Haftarah Ki Tisa Part Nine

“Elijah said to the people, “I have remained a prophet of God by myself, but the prophets of the Baal or 450 men. Let them give us two bulls; let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it, and put it on the wood, but not apply fire; and I will prepare one bull and place it on the wood, and I will not apply fire.”

Elijah’s speaks of the prophets of Baal, who were standing right there, in the third person; let them give to us,” as if to say they, the prophets of Baal, are not us.

“Let them give us two bulls,” I thought there was a drought! Was not Ahab worried that all the animals would die? From where did the prophets of Baal get the two bulls?

The prophets were well fed at the table of Jezebel. They were eating like kings while the masses were starving. Elijah was trying to drive a wedge between the prophets of Baal and the people.

In a later verse Elijah says to the prophets of the Baal,  “Take yourselves one bull and prepare it first.” Elijah speaks to the prophets of Baal as if they did not hear what he had said to the people about the whole contest. Elijah had already made it clear what would happen. Why is he speaking to these prophets as if they did not hear? Again he is trying to drive a wedge between these prophets and the people.