What does it mean that God speaks in a still small voice?

Answer

There is only one place in Scripture where God is said to speak in a “still small voice,” and it was to Elijah after his dramatic victory over the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-40;19:12). Informed that Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, king of Israel, was seeking to kill him, Elijah ran into the wilderness and collapsed in exhaustion. God sent an angel with food and water to strengthen him, instructed him to rest, and then sent him to Horeb. In a cave there, Elijah voiced his complaint that all of God’s prophets had been killed by Jezebel and he alone had survived. God instructed him to stand on the mountain in His presence. Then the Lord sent a mighty wind which broke the rocks in pieces; then He sent an earthquake and a fire, but His voice was in none of them. After all that, the Lord spoke to Elijah in the still small voice, or “gentle whisper.”

The significance of God speaking in the still small voice was to demonstrate to Elijah that the work of God does not always require dramatic revelation or manifestations. Divine silence does not necessarily indicate divine inactivity. Zechariah 4:6 informs us that God’s work is “not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” indicating that overt displays of power are not essential for God to work.

As God, He is not limited to a single method of communicating with His people. In other parts of Scripture, He is said to communicate through a whirlwind «Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, », (Job 38:1), to announce His presence by an earthquake «And mount Sinai was altogether on a smokeKe, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. », (Exodus 19:18), and to speak in a voice that sounds like thunder (1 Samuel 2:10;Job 37:2;Psalm 104:7;John 12:29). In Psalm 77:18 His voice is compared to both thunder and a whirlwind. And in Revelation 4:5, we’re told that lightning and thunder proceed from the throne in heaven.

Nor is God limited to natural phenomena when He speaks. All through Scripture, He speaks through His prophets repeatedly. The common thread in all the prophets is the phrase, “Thus says the Lord.” He speaks through the writers of Scripture. Most graciously, however, He speaks through His Son, the Lord Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews opens his letter with this truth: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

The difference between God speaking through the thunder and the whirlwind, then through the still, small voice, can also be considered as showing the contrast between the two dispensations of law and grace. The law is a voice of terrible words and was given amidst a tempest of wind, thunder, and lightning, attended by an earthquake (Hebrews 12:18-24), but the gospel is a gentle voice of love, grace, and mercy, of peace, pardon, righteousness, and the free gift of salvation through Christ. The law breaks the rocky hearts of men in pieces, shakes their consciences, and fills their minds with a sense of God’s fiery wrath and the

Punishment they deserve, and then the gospel speaks gently to them of the peace and pardon available in Christ.

It is less important how God speaks to us than what we do with what He says. God speaks most clearly to us in this day through His Word. The more we learn it, the more ready we will be to recognize His voice when He speaks, and the more likely we are to obey what we hear.