1 Kings 18 Bible study: The God who answers

Ahab gathers the people and the prophets to Mount Carmel (18:19-20), and "Elijah came near to all the people" (18:21) (tap came near) with one question: "How long will you waver between the two sides? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him" (18:21) (tap waver). The question leaves no third place to stand. Elijah had already told Ahab what he and his father's house had done: "you have forsaken the LORD’s commandments and you have followed the Baals" (18:18). "The people didn’t say a word" (18:21). Five verses later the prophets of Baal "leaped about the altar which was made" (18:26), and in Hebrew leaped is the same verb as waver. The people speak only to accept the test, "What you say is good" (18:24), until the end, when they fall on their faces and say, "The LORD, he is God! The LORD, he is God!" (18:39).

1 Kings 18:21→leads toMatthew 12:30

Elijah asked all the people, "How long will you waver between the two sides? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him" (18:21). When the Pharisees said he cast out demons by "the prince of the demons" (Matthew 12:24), Jesus said to them, "But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then God’s Kingdom has come upon you" (Matthew 12:28), and "He who is not with me is against me, and he who doesn’t gather with me, scatters" (Matthew 12:30). Jesus doesn't cite 1 Kings 18, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject, not a shared word. Some hear the same thing in both: there is no place between two sides. In 18:21 the choice is between the LORD and Baal; in Matthew 12:30 it is toward Jesus himself. Others read each in its own setting: Elijah sets a choice before all Israel on Carmel, while Jesus speaks of himself, in answer to what was said about how he cast out demons (Matthew 12:24-28).

פָּסַחpasachsay pa-SAKH

Brown-Driver-Briggs lists this verb as "limp", and for 18:26 gives "they went limping (along by the altar)". Strong's: "to hop, i.e. (figuratively) skip over (or spare); by implication, to hesitate; also (literally) to limp". Elijah asks, "How long will you waver between the two sides?" (18:21), and when Baal does not answer, his prophets "leaped about the altar which was made" (18:26). In Hebrew waver and leaped are this one verb. The Hebrew Bible uses it in this sense only four times: twice here, and twice in 2 Samuel, of Mephibosheth, who "fell and became lame" (2 Samuel 4:4), and of "the blind and the lame" (2 Samuel 5:6). Strong's gives it the same number as the verb of the Passover, "I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13); Brown-Driver-Briggs lists that as a separate verb, "pass or spring over".