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1 Kings 18 · a question people ask

Elijah says, "I, even I only, am left" (18:22). What about the hundred prophets Obadiah hid?

In the text

Obadiah tells Elijah how he "hid one hundred men of the LORD’s prophets with fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water" (18:13). A few verses later Elijah says to the people, "I, even I only, am left as a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred fifty men" (18:22). The chapter doesn't say whether those hundred were still alive or where they were, and it doesn't explain Elijah's words. At Horeb, in the next chapter, he says almost the same thing again, "I, even I only, am left" (19:10), and the LORD answers, "Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal" (19:18). Chapter 19 comes back to it.

The verses

“Wasn’t it told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the LORD’s prophets, how I hid one hundred men of the LORD’s prophets with fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water?”
1 Kings 18:13 · World English Bible
“Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left as a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred fifty men.”
1 Kings 18:22 · World English Bible
“He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.””
1 Kings 19:10 · World English Bible
“Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.””
1 Kings 19:18 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Kings 18

1 Kings 18: The God who answers

In Hebrew the people "waver" (18:21) and Baal's prophets "leaped" about the altar (18:26) with the same verb, one Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "limp". And the verb answer comes eight times in the chapter, from the people who "didn’t say a word" (18:21) to Elijah's "Hear me, LORD, hear me" (18:37), which in Hebrew is answer me.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions