The sound of a low whisper

The day after the greatest victory of his life, Elijah receives one threatening message from Jezebel and runs for his life into the desert, sits under a tree and asks God to let him die. What God does next is worth noticing: no rebuke, no sermon. An angel lets him sleep, wakes him, feeds him, and lets him sleep again. Then he walks forty days to Horeb — the same mountain as Moses — and God asks what he is doing there. Elijah pours out the complaint: I alone am left. Then comes wind that splits rocks, an earthquake, a fire — and the LORD was not in them. Afterwards, a sound of a low whisper. Elijah is given work to do, a successor, and one correction: there are seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal. He was never alone.