1 Kings 18:19

_NOW THEREFORE SEND, AND GATHER TO ME ALL ISRAEL UNTO MOUNT CARMEL, AND THE PROPHETS OF BAAL FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY, AND THE PROPHETS OF THE GROVES FOUR HUNDRED, WHICH EAT AT JEZEBEL'S TABLE._ Gather ... the prophets of Baal ... the prophets of the groves. From the sequel, it appears that the former only came. The latter, anticipating some evil, evaded the king's command. EAT AT JEZEBEL'S TABLE - i:e., not at the royal table, where herself dined, but were maintained from her kitchen establishment (see the notes at 1 Samuel 20:24; 1 Kings 4:22). It was and is the custom of Eastern courts to entertain the officers attached to them from the royal table (Athenaeus, 4:, 10, p. 145). They were the priests of Astarte, the Zidonian goddess....

17-20 One may guess how people stand affected to God, by observing how they stand affected to his people and ministers. It has been the lot of the best and most useful men, like Elijah, to be called and counted the troublers of the land. But those who cause God's judgments do the mischief, not he that foretells them, and warns the nation to repent....

Verse 1 Kings 18:19. _GATHER TO ME ALL ISRAEL_] The heads of tribes and families; the rulers of the people. _THE PROPHETS OF BAAL FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY - THE PROPHETS OF THE_ _GROVES FOUR HUNDRED_] The king and queen had different religious establishments; the king and his servants worshipped Baal, the supreme lord and master of the world, the sun. For this establishment _four hundred and fifty_ priests were maintained. The queen and her women worshipped אשרה _Asherah, Astarte_, or _Venus_; and for this establishment _four hundred_ priests were maintained. These latter were in high honour; they ate at Jezebel's table; they made a part of her household. It appears that those _eight_ _hundred and fifty_ priests were the domestic chaplains of the king and queen, and probably not all the priests that belonged

Carmel (Joshua 12:22 note) was chosen by the prophet as the scene of the gathering to which he invited, or rather summoned, Ahab. Its thick jungles of copse and numerous dwarf-oaks and olives, would furnish abundant wood for his intended sacrifice. Here was a perennial fountain; and here again an ancient “altar of the Lord” 1 Kings 18:30, belonging probably to the old times of non-idolatrous high-place worship - perhaps an erection of one of the patriarchs. On the one hand, there would be a view of the Mediterranean, from where the first sign of rain was likely to come, and on the other of Jezreel, the residence of the court at the time, with its royal palace and its idol-temples, so that the intended trial would take place in the sight (so to speak) of the proud queen and her minion

EXPOSITION ELIJAH'S RETURN AND THE ORDEAL OF MOUNT CARMEL.—The preceding chapter having been exclusively occupied with the fortunes of Elijah during his enforced absence of three and a half years from the land of Israel, we are left to conjecture what the course of events in the northern kingdom during this period of drought and suffering must have been. But it is not difficult to picture in our minds the steadily increasing alarm and distress which the solemn ban he had pronounced must have occasioned. At one time, it may be, especially if the prophet up to that period had been unknown, both king and people, under the malign influence of Jezebel, professed to regard his threatening with contempt, the more so as the priests of Baal would not fail to assure them of the protection and blessing of "the Lord" of nature. But as the

NOW THEREFORE SEND, AND GATHER TO ME ALL ISRAEL UNTO MOUNT CARMEL..... No doubt but more discourse passed between Ahab and Elijah, though not recorded, before he made this motion to him; it is very probable, that after some dispute between them, who was the true God, and about idolatry, as the cause of want of rain, Elijah proposed to the king what he afterwards did to the people, to which he could not object; and being desirous of gratifying his curiosity, and especially of having rain, which the prophet might promise him in the issue of this affair, he agreed unto it; and therefore Elijah desired that all Israel might be convened, that it might be openly and publicly done, and to the conviction and reformation of them, which was what was chiefly designed; and he chose Carmel, a mountain in the tribe of Issachar, well situated for the people that came from all parts; and the rather this...

2. ELIJAH ON CARMEL: THE ANSWERED PRAYER CHAPTER 18 _ 1. The command to see Ahab (1 Kings 18:1)_ 2. Elijah's response (1 Kings 18:2) 3. Ahab and Obadiah (1 Kings 18:3) 4. Elijah and Obadiah (1 Kings 18:7) 5. Elijah meets Ahab (1 Kings 18:16) 6. Elijah's demand (1 Kings 18:19) 7. The events on Carmel (1 Kings 18:20

ELIJAH'S MEETING WITH AHAB AND HIS CONTEST WITH THE PRIESTS OF BAAL. The history of Ahab's reign must have been something like the following: On his marriage with Jezebel he must have allowed the worship of the Baal of Tyre and been met with the remonstrances of the prophets. Furious at their opposition, Jezebel had massacred a large number, but the king's steward had supported the cause of Yahweh (1 Kings 18:4); so Ahab cannot have been wholly ill-disposed to those who were faithful to the God of Israel. But he had no mercy for the leader of the whole movement, Elijah, who had prophesied the drought. He was sought in every neighbouring kingdom as the author of all the agitation, the troubler of Israel. In the meantime Jezebel had organised the worship of the Baal, and supported at her own. cost four hundred and fifty prophets ...

CARMEL. Eighteen miles from Jezreel; sixteen miles from the sea. The Kishon below, but now dry. At the foot. perennial spring, with. roofed reservoir, eight feet deep. Carmel is still called "Mar-Elias". GROVES. the' _Asherah._ See note on Exodus 34:13....

_all Israel_ i.e. A representative body of the whole people. _unto mount Carmel_ There seems to have been in Elisha's time a residence on Mt. Carmel, where he dwelt. For the Shunammite goes thither to find him. Perhaps Elijah chose the place because there was an altar there, which had been used for the worship of Jehovah, but was now thrown down. The mountain was also easy of access, and the sea, from whence the signs of the coming rain would be seen, was visible from it. _and the prophets of Baal_ These, as the narrative shews, were the priests who presided over the Baal worship, and with their office was mixed up, as we see from chap. 22, the profession of divination and soothsaying. Hence they are called prophets. The LXX. following the Jewish abhorrence for the name Baal, translate by τῆς αἰσχύνης, = _of the shame_, as if -Bosheth" and not -Baal" had been read by them. _the prophet...