1 Kings 18:24

_AND CALL YE ON THE NAME OF YOUR GODS, AND I WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD: AND THE GOD THAT ANSWERETH BY FIRE, LET HIM BE GOD. AND ALL THE PEOPLE ANSWERED AND SAID, IT IS WELL SPOKEN._ All the people answered and said, It is well spoken. The proposal appearing every way reasonable, was received by the people with unanimous approval....

21-40 Many of the people wavered in their judgment, and varied in their practice. Elijah called upon them to determine whether Jehovah or Baal was the self-existent, supreme God, the Creator, Governor, and Judge of the world, and to follow him alone. It is dangerous to halt between the service of God and the service of sin, the dominion of Christ and the dominion of our lusts. If Jesus be the only Saviour, let us cleave to him alone for every thing; if the Bible be the world of God, let us reverence and receive the whole of it, and submit our understanding to the Divine teaching it contains. Elijah proposed to bring the matter to a trial. Baal had all the outward advantages, but the event encourages all God's witnesses and advocates never to fear the face of man. The God that answers by fire, let him be God: the atonement was to be made by sacrifice, before the judgment could be removed...

Verse 24. _THE GOD THAT ANSWERETH BY FIRE_] Elijah gave them every advantage when he granted that the God who answered by _fire_ should be acknowledged as the true God; for as the Baal who was worshipped here was incontestably _Apollo_, or the sun, he was therefore the _god of fire_, and had only to work in _his own_ _element_....

THE GOD THAT ANSWERETH BY FIRE - God had frequently before consumed offerings with supernatural fire Leviticus 9:24; Judges 6:21. The Baal-worshippers were no doubt in the habit of attributing thunder and lightning to their gods - the great Nature-power - and thus had no excuse for declining Elijah’s challenge....

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

AND CALL YE ON THE NAME OF YOUR GODS,.... The Baalim, the many lords and gods they served: AND I WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD; the one true Jehovah and God of Israel, whom I serve: AND THE GOD THAT ANSWERETH BY FIRE; by causing fire to come down upon the sacrifice, and consume it: LET HIM BE GOD; accounted, owned, and acknowledged as the true God, and so afterwards worshipped as such: AND ALL THE PEOPLE ANSWERED AND SAID, IT IS WELL SPOKEN; they thought it a very reasonable proposal, a very good method to determine the controversy, and come at the truth, and know who was the true God, and who not....

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 ...

GODS. god, as in 1 Kings 18:25. So Revised Version. BY FIRE. This was Jehovah's way of showing His acceptance of the offering. See note on Genesis 4:4....

_call ye on the name of your gods_ R.V. GOD. And so in 1 Kings 18:25. Baal was meant, and though the plural -Elohim" came to be specially used of Jehovah, as embracing all that other nations conceived as attributes of all their gods, yet the plural is also applied to single heathen divinities. Thus 1 Samuel 5:7, -Dagon our god"; 2 Kings 1:2, -Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron." Elijah by saying -call ye" identifies the people, to whom he is speaking, with the Baal-prophets to whom he uses the same words in the next verse. _on the name of the Lord_ The LXX. adds -my God." _that answereth by fire_ As Baal was specially the Sun-god, the trial by sending down fire was one to which the prophets of Baal c