Mount Carmel

The limestone ridge that drops to the Mediterranean at the modern city of Haifa, marking the northern edge of the coastal plain. At its summit Elijah confronts the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal in the great fire-from-heaven contest of 1 Kings 18, and from its peak his servant later spots the cloud "as small as a man's hand" that breaks the three-year drought. The site venerated since at least the Crusader period is the Muhraqa near the southeastern end of the ridge.