In First Kings, chapter eighteen, verse thirty-seven, Elijah’s courage and faith have virtually no parallel in the history of redemption. His challenge to the king in verses sixteen through nineteen, the rebuke of all Israel in stanzas twenty-one to twenty-four, and the confrontation with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal in verses twenty-two and twenty-seven were in motion with only the weapons of prayer and faith in God. Elijah’s confidence in God indicates the shortness and simplicity of his prayer in verses thirty-six through thirty-seven.
The prominence of the name Jehovah, thrice repeated in this short prayer of Elijah, is significant as the special mission is symbolized in his very name and of his immediate purpose. He desires to efface himself. The God of Israel is to show Himself as the worker, not only in the outer sphere by a miracle but in the inner sphere by that conversion of the hearts. In this solemn and earnest invocation of God, as in Exodus three, verse fifteen, and Exodus six, verses two through three, the name Jehovah describes God as He is in Himself: the One eternal self-existent Being in unison with the name which shows His special covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. In His nature incomprehensible to finite beings, He reveals Himself in moral and spiritual relations with His people, through which they know that which passes to them knowledge.
Elijah begins his prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel is significant. This approach identifies what God has done for Abraham, being in a relationship with Him. The same includes the experience of Isaac and the people of Israel. Elijah acknowledges what God has done for these people because it happened before his time. Therefore, when he begins the prayer in that sense, he is telling God he is aware of the living experiences Abraham, Isaac, and the people of Israel had in relationship with Him in the past.