And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.
Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye? They had long been attempting to conjoin the service of God with that of Baal. It was an impracticable union; and the people were so struck with a sense of their own folly, or dread of the king's displeasure, that they "answered not a word." Elijah proposed to decide for them the controversy between God and Baal by an appeal, not to the authority of the law, for that would have no weight, but by a visible token from heaven. Since fire was the element over which Baal was supposed to preside, he proposed that two bullocks should be slain, and placed on separate altars of wood-the one for Baal and the other for God-and on whichever the fire should descend to consume it, the event should determine the true God, whom it was their duty to serve. It is evident from this language that the mass of the people, ignorant and strongly addicted to idolatry, considered Baal as identical with Yahweh; while the worshippers of Yahweh, on the other hand, maintained His exclusive title to divine honours.
The controversy, therefore, did not consist in a direct opposition between the worship of Yahweh and that of Baal; for the latter party, like the pagan in general, tolerated the worship of other deities along with their own favourite idols; but, as Hengstenberg states it ('Pentateuch,' 1:, pp. 170, 171), 'the persecution was directed against those who, like Elijah, bore powerful testimony against the union of what was irreconcilable, who loudly maintained that Yahweh identified with Baal was no longer Yahweh. The proposal which Elijah made from this point of view, that they should see whether Yahweh was God, or Baal, the priests of Baal, from their point of view, understood to be, whether Yahweh-Baal was God, or Yahweh in perfect exclusiveness. The question that he put before making his proposal plainly implies, that in the popular opinion these heterogeneous religious elements were blended in one' (cf. Hosea 2:11).
The people answered him not a word. It was precisely the same controversy as was of old between Moses and Pharaoh (see Macdonald, 'Introduction to the Pentateuch,' 1:, 177).