Reading for August 11th

Read 1 Kings 18.17-29
In verse 17-18: Ahab blames Elijah for the drought and calls him the troubler of Israel, but Elijah points out that it is Ahab's apostasy that has brought trouble to Israel.
In verse 19: Baal and Asherah were the leading male and female deities, respectively, in the fertility religion of ancient Canaan.
Carmel means "vineyard of (the  god) El" and implies affiliation with Canaanite fertility religion.
Mount Carmel is near the Mediterranean coast in northern Israel and held a place for worship near its summit.
In verse 21: Elijah accuses the people of limping with two different opinions or "straddling the fence" between the worship of Yahweh and that of Baal.
The word "limping" is echoed later (v. 26) in referring tot he ritual dance of the prophets of Baal.
In verse 22 Elijah is overstating the case when he says, I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord since there are at least the 150 prophets of the Lord saved by Obadiah.
In verses 23-24: Elijah proposes a decisive test to determine whether the Lord (Yahweh) or Baal truly controls the storm.
The fire which each of them prays is lightning.
In verse 26: No voice or "sound" means that there was no thunder.
When the prophets limped about the altar they were apparently engaged in a ritual dance.
In verse 27: He is meditating may mean that he is relieving himself (see Gen 24.63), which would certainly fit with Elijah's mocking.
In verse 28: This kind of blood-letting was common in ritual as a sign of fervency or perhaps sympathetic magic.
In verse 29: The verb for raved on also means "Prophesy" and implies trane behavior or some other loss of self-control.
The time of the offering of the oblation, about 3 p.m.
Second Kings 3.20 also mentions a morning ablation.
The practice of two daily oblations may have arisen first in Exile or later.
The reference to the oblation also implies the existence of a central sanctuary and therefore a southern author.
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