1 Kings 18:27

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25 Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

26 So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was ^ano voice; no one answered. Then they² leaped about the altar which they had made.

27 And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry¹ aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.”

28 So they cried aloud, and ^acut themselves, as was their custom, with¹ knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them.

29 And when midday was past, ^athey prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was ^bno voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. ^aAnd he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.

31 And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, ^a“Israel shall be your name.”

Commentaries:

Barnes' Notes

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1 Kings 18:27

The object of Elijah' s irony was two-fold;

(1) to stimulate the priests to greater exertions, and so to make their failure more complete, and

(2) to suggest to the people that such failure would Proverbs absolutely that Baal was no God.

The force of the expressions seems to be, "Cry on, only cry louder, and then you will make him hear, for surely he is a god; surely you are not mistaken in so regarding him." He is "talking," or "meditating;" the word used has both senses, for the Hebrews regarded "meditation" as "talking with oneself;" "or he is pursuing;" rather, perhaps, "he hath a withdrawing," i. e., "he hath withdrawn himself into privacy for awhile," as a king does upon occasions. The drift of the whole passage is scornful ridicule of the anthropomorphic notions of God entertained by the Baal-priests and their followers (compare Psalms 50:21). The pagan gods, as we know from the Greek and Latin classics, ate and drank, went on journeys, slept, conversed, quarrelled, fought. The explanations of many of these absurdities were unknown to the ordinary worshipper, and probably even the most enlightened, if his religion was not a mere vague Pantheism, had notions of the gods which were largely tainted with a false anthropomorphism.

**Other Barnes' Notes entries containing 1 Kings 18:27:**

Amos 4:4
Habakkuk 2:19
1 Corinthians 4:8

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