1 Kings 18:38

_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...

Verse 1 Kings 18:36. _THEN THE FIRE OF THE LORD FELL_] It did not _burst out_ from the altar; this might still, notwithstanding the water, have afforded some ground for suspicion that fire had been concealed, after the manner of the heathens, under the altar. Pindar's account of the Rhodians' settling is the isle of Rhodes, and their first sacrifice there, bears a near affinity to the account here given: _the shower of gold_ descending on the sacrifice _offered up without fire_, to show the approbation of their god, is little more than a _poetic_ account of the above transactions. Καιτοι γαρ αιθουσας εχοντεςπ Σπερμ ' ανεβαν φλογος ου Τευξαν δ ' απυροις ἱεροις Αλσος εν ακροπολει· κ

THE FIRE OF THE LORD FELL - This cannot have been a flash of lightning. It was altogether, in its nature as well as in its opportuneness, miraculous. Compare the marginal references for the conduct of the people....

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

THEN THE FIRE OF THE LORD FELL,.... An extraordinary fire from God out of heaven, as the effects of it show: AND CONSUMED THE BURNT SACRIFICE; as it had done in former instances, Leviticus 9:24, and besides this, which is still more extraordinary, AND THE WOOD, AND THE STONES, AND THE DUST; of the altar, thereby signifying that even such were not to be used any more: AND LICKED UP THE WATER THAT WAS IN THE TRENCH; around the altar, see 1 Kings 18:32....

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 ...

THEN THE FIRE OF THE LORD FELL. Aram, and Septuagint read "Then fire from Jehovah fell". See note on Genesis 4:4. "Fire of Jehovah" occurs only here and Numbers 11:1; Numbers 11:3. BURNT SACRIFICE. See App-43....

_Then the fire of the Lord fell_ In the LXX. we have -and there fell fire from the Lord out of heaven." _burnt sacrifice_ R.V. BURNT-OFFERING as in 1 Kings 18:33. To mark the might of Him who sent the fire, it not only consumes the victims and licks up the water, but devoured wood, stones and dust alike....