1 Kings 18 Study Notes

18:1-46 This chapter describes one of history’s great power encounters between God and evil; it is comparable to the encounter between the Lord and the gods of Egypt before the exodus. The prestige of Baal-melkart (see note at 16:25), with his association with Phoenician prosperity, was comparable to the historic prestige of the gods of Egypt. The power encounter with Egypt freed the Israelites from physical bondage. One might expect that God’s confrontation with Baal-melkart freed Israel from spiritual bondage, but it is difficult to find evidence for this. Neither Ahab nor Jezebel repented. The moral life of the northern kingdom was not noticeably influenced. But we cannot know how much worse things would have gone for faith in the Lord without this encounter. Perhaps the seven thousand (19:18) who had not bowed to Baal were encouraged and strengthened, and thus kept the faith. Humanly speaking, without such manifestations of God’s power as these, Hebrew faith might have perished long before the exile.

18:1-2 In the third year of the drought, God announced its end. This was an act of grace since neither Israel nor Israel’s rulers had shown any repentance that warranted it.

18:3-5 Since these verses may have changed to a new story, v. 3 could predate the preceding verses. This would permit the translation, “Ahab had called.” This scenario should be interpreted in terms of its historical conditions. It told of two high officials initiating a nationwide effort to find the resources to preserve the kingdom’s chariot armies. The story’s surface simplicity obscures a grave and historically realistic situation. How could they maintain the provisions for the chariot horses and baggage mules when forage and grazing were exhausted? This situation could have produced Israel’s weakness in chariot forces in the first war of chap. 20.

18:6 Both Ahab and Obadiah were accompanied by soldiers and officials who purchased or confiscated the resources as needed.

18:7-8 The prophet Elijah made his approach through Obadiah as the latter was walking along, probably with his search party. Obadiah’s deference to Elijah revealed Elijah’s stature.

18:9-10 Obadiah’s response made it clear that Elijah’s time in Ethbaal’s domains was “undercover” since Ahab had initiated a thorough search for the prophet.

18:11-12 Obadiah was true to his name, a true “servant of the Lord,” even though he was ostensibly a servant of Ahab.

18:13-14 This verse gives a remarkable view of the religious turmoil in Israel. With the government engaged in a bloody purge of those who worshiped the Lord, one of the king’s chief political officials was protecting the minority religious party.

18:15-17 Despite Ahab’s bravery and abilities in many areas, his accusation against Elijah showed that willful sin can blind a person to reality.

18:18-19 Elijah immediately took the conversation to the crucial issue—Ahab’s disobedience of God. Then Elijah issued his challenge to set up a carefully planned and publicized power encounter pitting Elijah against the prophets of Baal and his consort, Asherah. Asherah is a generic name for any divine consort of any fertility god, but is also sometimes a title or name for a particular goddess.

18:20-21 From the course of events, we can see that some of the worshipers of Baal really believed in the power of their deity and that many who should have followed the Lord did not have much faith. Therefore, for many of the observers, this was a genuine open-ended power encounter to discover which deity was stronger.

18:22-25 Elijah proposed the terms of the test: whichever god miraculously ignited and burned his sacrifice would prove to be the true deity who was worthy of the people’s allegiance. Since Baal was the storm god, his followers believed he could answer with fire (lightning). But this encounter would show which deity really controlled the weather and provided what the people needed. At the same time, it would show who was a destroyer of Israel, rebellious Ahab or the Lord’s prophet Elijah.

18:26 The priests of Baal entered into the contest with great zeal. Their dancing may have imitated the steps of a lame person, since it uses the same Hebrew word as the one describing Mephibosheth (2Sm 4:4). Perhaps they danced this way as a result of their self-inflicted injuries (1Kg 18:28).

18:27 The Hebrew original possibly indicates that Elijah ridiculed Baal for relieving himself. Reducing deities to any level of human behavior is an insult; therefore, any suggestion that Baal was drawn away to perform a creaturely necessity was a poignant blow by Elijah.

18:28-29 The fanatical zeal of the priests of Baal led them to cut themselves. Some suggest that this self-inflicted pain may have been aimed at gaining the pity of the other gods so they would release Baal from his mythological death and thus bring rain. If this is true, these Baal worshipers were vicariously suffering pain for their god.

18:30-32 These verses draw on powerful symbols and names from the past—twelve stones for the twelve tribes, and Israel, the name that the Lord, the God of their covenant, had given them.

18:33-35 Elijah took steps to avoid any appearance of trickery or fraud. If his God could get a drenching wet sacrifice to burn, he was God indeed.

18:36-39 Elijah’s prayer was a powerful statement of the theology of God’s great works. Just as the temple singers declared God’s great works so the world could know God (Ps 66:3-4), Elijah prayed for a miraculous sign so this people would know that you, the Lord, are God. The simplicity of Elijah’s procedure is impressive. The prophet prayed, and the sacrifice was miraculously burned.

18:40 Elijah executed God’s judgment on the false prophets that Moses commanded in Dt 13:5,13-18; 17:2-5. This was the law for the covenant community, God’s holy nation.

18:41-46 Two final miraculous events on this day were: (1) the coming of the rain as a result of Elijah’s prayer, and (2) Elijah’s supernatural strength in leaving the scene and passing Ahab’s chariot before the storm. Typically, the act of preceding the king’s chariot could have been a friendly overture. It was an act of honor to the king and an honor to the runner to be permitted to run before the king. But if this was Elijah’s intent, it was lost on Ahab and Jezebel.