'THE FIRE OF THE LORD'

'....the fire of the Lord fell on their offering, and consumed it'

Fire was mysterious, beautiful, frightening. Many people saw it as a manifestation of God - especially when it consumed an animal offered for sacrifice on an altar.

Zoroastrianism was one ancient belief system focused on fire, but its followers did not think that the fire itself was God. 

They believed a burning flame was a link with the divine, like a spiritual conduit or portal into another reality, which was a divine reality. Fire became a focus for their prayers and sacrifices.

There is the shadow of this idea in the Bible. Yahweh expresses himself in fire, or hides inside it, as in the story of the Burning Bush. The text even suggests at one point that Yahweh enjoys the smell of a burnt animal, wafting up from the sacrificial altar in Jerusalem.

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