Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 18:1 - 18:1

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 1 Kings 18:1 - 18:1


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As the judgment of drought and famine did not bring king Ahab to his senses and lead him to turn from his ungodly ways, but only filled him with exasperation towards the prophet who had announced to him the coming judgment; there was no other course left than to lay before the people with mighty and convincing force the proof that Jehovah was the only true God, and to execute judgment upon the priests of Baal as the seducers of the nation.

1Ki 18:1-6

Elijah's meeting with Ahab. - 1Ki 18:1, 1Ki 18:2. In the third year of his sojourn at Zarephath the word of the Lord came to Elijah to show himself to Ahab; since God was about to send rain upon the land again. The time given, “the third year,” is not to be reckoned, as the Rabbins, Clericus, Thenius, and others assume, from the commencement of the drought, but from the event last mentioned, namely, the sojourn of Elijah at Zarephath. This view merits the preference as the simplest and most natural one, and is shown to be the oldest by Luk 4:25 and Jam 5:17, where Christ and James both say, that in the time of Ahab it did not rain for three years and six months. And this length of time can only be obtained by allowing more than two years for Elijah's stay at Zarephath. - From 1Ki 18:2 to 1Ki 18:6 we have parenthetical remarks introduced, to explain the circumstances which led to Elijah's meeting with Ahab. The verbs וַיִּקְרָא, וַיְהִי, וַיֹּאמֶר ,וַיְהִי , and וַיְחַלְּקוּ (1Ki 18:3, 1Ki 18:4, 1Ki 18:5, 1Ki 18:6) carry on the circumstantial clauses: “and the famine was...” (1Ki 18:2), and “Obadiah feared...” (1Ki 18:3), and are therefore to be expressed by the pluperfect. When the famine had become very severe in Samaria (the capital), Ahab, with Obadiah the governor of his castle (הַבַּיִת עַל אֲשֶׁר, see at 1Ki 4:6), who was a God-fearing man, and on the persecution of the prophets of Jehovah by Jezebel had hidden a hundred prophets in caves and supplied them with food, had arranged for an expedition through the whole land to seek for hay for his horses and mules. And for this purpose they had divided the land between them, so that the one explored one district and the other another. We see from Oba 1:4 that Jezebel had resolved upon exterminating the worship of Jehovah, and sought to carry out this intention by destroying the prophets of the true God. The hundred prophets whom Obadiah concealed were probably for the most part pupils (“sons”) of the prophets. אִישׁ חָמִשִּׁים must signify, according to the context and also according to Oba 1:13, “fifty each,” so that חָמִשִּׁים must have fallen out through a copyist's error. מִן נַכְרִית וְלֹוא, that we may not be obliged to kill (a portion) of the cattle (מִן partitive). The Keri מֵהַבְּהֵמָה is no doubt actually correct, but it is not absolutely necessary, as the Chethîb בְּהֵמָה מִן may be taken as an indefinite phrase: “any head of cattle.”

1Ki 18:7-8

Elijah met Obadiah on this expedition, and told him to announce his coming to the king.

1Ki 18:9-11

Obadiah was afraid that the execution of this command might cost him his life, inasmuch as Ahab had sent in search of Elijah “to every kingdom and every nation,” - a hyperbole suggested by inward excitement and fear. אָיִן וְאָמְרוּ is to be connected with what follows in spite of the accents: “and if they said he is not here, he took an oath,” etc.

1Ki 18:12-14

“And if it comes to pass (that) I go away from thee, and the Spirit of Jehovah carries thee away whither I know not, and I come to tell Ahab (sc., that thou art here) and he findeth thee not, he will slay me, and thy servant feareth the Lord from his youth,” etc.; i.e., since I as a God-fearing man and a protector of the prophets cannot boast of any special favour from Ahab. מִנְּעֻרַי, from my youth up: “thy servant” being equivalent to “I myself.” From the fear expressed by Obadiah that the Spirit of Jehovah might suddenly carry the prophet to some unknown place, Seb. Schmidt and others have inferred that in the earlier history of Elijah there had occurred some cases of this kind of sudden transportation, though they have not been handed down; but the anxiety expressed by Obadiah might very well have sprung from the fact, that after Elijah had announced the coming drought to Ahab, he disappeared, and, notwithstanding all the inquiries instituted by the king, was nowhere to be found. And since he was not carried off miraculously then (compare the לֵךְ and וַיֵּלֶךְ, “get thee hence” and “he went,” in 1Ki 17:3, 1Ki 17:5), there is all the less ground for imagining cases of this kind in the intermediate time, when he was hidden from his enemies. The subsequent translation of Elijah to heaven (2Ki 2:11-12), and the miraculous carrying away of Philip from the chamberlain of Mauritania (Act 8:39), do not warrant any such assumption; and still less the passage which Clericus quotes from Ezekiel (Eze 3:12, Eze 3:14), because the carrying of Ezekiel through the air, which is mentioned here, only happened in vision and not in external reality. If Obadiah had known of any actual occurrence of this kind, he would certainly have stated it more clearly as a more striking vindication of his fear.

1Ki 18:15-19

But when Elijah assured him with an oath (צְבָאֹות יְהֹוָה, see at 1Sa 1:3) that he would show himself to Ahab that day, Obadiah went to announce it to the king; whereupon Ahab went to meet the prophet, and sought to overawe him with the imperious words, “Art thou here, thou troubler of Israel.” (עָכַר, see at Gen 34:30). But Elijah threw back this charge: “It is not I who have brought Israel into trouble, but thou and thy family, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of Jehovah, and thou goest after Baalim.” He then called upon the king to gather together all Israel to him upon Carmel, together with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who ate of Jezebel's table, i.e., who were maintained by the queen.

Carmel, a mountain ridge “with many peaks, intersected by hundreds of larger and smaller ravines,” which stands out as a promontory running in a north-westerly direction into the Mediterranean (see at Jos 19:26), and some of the loftiest peaks of which rise to the height of 1800 feet above the level of the sea, when seen from the northern or outer side shows only “bald, monotonous rocky ridges, scantily covered with short and thorny bushes;” but in the interior it still preserves its ancient glory, which has procured for it the name of “fruit-field,” the valleys being covered with the most beautiful flowers of every description, and the heights adorned with myrtles, laurels, oaks, and firs (cf. V. de Velde, R. i. p. 292ff.). At the north-western extremity of the mountain there is a celebrated Carmelite monastery, dedicated to Elijah, whom tradition represents as having lived in a grotto under the monastery; but we are certainly not to look there for the scene of the contest with the priests of Baal described in the verses which follow. The scene of Elijah's sacrifice is rather to be sought for on one of the south-eastern heights of Carmel; and Van de Velde (i. p. 320ff.) has pointed it out with great probability in the ruins of el Mohraka, i.e., “the burned place,” “a rocky level space of no great circumference, and covered with old gnarled trees with a dense entangled undergrowth of bushes.” For “one can scarcely imagine a spot better adapted for the thousands of Israel to have stood drawn up on than the gentle slopes. The rock shoots up in an almost perpendicular wall of more than 200 feet in height on the side of the vale of Esdraelon. On this side, therefore, there was no room for the gazing multitude; but, on the other hand, this wall made it visible over the whole plain, and from all the surrounding heights, so that even those left behind, who had not ascended Carmel, would still have been able to witness at no great distance the fire from heaven that descended upon the altar.” - “There is not a more conspicuous spot on all Carmel than the abrupt rocky height of el Mohraka, shooting up so suddenly on the east.” Moreover, the soil was thoroughly adapted for the erection of the altar described in 1Ki 18:31, 1Ki 18:32 : “it shows a rocky surface, with a sufficiency of large fragments of rock lying all around, and, besides, well fitted for the rapid digging of a trench.” There is also water in the neighbourhood, as is assumed in 1Ki 18:34. “Nowhere does the Kishon run so close to Mount Carmel as just beneath el Mohraka,” which is “1635 feet above the sea, and perhaps 1000 feet above the Kishon. This height can be gone up and down in the short time allowed by the Scripture (1Ki 18:40-44).” But it was possible to find water even nearer than this, to pour upon the burnt-offering in the manner described in 1Ki 18:34, 1Ki 18:35. Close by the steep rocky wall of the height, just where you can descend to the Kishon through a steep ravine, you find, “250 feet it might be beneath the altar plateau, a vaulted and very abundant fountain built in the form of a tank, with a few steps leading down into it, just as one finds elsewhere in the old wells or springs of the Jewish times.” - “From such a fountain alone could Elijah have procured so much water at that time. And as for the distance between this spring and the supposed site of the altar, it was every way possible for men to go thrice thither and back again to obtain the necessary supply.” Lastly, el Mohraka is so situated, that the circumstances mentioned in 1Ki 18:42-44 also perfectly coincide (Van de Velde, pp. 322-325).