Sound of silence
Noticed this in 1 Kings 19 (ESV). The only time I've heard this passage taught, it was a sermon with an application like “Since God speaks in a small voice, you have to make sure you listen really hard to hear him when he talks to you.” Presumably this would happen after a spate of localized natural disasters.
However, the handy ESV footnote says that “the sound of a low whisper” in verse 12 could also be translated into “a sound, a thin silence”. So perhaps an alternative explanation could be that God does not feel he needs to add to the word that he has already spoken. It is sufficient. The silence is deafening.
If so, how much less should we feel today, that we need God to speak in a voice of any volume, to add to the word that has given us life?