Go hear it on the mountain: whether in thunder and lightning or in that still, small voice, the high places are where we meet the Holy One.

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THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD MUST HAVE BEEN A FORMIDABLE place to earn such a name. It was known by many others: Sinai, Horeb, Teman, Paran. No one knows what Sinai means, but Horeb is thought to mean "dry place." Paran is the desert region surrounding the mountain, so "Mount Paran" becomes a shortcut reference. Teman literally means "south," so Teman comes to be another abbreviation for that mountain to the south where God can be met.

Moses had the most famous encounter with God on the heights. There, the man who was born of a slave and raised in a royal household, who then ran away to reinvent himself as a shepherd first met the God of his forebears in a burning bush. Later, after rescuing his people from the clutches of Pharaoh, Moses returned to the mountain of God to await instructions. He was granted many things in that second encounter: a law of Ten Commandments, blueprints for the ark of the covenant and the tent of meeting, and the promise that God would travel with the people and live in their midst.

THE GREAT THEOPHANY OF EXODUS 19 AND 20 DESCRIBES THE manifestation of God on the mountain that has become classic in the popular religious imagination. Thunder, lightning, clouds, smoke, and a blare of horns accompany Moses on his perilous ascent into the presence of the Lord. The rest of the nation is terrified at the thought of meeting such a God. The people beg Moses to broker the relationship for them. The reality of God is too much to bear. Even hearing the Lord speak seems a deadly proposition.

Perhaps because this scene is so vivid--and Cecil B. DeMille made it so memorable--we forget another great encounter on God's mountain. In this later theophany the elements once again seem cataclysmic: wind strong enough to crush rocks, an earthquake causing the ground to heave, and fire scorching the hillsides. But when the flames die out, all that's left is a tiny whispering sound. It's this whisper that tips off the prophet Elijah that God is ready to speak.

How alike these scenes are! And how different! If God had whispered to Israel cowering at the base of Sinai in Moses' generation, perhaps the people would have listened to their Lord without the services of a mediator. Perhaps the meeting of God and Elijah on the mountain takes place in softer tones because the prophet could use a little gentle treatment. After all, Moses made his ascent after a miraculous contest with Egypt's pharaoh ending in unqualified victory. Elijah drags himself into a cave on the mountain in a mood of defeat.

It's not that God hadn't been faithful to the prophet, or that miracles hadn't been forthcoming. The Elijah cycle in the Books of Kings starts at a dead run, one astonishing episode plunging into the next. Still, even Moses, the gold standard for biblical heroes, wanted to retire from the role of God's spokesman more than once.

MOSES AND ELIJAH ARE CLEARLY BROTHERS-IN-ARMS IN significant ways, despite the four centuries that lie between them. They shared a mountain and a staggering authority. They were both miracle workers who faced down powerful rulers in God's name. Both would stand together on another mountain in Israel, 900 years after Elijah's brief career, in the mystical hour of the Transfiguration, sharing the spotlight with a religious leader whose disciples would be speechless at the sight.

But in that hour as in others, Moses and Elijah are as distinct as they are alike. Although both are called prophets in the Bible, Moses is best known as the great lawgiver of Israel. The first five books of the Bible are attributed to him. Elijah is remembered as the ultimate prophet, one of two protoprophets along with his protege Elisha. Elijah's story is told in several books, though he leaves no written work behind.

Moses fought the pharaoh of Egypt for his people's liberty. Elijah was pitted against the king and queen of Israel for the spiritual release of the nation from Baal worship. Moses was destined to die on another mountaintop, buried by the hand of God. His spirit lives on in Israel's law. Elijah apparently never died at all, snatched up to heaven instead by a celestial chariot of fire. He is anticipated at every Passover meal with an empty chair at the table awaiting his return.

That chair is not the only vacancy associated with the prophet. What's mostly missing from the saga of Elijah is back story. Without an infancy narrative to mark his arrival--like Moses in his reed basket--Elijah simply appears, full-grown and in business in the First Book of Kings. Mark imitates this sudden appearance at the beginning of his gospel with the ministry of John the Baptist--who is often suspected to be the second coming of Elijah.

WHEN ELIJAH MATERIALIZES FROM HIS DESERT, HE GOES straight to King Ahab and begins his bitter mission against the palace. He prophesies a drought in the name of "the Lord, the God of Israel," whom Ahab has abandoned in favor of the gods preferred by his foreign wife, Jezebel. The drought hurts more than just the palace, of course. Elijah sets about providing famine relief to a widow of Zarephath and her son. During the three years that she offers the prophet hospitality, her son is stricken with a fatal illness. Elijah restores his life, proving to this foreign widow that the God of Israel is indeed the God of all. The king of Israel, meanwhile, remains unconvinced.

Jezebel doesn't spend the famine years idly. She sets Ahab to murdering the prophets of the Lord. There must be plenty of them, since the court vizier Obadiah manages to hide a hundred prophets in caves. When Elijah makes his reappearance, he proposes to King Ahab a showdown at Mount Carmel between the 450 prophets of Baal and himself. When the Baal prophets lose miserably, Elijah slits their throats to avenge the deaths of the true prophets. He tells Ahab that now, at last, it will rain. And so it pours.

One famine, widow, and massacre later, Elijah is ready to retire. Prophetically speaking, his is a short legacy. But as Jezebel has sworn to end his life in the next 24 hours, perhaps we can sympathize with Elijah's decision to lay his mantle down. He flees into the desert, sits under a broom tree, and prays for death. He'd rather die at the hand of the Lord than the outraged queen. What Elijah gets in response to his prayer is an angel, a hearth cake, a jug of water, and a wake-up call. God will grant him an audience on the holy mountain. If he doesn't eat, he won't have the stamina for the journey.

This is how Elijah comes to be in the cave at the top of Mount Horeb when the Lord is "passing by." The manifestations of God are traditionally in motion, never static. God doesn't plunk down for a conversation but reveals the holy presence in a pageant of awe and terror, glory and beauty. So God passes before Abram and Moses in rare and solemn hours.

AS ELIJAH WAITS FOR HIS AUDIENCE, HE HEARS THE MAELSTROM of driving wind, earthquake, and fire, but does not respond. It's as if he deliberately rejects traditional encounters with the mysterium tremendum, the "overwhelming mystery" of God that the patriarchs knew. Elijah waits for the God he dares to encounter. The prophet comes to the entrance of the cave only when he hears the Lord of the whisper, also translated as "a fine silence," "a whistling of gentle air," "a soft murmuring sound," or "a small, still voice."

Each of us meets the God we dare to meet. And God speaks to us in the language we will hear.

By ALICE CAMILLE, author of Invitation to the Old Testament (ACTA, 2004), and other titles available at alicecamille.com.