1 Kings 19:11

11. Go forth, and stand upon the mount In order that, by impressive signs and symbols, I may teach thee a truer lesson of my nature and government, and send thee back to Israel a wiser man, a profounder prophet of my word, to finish the work I have for thee to do.

The Lord passed by As he did by Moses in these same solitudes. Compare Exodus 33:21-23; Exodus 34:6. This whole scene that follows is largely a reproduction of what occurred to Moses, perhaps in the cleft of this same rocky cave, and the two ought to be compared together. When Moses saw the calf-worship his “anger waxed hot,” and he broke the tables of the law, and ground the golden calf to powder, and, as Elijah slew the Baal prophets, he slew three thousand men that day. Exodus 32:19-28. Then in his anguish and discouragement he prayed, “Forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me out of thy book,” (Exodus 32:32,) and Jehovah condescended to make his glory and his goodness pass before him. He first awes Elijah by a fearful display of force.

A great and strong wind A tremendous hurricane.

Rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks Literally, tearing up the mountains and shivering the rocks. This is sometimes partially done by an ordinary wind storm among the awful crags of the Sinaitic mountains, and even then the spectacle is fearfully sublime.

The Lord was not in the wind He was neither in the wind, the earthquake, nor the fire, in the sense in which he was in the “still small voice.” There was a sense in which he was in them all. They came and shook the mountains at his command; they were symbols of his mighty power. But there was a revelation of the Divine nature which God would now give to Elijah which these symbols could not convey, and in this sense Jehovah was not in them.