1 Kings 18:37

_AND ELIJAH TOOK TWELVE STONES, ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF THE TRIBES OF THE SONS OF JACOB, UNTO WHOM THE WORD OF THE LORD CAME, SAYING, ISRAEL SHALL BE THY NAME:_ 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...

THAT THOU HAST TURNED THEIR HEART - The hearts of the people were turning. Elijah speaks of them as already turned, anticipating the coming change, and helping it on....

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

HEAR ME, O LORD, HEAR ME;.... Which repetition is made to express his importunity, and the vehement earnest desire of his soul to be heard in such a case, which so much concerned the glory of God; the Targum is, "receive my prayer, O Lord, concerning the fire, receive my prayer concerning the rain;'' as if the one respected the sending down the fire on the sacrifice, and the other sending rain on the earth; and which sense is followed by other Jewish writers: THAT THIS PEOPLE MAY KNOW THAT THOU ART THE LORD GOD; and not Baal, or any other idol: AND THAT THOU HAST TURNED THEIR HEART BACK AGAIN; from idolatry, to the worship of the true God; though some understand this of God's giving them up to a spirit of error, and suffering them to fall into idolatry, and hardening their hearts, as he did Pharaoh's; but the former sense is best....

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 ...

_that thou_art _the Lord God_ R.V. THAT THOU LORD ART GOD. This is what Elijah desired, that it should be shewn that to apply the name -Elohim" to Baal, and idols like him, was a folly and a delusion. The heathen, and those who went after them, used this name for the objects of their worship, and Elijah in his mockery had employed their phrase (1 Kings 18:27) and said of Baal -He is Elohim." In the present verse, as in 1 Kings 18:39 below, the noun has the article before it, which is shewn by the rendering of the A.V. in 1 Kings 18:39 -he is _the_God." But such an insertion is needless. If we assert that Jehovah is God, it is implied that there is none else. The R.V. therefore omits the article twice o

HEAR ME, O LORD, HEAR ME— Elijah, according to Abarbanel, was more urgent and fervent in his prayer, because he had undertaken to make the experiment of God's power of his own accord, and without any particular command from him; nothing doubting but that he would appear, to vindicate his own honour, even though the prophet offered sacrifices on a high place, which was not agreeable to the law....

B. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEST 18:21-40 The story of the contest on Carmel is one that has excited the imagination of believers through the centuries. The narrative is somewhat lengthy and may for convenience be discussed under the following heads: (1) The preliminaries of the contest (1 Kings 18:21-24); (2) the prayers of the Baal prophets (1 Kings 18:25-29); (3) the preparations and prayer of Elijah (1 Kings 18:30-38); and (4) the punishment of the false prophets (1 Kings 18:39-40). _1. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE CONTEST_ ...