules the rain, let him produce it; the drought is a contest over who is truly God. In the famine the LORD feeds Elijah by ravens, then by a Gentile widow of Zarephath whose flour and oil never run out, and through whom He raises a dead child.
On Mount Carmel Elijah confronts the people: How long will you go limping between two opinions? (1 Kings 18:21). Four hundred fifty prophets of Baal cry and cut themselves from morning to evening; there is no voice, no answer. Elijah repairs the LORD's broken altar, drenches it with water, and prays a brief, confident prayer - and the fire of the LORD falls and consumes everything. The people fall on their faces: The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God (1 Kings 18:39) - which is the very meaning of Elijah's name.
Then comes the strange collapse. Jezebel threatens his life, and the prophet who faced 450 alone now runs for his, sits down under a broom tree, and asks to die: It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers (1 Kings 19:4). God's response is striking for what it is not. No rebuke. An angel gives him bread and water and lets him sleep, twice, because the journey is too great for you (19:7). Sometimes the most spiritual thing for a weary saint is food and rest; God tends the body before He addresses the soul.
At Horeb - Sinai, where the Law was given - a great wind tears the mountains, then an earthquake, then fire; but the LORD was not in them. After the fire comes a qol demamah daqqah, a sound of thin silence, a low whisper, and there the LORD speaks (1 Kings 19:11-12). He gently corrects Elijah's despairing I, even I only, am left: seven thousand have not bowed to Baal (19:18). God is not confined to spectacle; He works as surely in the whisper as in the fire, and Elijah is not as alone as he feels.
Elijah's ministry passes to Elisha, who asks a double portion of his spirit, and Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind with chariots of fire, never tasting death (2 Kings 2:11). Centuries later he stands with Moses - the Prophets beside the Law - on the mountain of Transfiguration, speaking with Jesus of His coming death (Luke 9:30-31). Malachi promised an Elijah before the great day of the LORD (Malachi 4:5), and the angel says John the Baptist comes in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17), turning hearts back before the Messiah.