Romans 11:4

But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have left for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. [Jezebel and Ahab, in their zeal for the Phoenician god, Baal, had apparently exterminated the worship of the true God. At least, Elijah was deceived into so thinking. But the answer of God corrected his mistake. Paul inserts the words "for myself." "I. e.," says Meyer, "to myself as my property, and for my service, in contrast to the idolatrous abomination," or service of idols. The feminine article te is inserted before Baal, and this has greatly puzzled expositors, for the LXX. have the masculine article. It has been explained in various ways; Erasmus and others by supposing a feminine noun such as eikoni (image) to be understood; Estius, etc., by supposing stele (statue) to be supplied, or, as Lightfoot and Alford think, damalei (calf); or, according to Reiche, that there was a female Baal; or, as Wetstein and Olshausen, that Baal was androgynous (an hermaphrodite); or, as Gesenius and Tholuck, that the feminine was used of idols in contempt; or, as Fritsche, Ewald and Barmby, that Paul may have happened upon a copy of the LXX. which gave the feminine instead of the masculine. Of the above we prefer to supply damalei, calf, following the reasoning of Lightfoot. Baal was both a specific name for the Phoenician god, and also a common name for idols, hence the plural, Baalim. Of idols it the time referred to, Israel had two of great prominence: 1. The idol to the Phoenician god Baal, whose image was a bull. 2. The golden calves set up by Jeroboam, at Bethel and Dan. Now, it would avail nothing if Israel rejected one of these idols, yet worshipped the other, as in the case of Jehu, who rooted out the Phoenician, but accepted the calf of Jeroboam. But calf Baal would be an inclusive expression, striking at both forms of idolatry. (Comp. also 1 Kings 19:18 with Hosea 13:2) Moreover, the Phoenician worship was but recently re-established and had received a terrific blow at the hand of Elijah, while Jeroboam's calves were old and popular, hence we find in Tobit the expression, "And all the tribes that revolted together, sacrificed to the calf Baal" (literally. te Baal, te damalei; to Baal, to the calf-- Tob. 1:5). Here we have an instance where the word damalei is actually supplied, and that by a Hebrew writer, and "where," as Alford adds, "the golden calves of the ten tribes seem to be identified with Baal, and were a curious addition in [the manuscript] Aleph refers expressly to their establishment by Jeroboam.]