1 Kings 18:26

_AND THEY TOOK THE BULLOCK WHICH WAS GIVEN THEM, AND THEY DRESSED IT, AND CALLED ON THE NAME OF BAAL FROM MORNING EVEN UNTIL NOON, SAYING, O BAAL, HEAR US. BUT THERE WAS NO VOICE, NOR ANY THAT ANSWERED. AND THEY LEAPED UPON THE ALTAR WHICH WAS MADE._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

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 1 Kings 18:26. _FROM MORNING EVEN UNTIL NOON_] It seems that the priests of Baal employed the whole day in their desperate rites. The time is divided into two periods: 1. _From morning until noon_; this was employed in preparing and offering the sacrifice, and in earnest supplication for the celestial fire. Still there was no answer, and at _noon_ Elijah began to mock and ridicule them, and this excited them to commence anew. And, 2. They continued _from_ _noon till the time of offering the evening sacrifice_, dancing up and down, cutting themselves with knives, mingling their own blood with their sacrifice, praying, supplicating, and acting in the most frantic manner. _AND THEY LEAPED UPON THE ALTAR_] Perhaps it will be more correct to read with the margin, _they leaped up and down at the altar_; they danced

AND CALLED ON THE NAME OF BAAL FROM MORNING EVEN UNTIL NOON - Compare the parallel in the conduct of the Greeks of Ephesus. Acts 19:34. The words “O Baal, hear us,” probably floated on the air as the refrain of a long and varied hymn of supplication. THEY LEAPED UPON THE ALTAR WHICH WAS MADE - The marginal rendering is preferable to this. Wild dancing has always been a devotional exercise in the East, and remains so to this day; witness the dancing dervishes. It was practiced especially in the worship of Nature-powers, like the Dea Phrygia (Cybele), the Dea Syra (Astarte?), and the like....

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 THEY TOOK THE BULLOCK WHICH WAS GIVEN THEM,.... By such of them as made the choice: AND THEY DRESSED IT; slew it, and cut it in pieces, and laid it on the wood, but put no fire under it: AND CALLED ON THE NAME OF BAAL, FROM MORNING EVEN UNTIL NOON, SAYING, O BAAL, HEAR US; and send fire down on the sacrifice; and if the sun was their Baal, they might hope, as the heat he gradually diffused was at its height at noon, that some flashes of fire would proceed from it to consume their sacrifice; but after, their hope was turned into despair, they became and acted like madmen: BUT THERE WAS NO VOICE, NOR ANY THAT ANSWERED; by word, or by sending down fire as they desired: AND THEY LEAPT UPON THE ALTAR WHICH WAS MADE; not by Elijah, but by themselves, either now or heretofore, and where they had formerly sacrificed; and they danced about it, and leaped on it, either according to a custo...

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 ...

LEAPED UPON. leaped over. Compare 1 Kings 18:21. WAS MADE. had been made....

_which was given them_ These words are omitted in the LXX., which represents -hear us" in the latter part of the verse twice over. _and they leaped upon_[R.V. ABOUT] _the altar_ One part of the heathen worship consisted in a dance around the altar, during which the devotees wrought themselves up to a pitch of frenzy, and then their action took the form of wild leaping. Such was probably the kind of worship of the _Salii_whom Numa instituted at Rome, and hence their name = _Jumpers_. The dances of the Aborigines of Australia were very much of this fashion....