One bloke verses 850 crazy Ball worshippers

WHEN THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU BUT GOD ISN'T

There is a new king in Israel, who does not fear Yahweh. He has married into a family of idolaters. Even now, they are erecting more statues for Baal and pillars for Asherah (1 Kgs 16:31) while the altars of Yahweh lie in ruins.

His name is Ahab, and he is worse than all the kings who have come before him—put together. His administration is thoroughly pagan and ruthlessly oppressive. He and his wife Jezebel have begun rounding up and murdering the prophets of Yahweh, who are now hiding out in caves like criminals (1 Kgs 18:4).

This is the situation when Elijah the Tishbite steps forward and defies the king, cursing the land with drought (1 Kgs 17:1–7), then disappearing for several years. Meanwhile, there is no rain. Even the king is forced to send his servants to wander the land in search of spring water for his horses and mules (1 Kgs 18:5).

Then Yahweh sends Elijah back. The king wants this rabble-rouser (“troubler of Israel”) dead, dead, dead—but he dares not assassinate him until the curse is lifted (1 Kgs 18:17). Elijah proposes a final challenge: He will face off against all the prophets of Baal and Asherah. One against 850 is a fair fight if you have Yahweh on your side.

The people gather at Mount Carmel, and the duel is set: Two bulls are designated for sacrifice, one for Team Baal, with its royal cheering section, and one for Elijah, who stands alone. Whichever god is legitimate will light his own altar. The king, probably seated on a mobile throne, presides over the match. 

The people gather around, as if for a sporting event. Elijah waits his turn while a small army of pagan prophets (literally) whips themselves into religious fervour, ranting and raving and crying out to Baal. All morning, they whoop and holler as they make their way around their altar. The text says they “limped” (פסח, pasah), possibly because their worship involved some kind of shuffling dance. Then again, maybe they were just tired. Regardless, this is the word that is normally used for the way crippled people walk. Earlier, as the competition began, Elijah had asked the people how long they would go on “limping” between Yahweh and Baal, linking the people’s unfaithfulness to the pagans’ hobbling.

Around noon, Elijah decides to poke some fun at the exhausted idolaters: “Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened,’ ” (1 Kgs 18:28 ESV). 

The word translated “musing” is used of meditation or study. Fair enough: Perhaps Baal is deep in thought and cannot be bothered. But then Elijah suggests that their god is indisposed because he is “taking away dross,” apparently an idiom for (as the ESV puts it) “relieving himself.” Or maybe he’s out of town. Or sleeping. Yes, that’s it. Yell louder! 

Maybe you’ll wake him up! Whatever the case, Baal cannot be bothered. According to Elijah, he has more “important” things to do than answer his followers, like going to the bathroom. Elijah implies that if Baal is real at all, he’s a petty and vulgar excuse for a god.

The heathen priests redouble their efforts in response, slashing at themselves with swords and lances, gushing blood, to no avail. Elijah lets them go on like that for several more hours.

Now it’s Elijah’s turn. He calls the people to gather in close, and he repairs the altar of Yahweh that had been destroyed (probably when the altar to Baal had been erected). Then he has them drench the altar in water. In so doing, he is further insulting Baal and his prophets. He prays a very simple prayer, “let it be known this day that you are God in Israel” (ESV). Fire comes from heaven and consumes the bull, the wood, the stones and the dirt, and even the water (1 Kgs 18:30–39).

Then comes the part they don’t tell you in Sunday school: Elijah has the people seize his opponents and march them down the mountain. At a dry creek bed called Kishon, he executes Team Baal with a sword (1 Kgs 18:40, 19:1). This is poetic justice: Before, they cut themselves to invoke their god. Now, it is Elijah who does all the cutting. This all happens in front of the king’s face. Elijah summarily dismisses Ahab, telling him to go home and eat and drink, because the rain is coming (1 Kgs 18:40).

Was it rude for Elijah to taunt the priests of Baal? Perhaps. And yet his insults perfectly matched the situation at hand. The whole spectacle was ridiculous—deserving of ridicule. Baal and his priests deserved to be made a spectacle (at the very least!), and Elijah delivered—in style. Even with ten-thousand prophets yammering and stammering for forty days and nights Baal was never going to come down and light that fire, because he’s no god. If anything, he is a demon (1 Cor 10:19–20), and as such is unworthy of respect. Elijah, by heaping scorn and mockery on the enemies of God, shows a healthy contempt for contemptuous things