“And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.”
My Notes
What Does 1 Kings 18:29 Mean?
"And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." The prophets of Baal have been at it from morning until evening — shouting, leaping, cutting themselves with knives. The narrator's summary is devastating in its triple negative: no voice, no answer, no one paying attention. The heavens are empty. The altar is cold. The prophets are bleeding. And nothing has happened.
The phrase "nor any that regarded" (literally "no attention") is the final blow. Not just silence — complete disregard. Baal isn't declining the request. He's not evaluating it. There is nobody there to pay attention. The prophets' desperation has been aimed at vacant air.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What have you poured yourself into that returned 'no voice, no answer, no attention'?
- 2.How do you recognize the difference between God testing your patience and you investing in something empty?
- 3.Why doesn't sincerity alone validate the object of your devotion?
- 4.What 'altar' in your life has been cold despite all your effort — and what does that silence tell you?
Devotional
No voice. No answer. No attention. Hours of screaming. Blood running down their arms from self-inflicted wounds. Dances around the altar until their legs gave out. And nothing. Not a flicker. Not a whisper. Not the slightest acknowledgment that anyone was listening.
The triple negative is devastating: no voice — nothing spoken back. No answer — no response to the specific request. No attention — nobody even noticed they were trying. The heavens didn't say no. They said nothing. The silence wasn't rejection. It was absence. There was nobody there to reject them.
This is what it feels like to invest everything in something that's empty. To give your time, your energy, your blood to a god — a career, a relationship, a system, an identity — that can't respond because it doesn't have the capacity to. You're not being ignored. You're performing for an empty room.
The prophets of Baal were sincere. Desperately sincere. They cut themselves open. They danced for hours. They screamed until their voices broke. Sincerity wasn't the problem. Direction was the problem. All that passion aimed at nothing. All that blood shed for no one.
Sincerity doesn't validate the object of your devotion. You can be passionately sincere and passionately wrong. The prophets of Baal were both. And by evening, all they had to show for it was silence, exhaustion, and open wounds.
Before you exhaust yourself in devotion — ask who you're devoting yourself to. And whether they have the capacity to respond.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,.... Which he might very…
And they prophesied - Compare 1Ki 22:12. The expression seems to be used of any case where there was an utterance of…
They prophesied - They made incessant prayer and supplication; a farther proof that to pray or supplicate is the proper…
Ahab and the people expected that Elijah would, in this solemn assembly, bless the land, and pray for rain; but he had…
And it came to pass[R.V. it was so], when midday was past, and[R.V. that] they prophesied The word used for the wild…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture