Ironically, 1 Kings 19 contains one of the most familiar, revered stories of the prophet Elijah's tumultuous life, and it is a historical-critical quagmire. There is no reason to believe that the events in chapter 19 chronologically followed those in chapter 18. The consensus is that a skillful redactor put together the two units by adding 9:1-3, thus connecting the flight to Horeb with the events at Carmel. Chapter 9 itself then combines three stories out of the Elijah tradition - his desert wanderings, the theophany at Horeb and the call of Elisha.

Textually, the most problematic, convoluted sections of 1 Kings 19 are precisely those texts assigned for this week. Despite the scrutiny of several generations of biblical scholars, there is still little consensus about what form the origina…