Moses and Elijah

        Both Moses and Elijah are great prophets among the Israelites. They are messengers of YHWH. Moses was sent by God to confront the Pharaoh of Egypt so that he might release the Israelites from slavery; while Elijah was sent by God to warn Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom that he and the people had sinned against God by worshipping Baal. There are many parallels between the stories of the two prophets.

        Both men were called directly by God to fulfill their missions. In Exodus 3, YHWH revealed to Moses in the burning bush on Mount Horeb, whereas in 1 Kings 17, Elijah was called by YHWH in Gilead. He fled out of Israel during the time of drought before returning to Ahab; while Moses also fled out of Egypt for some time before returning to the Pharaoh. Upon their returns, in order to make the kings believe that YHWH is God, both prophets were empowered by YHWH to do miracles before the kings, who considered them as trouble-makers. Moses sent ten plagues to the Egyptians while Elijah defeated 450 Baal’s prophets on Mount Carmel. In countering Baal’s prophets in 1 Kings 18, Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of Israelite tribes to build an altar for God, whereas Moses built an altar in twelve pillars in Exodus 24, also corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. Both bore the meaning that the twelve tribes of Israelites were the people of YHWH.  Moreover, Elijah’s contest with Baal’s prophets on Mount Carmel also recalled a similar scene of the covenant sacrifice on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24. However, both kings did not listen to the word of God. Pharaoh sent his army to pursue the Israelites while Ahab’s wife Jezebel threatened to kill Elijah in revenge of his ordering to death of Baal’s prophets.

        Both men then escaped into the wilderness and had a personal encounter with YHWH. Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai written by God with His fingers. According to Exodus 24, Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. In the wilderness, God gave water and food (manna and quail) to the Israelites so that they would not die as they wandered for forty years. On the other hand, according to 1 Kings 19, Elijah was fed by God’s angel with water and a cake baked on hot stones so that he would have the strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb to meet God. Unlike the encounter of Moses with YHWH in the burning bush on Mount Horeb, YHWH appeared to Elijah in a cave – not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in “a sound of sheer silence”. He sent Elijah back before the kings of the northern kingdom (Ahab and his successor Ahaziah) to confront them.

        Both men had their successors appointed by God. In Deut 31, YHWH commissioned Joshua as Moses’s successor to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land. In 1 Kings19, YHWH told Elijah to anoint Elisa as the prophet to succeed him. Finally, both men had their special ways to return to God. Moses died in the land of Moab in “YHWH’s command”. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was buried by God and no one knew his burial place. The return of Elijah to God is more miraculous. Before he returned to God, he left the fifty prophets accompanying him except Elisha by separating River Jordon into two and the two men walking across it on the dry land. This resembled the story of Moses who parted the Red Sea. In 2 Kings 2, it was said that while Elijah and Elisha were walking and talking after they had crossed River Jordon, “a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven”. Both Moses and Elijah ended in a place arranged by God and only known to Him. Yet they came back together on the high mountain with Jesus’s transfiguration to Peter, James and John as depicted in the Gospel.