Elijah was among the greatest and most original of the Hebrew prophets; indeed it is in him that Hebrew prophecy first appears as a great spiritual and ethical power, deeply affecting the destiny and religious character of the nation. He lived and worked under Ahab, contending with heroic courage for Yahwè as the sole god of Israel, and refusing to make any terms with plans favored at the royal court for uniting the worship of the national God with that of the Tyrian Baal. Thus he vindicated the true character of the religion of Israel, and is not unworthy of a place by the side of Moses. . . .
Elijah's devotion to Yahwè was something infinitely higher than mere patriotic attachment to hereditary religion. To him Yahwè and Baal represented . . . worship of national righteousness and the sensual worship of nature. . . . Elijah, in the best and earliest accounts, stands alone or with a single disciple. . . . Malachi speaks of him. as the minister of judgment and purification within Israel, the herald of " Yahwè's great and terrible day." Jesus beheld the spirit of Elijah revived in the stern and solitary Baptist, and on "the holy mount" Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, bore conjoint testimony to the transfigured Christ.
—From the Encyclopædia Biblica.
