1. in the third year. This is clearly the third year of the drought. Some interpreters think the story is evenly divided in thirds—a year at the Wadi of Cherith, a year in the house of the widow at Zarephath, and a year in which Elijah moves across the country, finally confronting Ahab—but there is no explicit indication of such a division.

3. Obadiah, who was appointed over the palace, and Obadiah feared the LORD greatly. Obadiah’s name means “servant of God,” a role he affirms in the risky business of hiding and sustaining the hundred prophets of the LORD. At the same time, he is a high official in Ahab’s court.

4. a hundred prophets. This large number suggests they are not prophets directly assigned a specific mission by God, like Elijah, but rather members of a kind of guild of prophets, probably figuring as ecstatics, like the prophets in the Saul story, though with the assumption that the ecstasy is inspired by YHWH. Ahab’s swerving from God, then, is seen to have taken a new deadly turn—not only does he foster the worship of Baal but also he takes violent steps to extirpate devotion to YHWH.

6. And they divided up the land for them to pass through. The cause of their separation is the pressing severity of the drought, but it is also important that they be separated—Obadiah would normally have remained in the palace—so that Elijah can speak to him in Ahab’s absence.

7–8. my lord Elijah . . . say to your lord. There is an ironic interplay between this designation of two different men—Elijah, recognized by Obadiah as his lord through the force of his spiritual authority, and Ahab, who is Obadiah’s lord in the political hierarchy as his king.

9. How have I offended. The exchange between Obadiah and Elijah is one of the most spectacular deployments of the biblical technique of contrastive dialogue, in which the two speakers are sharply differentiated by antithesis in tone and attitude and, often, by an opposition between brevity and prolixity (see, for example, Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39). Elijah expresses a concise imperative, “Go and say to your lord, ‘Elijah is here,’” and then the steely resolution at the end of the dialogue, “As the LORD of Armies lives, Whom I have served, today I will appear before him.” Obadiah, on the other hand, terrified by the prospect of conveying this message to Ahab, spouts a stream of highly nervous volubility, anxiously repeating twice what he regards as Elijah’s impossible order to him and at the same time defending his own record as a God-fearing man. The effect is almost comical: he is a good man and has incurred danger in his loyalty to the LORD, but he is also an ordinary man, susceptible to fear. The contrast to the iron-willed Elijah is striking. At the same time, Obadiah’s terror vividly reflects Ahab’s ruthlessness as a paganizing monarch.

12. the LORD’s spirit will bear you off to I know not where. For nearly three years, Elijah has proven to be a successfully elusive fugitive from Ahab’s wrath, and so Obadiah feels it is safe to assume that the prophet will continue on this path.

19. And now, send out, gather . . . all Israel at Mount Carmel. Ahab may be willing to accept this challenge instead of having Elijah killed on the spot because it presents itself as the opportunity for a grand public triumph. Nine hundred pagan prophets will surely overwhelm one prophet of the LORD in any contest, and even the place of confrontation is favorable to the pagan cause, Mount Carmel near the northern coast and close to the border of Lebanon being in proximity to the Phoenician sphere and a place where an altar of YHWH lies in ruins, presumably replaced by Baal worship. The king’s calculation is probably first to humiliate Elijah before the assembled people and then to kill him.

21. How long will you keep hopping between the two crevices? This is obviously an idiom that means trying to have it both ways. The Hebrew noun has three different meanings: seʿif can be a “thought” (hence “opinions” in the King James Version), a “branch,” or a “crevice.” This translation assumes that the idiom invokes a concrete image, and opts for “crevices” because of the physical evocation of a person awkwardly jumping between two cracks in a rock.

22. I alone remain a prophet of the LORD. The 100 prophets hidden in caves, who have no mission and are not standing on Mount Carmel confronting the 450 prophets of Baal, would not count.

four hundred fifty men. The 450 prophets of the goddess Asherah appear to be out of the picture.

25. Choose one of the bulls for yourselves. He creates the impression of giving them the advantage of, one might say, serving first.

26. the bull that he had given them. That is, he offered two bulls and allowed them to choose.

they hopped about on the altar. The verb here satirically picks up the “hopping between the two crevices” in verse 21.

27. Perhaps he is chatting. Though both the Prophets and Psalms denounce idols as having ears and mouth but without the capacity for hearing or speech, Elijah turns this notion into biting sarcasm in dialogue.

28. gouged themselves. This is an attested pagan cultic practice, prohibited in the Torah, and is either a gesture of self-immolation or an act of sympathetic magic (blood spurting to stimulate fire springing out from the wood).

29. prophesied. The reflexive conjugation of the verb associated with prophecy that is used here means to fling oneself into a state of ecstasy or frenzy.

none hearing. Literally, “no hearing.”

34. Fill four jugs with water. Pouring water over the wood and the sacrificial animal magnifies the miraculous nature of the appearance of fire that is about to occur. Elijah, together with his gift of rhetoric and satire, is a grand stage manager at this event.

36. at the hour of the afternoon offering. This would be late afternoon.

approached. This is the same verb as “draw near” in verse 30 but here has the technical sense of approaching a sacred zone.

37. it is You Who turned their heart backward. The clause is ambiguous. It could mean, given the narrative context: it is You Who made them again realize that YHWH alone is God. But “backward,” aḥoranit, often has a negative connotation, so the clause could mean: it was You Who allowed them to fall back into idolatry, for God causes all things.

39. The LORD, He is God. This awestruck proclamation of faith has, appropriately, been introduced into the Yom Kippur liturgy at the very end of the concluding service.

40. Elijah . . . slaughtered them there. The verb used is singular, so the slaughterer is Elijah. There are other verbs for killing—this particular verb is generally used for animals. Elijah is as ruthless in his zealotry for YHWH as Ahab in his pagan despotism.

41. Go up, eat and drink. Feasting is in order because the drought is about to come to an end.

42. stooped. Usually the verb gahar means to stretch out, but he could scarcely be stretched out if his head is between his knees.

44. Harness and come down. Ahab has “gone up” to eat and drink, perhaps somewhere on the slopes of Mount Carmel. Now he will descend by chariot into the Valley of Jezreel.

46. he girded his loins and ran before Ahab till you come to Jezreel. Some interpret Elijah’s running ahead of Ahab’s chariot as a gesture of alliance with the king. More probably, he is again demonstrating a power superior to the king’s: filled with the divine afflatus, he sprints ahead of the king’s chariot all the way to Jezreel, outstripping the galloping horses.