A Catholic scholar has wisely and accurately described the prophets as "the conscience of Israel". While they acted as the conscience of the whole people, at times this meant being the voice of conscience for an individual person, particularly for the king. We see this in Elijah's confrontation with Ahab.

The prophet Elijah was not an interfering busybody, imposing his own moral value system on Ahab. He was acting according to the word of God which he had received, for no prophet acted on his own initiative. Those who nowadays reject any sort of moral authority or moral guidance would do well to remember this.

Ahab seems to have been expecting Elijah to confront him: "Have you found me out, my enemy?" Since he repented so quickly as a consequence of this confrontation with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah, we may well surmise that his own conscience was already troubling him, so that Elijah's confrontation was the outward symbol of an inner experience. While he calls Elijah "my enemy", his real enemy was his own conscience, for the voice of God challenges us in our inner hearts. Yet his conscience, like Elijah was not really an enemy. It was rather a saviour for it drew him to repentance.