The first “word of the LORD” asks him why he is at Horeb. He replies that Israel is apostate, they kill the prophets, and he alone stands for covenant faith. Again, he sees no real reason to continue. Apparently he had hoped that the Mount Carmel episode would produce a final victory over Baalism

Here, Elijah waits for God’s word through tearing wind, ground shaking earthquake, and roaring flame. The Lord does not speak, however, through these natural phenomena. Certainly Elijah has experienced God’s sovereignty over nature, and has benefited from miraculous fire, but what he needs now is a definitive word from the Lord.

the Lord may simply try to explain to Elijah that he works in small ways at this time. God speaks in a quiet voice here to a prophet drained of strength

the three complete phrases show three aspects, indeed three degrees, of departure from God, by portraying conformity to this world at three different levels: accepting its advice, being party to its ways, and adopting the most fatal of its attitudes—for the scoffers, if not the most scandalous of sinners, are the farthest from repentance

The law of the Lord stands opposed to ‘the counsel of the wicked’ (1), to which it is ultimately the only answer. The psalm is content to develop this one theme, implying that whatever really shapes a man’s thinking shapes his life

The phrase its fruit in its season emphasizes both the distinctiveness and the quiet growth of the product; for the tree is no mere channel, piping the water unchanged from one place to another, but a living organism which absorbs it, to produce in due course something new and delightful, proper to its kind and to its time. The promised immunity of the leaf from withering is not independence of the rhythm of the seasons (cf. the preceding line, and see on 31:15), but freedom from the crippling damage of drought (cf. Jer. 17:8b).

Therefore leads inexorably out of what these men have chosen to be (4). Before the Judge they will have, in our similar phrase, not a leg to stand on, and among his people no place. These two aspects of judgment, collapse and expulsion, are portrayed again with immense power in Isaiah 2:10–21.

To ‘know’ is more than to be informed (as in 139:1–6): it includes to care about, as in 31:7 (Heb. 8), and to own or identify oneself with (cf. Prov. 3:6). To perish is used in many senses: here for instance of a road or course that comes to nothing or to ruin; elsewhere of hopes or plans frustrated (e.g. 112:10; Prov. 11:7), of creatures that get lost (119:176), and of men and achievements that come to grief (2:11; 9:6). The New Testament brings to light the eternal implications which are already contained in it (e.g. John 3:16).

So the two ways, and there is no third, part for ever