1 Kings 18.38-40:
| 18.38 ותפל אש יהוה | Yahweh’s fire falls. |
|---|---|
| ותאכל את העלה | It eats the offering |
| ואת העצים | and the sticks |
| ואת האבנים | and the rocks |
| ואת העפר | and the dust. |
| ואת המים אשר בתעלה לחכה׃ | It licks the water in the trench.α |
| 18.39 וירא כל העם | All the people see. |
| ויפלו על פניהם | They fall on their faces. |
| ויאמרו יהוה הוא האלהים | They say, “Yahweh is the god! |
| יהוה הוא האלהים׃ | Yahweh is the god!” |
| 18.40 ויאמר אליהו להם | Eliyahuβ says to them, |
| תפשו את נביאי הבעל | “Grab Ba’al’s prophets. |
| איש אל ימלט מהם | No man slips away from them.” |
| ויתפשום | They grab them. |
| ויורדם אליהו אל נחל קישון | Eliyahu brings them down to the Wadi Qishon. |
| וישחטם שם׃ | He butchers them there. |
Elijah prays, and God responds with fire. I don’t know precisely how “Yahweh’s fire falls” works, because as a Pentecostal I tend to pray for and encounter the spiritual fire of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to the physical fire we’re talking about here. And this is a physical fire, because there are physical results to the fire falling. The fire eats the sacrifice and its altar, and licks the water. (אכל is usually translated “consumes,” but it also means “eats,” and to translate it “consumes” loses that parallel we see between “eats” and “licks.”)
Some preachers take this to mean that the fire consumed the water too, but “licks” suggests it was touched rather than emptied. And realistically, that’s even more of a miracle—God sends a fire that can vaporize rocks, but barely touches nearby standing water.
This contest has been between Yahweh and Ba’al, and it’s to determine which god the Israelis are going to follow. So their response, “Yahweh is the god” is not—as many translations would have it—a declaration that Yahweh is God. They, and we, knew that already. What they were doing was answering Elijah’s challenge: Choose today which god you’re going to serve. If Yahweh, follow Him; if Ba’al, follow him. This was their answer. The god they were going to serve is Yahweh.
Sadly, we often want to see God do something impressive before we’ll acknowledge and follow Him—as if saving our souls isn’t impressive enough.
Also sadly, there’s an unhappy ending for Ba’al’s prophets. Following Dt 18.20—
“Yes, the prophet who proudly comes, speaking a saying in My name, which I didn’t command him to speak—and he [who] speaks in a different god’s name—he dies.”
—Elijah has all 450 prophets rounded up and apparently executes them personally. I used the word “butcher” because it’s the same word used for killing sacrificial animals; but it also has a sense of “to hammer,” which might be a better translation. Either way, it’s not a happy ending for the prophets. Elijah kills them because it was commanded; because they’ve been leading the nation astray, and convincing them that it’s okay to worship both God and Ba’al.
They’re not given time to repent and turn to God; that’s the argument that we would use nowadays to avoid killing them. Certainly the one I would use; I don’t want to kill anyone. God always prefers repentance to death; He doesn’t want to kill anyone either. (Ek 33.11) But considering the sexual abuse inherent in Ba’alism—forced prostitution, sexual slavery, child molestation, etc.—and considering how they had likely backed, or even conspired with, their queen in killing God’s prophets, (1Ki 18.4) I suppose it would be hard to feel sympathy for these guys. Also, considering how complicit they were in all this, it would be hard for them to turn away from Ba’alism. All in all, it’s a hard call. I don’t presume that Elijah was cavalier about this—although he might have been, considering that he had ridiculed them earlier, and had probably known they were going to meet with defeat.
What can we take from this story? Well, in this story God literally comes through where another god didn’t and couldn’t, and following that other god resulted in the death of his 450 followers. God does likewise today. The results may not always be as immediate—although frequently they are, in the case of God coming through for us; and sometimes they are, in the case of following other gods to our deaths. Plus, following other gods to our deaths is usually not the result of God’s wrath, or the wrath of His followers; it has more to do with nature taking its course. But in general we see the same results. Follow God and live; follow other gods and die. This story is just a lot more obvious.
α. Lit. “which [was] in the trench.”
β. Elijah.
