1 Kings 18:3 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Which was the governor of his house; being valued by Ahab for his great prudence and fidelity, and therefore indulged as to the worship of the calves and Baal. Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. Quest. How could he and some other Israelites be said to fear the Lord, when they did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, as God had commanded? Answ. Although they seem not to be wholly excusable in this neglect, because they should have preferred God's service before their worldly commodity, according to the good example of the priests and Levites, and the generality of the godly people who did so, 2 Chronicles 11:13,16; yet because they worshipped God in spirit and truth, and performed all moral duties to God and their brethren, and abstained from idolatry, and being kept from Jerusalem by violence, they thought necessity and the apparent hazard of their lives would excuse them from ceremonial services; and God bare with their infirmity herein.