But what saith the answer of God unto him?.... The divine response, or oracle, the lwq tb, "Bath Kol", or voice from heaven; the still small voice of the Lord, which Elijah heard, 1Ki 19:12:I have reserved to myself; for his worship and service, to be partakers of his grace, inheritors of his kingdom, to show forth his praise, and for his name's sake, for his honour and glory: these he reserved in eternal election, in the council and covenant of peace; separated them in time from others by his grace, and preserved them from the general defection and apostasy: evenseven thousand men: meaning either that precise and exact number, which was but small in comparison of the very large multitude of persons that were in the ten tribes, or else a certain number for an uncertain:who have not bowed the knee; a sign of reverence and adoration:to [the image] of Baal; Jezebel's god, the god of the Zidonians; a name common to many of the "deities" of the Gentiles, and signifies "lord", or "master"; we read of "Baalim" in the plural number, for there were "lords many" of this name: in the Greek text the article is of the feminine gender, wherefore our translators have supplied the word image.
This word has, in the Septuagint version, sometimes a feminine article as here; see 2Ki 21:3; but in 1Ki 19:18, from whence this passage is taken, the article is masculine, as it is also in Jud 2:11, and in other places.
This deity being either of both sexes, or of no distinguished sex; or it may be, the reason it has so often a feminine article is, because it was a young heifer, or in the form of one; so in the history of Tobias 1:5, it is said, that "all the tribes which apostatized together sacrificed",th baal th damalei, "to Baal the heifer".