What’s the “rock” in “Elijah Rock”?

Another line that seems clear is “If I could, I surely would just stand on the rock where Moses stood.” Moses is actually associated with several rocks in the desert, two of which gushed forth water for the Israelites. I think, though, that the rock referred to here is Mount Nebo, which Moses climbed right before his death and looked out over Canaan: “There the Lord showed him the whole land. . . . and said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Deuteronomy 34:1, 4). As mentioned in another post, many spirituals had a double meaning, one spiritual and one temporal, and Canaan is often a reference to freedom on earth as well as to Heaven.

Depending on the version of the lyrics being used, we can have the lines “Satan’s a liar and a conjur too/If you don’t mind out he’ll conjur you” or “Satan ain’t nothin’ but a snake in the grass/He’s a conjur. He’s a liar.” The idea of Satan’s being a liar is straight from Scripture; one verse is from the Gospel of John 8:44: “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (NIV) The word “conjur[e]” has the connotation of evil spell-casting in the southern US, so it makes sense that a spiritual would have that meaning. Oh, and I can’t resist pointing out how absolutely perfect it is for Satan to be called “a snake in the grass,” since that expression could refer to the actual snake who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. (My etymological wonkery compels me to say that the term snake in the grass was first used by the poet first-century BCE Roman poet Virgil in the line latet anguis in herba,  which means “a snake lurks in the grass.” The story about Eve and the snake doesn’t actually say that the creature slithered out of the grass. Later, though, the expression was appropriated by English clergymen who applied the term to Satan.)

On to the meaning of the phrase “Elijah rock.” One rather dubious idea I ran across is that the rock referred to is Elijah’s chariot, so called because of its rocking motion as it travels. That just doesn’t seem very likely to me. So, to consider another possibility, is Elijah standing on a rock when he’s taken up to Heaven? No. He has just gone over the Jordan River, and he and Elisha are simply walking together when the fiery chariot appears. There are two other possible meanings for “rock.” One is that it refers to Mount Carmel, where Elijah had the contest with the prophets of Baal. That would be a neat tie-in with Moses’ mountain mentioned above, but Elijah didn’t “come up” to heaven at that point. Believe me, he still had quite a career in front of him! The other possibility is a more figurative one, and the one that I think makes the most sense. Additional lines from various versions of this spiritual clearly reference the idea that the rock is God: “But I can tell this ol’ world/He been a rock and a shelter for me.”

Now the symbolism makes sense. God is a rock for the speaker in the song, just as He was for Elijah. The speaker is looking forward to “comin’ up” to Heaven just like Elijah. The “shouts” are shouts of joy, something that happens all through the Bible, one of the most beautiful being in the book of Job when God says: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? . . . while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” (38:4, 7 NIV).

My choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale in the Denver area, sang Jester Hairston’s arrangement of this spiritual in 2015. He has the other parts drop out as the song draws to a close, leaving the basses to finish by themselves, gradually fading out with the words “comin’ up, Lord.” Was Hairston painting a picture of the group diminishing as one after another leaves this earthly life and goes to Heaven? Maybe. It’s an effective, and unexpected, ending, whatever the reason for its use. Here’s a performance to get your blood pumping from the Atlanta Master Chorale:

And here’s Mahalia Jackson singing a solo version. Man! The video quality may be pretty bad, but the sound is great:

Not content to re-use the Hairston arrangement for a 2022 concert, the Chorale instead went with Moses Hogan’s arrangement, which is, shall we say, challenging. I looked at a number of performance videos before settling on this one, which is just a static image and not the actual live feed. But boy–are those kids great! (For one thing, they stay on pitch for the entire piece.)

Here’s a v-e-r-y full listing of the lyrics: