Haftorah is I Kings 18:1-39 relating to Torah reading of Ki Tissa (Ex. 30:11-34:35)
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California –This tale exclusively in prose tells the famous story of the Prophet Elijah’s encounter with Baal priests. They and Queen Jezebel had lured the Hebrew Northern Kingdom’s King Ahab (873-852 BCE) and his priests away from God, into sacrifices to Baal.
The connection of this Haftorah to the Torah reading is that both represent betrayals of God in the Israelites’ religious history. In the Torah reading, it is the Golden Calf incident. In the Haftorah, it is betrayal of the North’s community into Baal worship. [1]
As translated and interpreted by Professor Robert Alter of UC Berkeley, these passages describe an improbable miracle story:
The Kingdom had suffered a three-year drought. Elijah, inspired by God, went to Ahab’s palace-chief Obadiah, a God-fearing man with a reputation of opposition to Jezebel and commitment to God.
Elijah arranged a ‘miracle contest’ between himself and 450 prophets of Baal. Each side was given a bull for sacrifice on an altar. Elijah goaded the Baal team to call on the god Baal to bring forth fire onto their sacrifice:
“Oh Baal, answer us!”…Elijah mocked them, “Call out in a loud voice…perhaps he is chatting or occupied or off on a long journey. Perhaps he is sleeping and will awake.”
They called out loudly and gouged themselves with swords and spears…but there was no answering. [2]
Then Elijah tended his site, setting up twelve stones to represent the twelve tribes.
‘And he built with the stones an altar…and made a trench wide enough…And he laid out the wood and cut up the bull and put it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jugs with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood,” and he said, “Do it a second time…and…a third time”…’
‘And the water went round the altar, and the trench too, was filled with water…at the hour of the afternoon offering…Elijah approached and said, “Lord, God…Answer me…that this people may know that You are the Lord God…” And the Lord’s fire came down and consumed the offering and the wood…and the water…in the trench it licked up.’ [3]
And all the people saw and fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, He is God: the Lord, He is God.”
Comment: It is such type episodes, scenes of credible settings with superimposed miraculous happenings, which occupy the books of Kings, i.e. of the Early or Lesser Prophets. The rabbis who selected these passages followed their agreed formula of a prophet in a distressed scene who declares words and indicates action to (eventually) follow, and ending with concluding upbeat verses.
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[1] Etz Hayim, Jewish PublicationSociety, New York, 2001, p. 547
[2] The Hebrew Bible, vol. 2– Prophets, Robert Alter, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, p. 509. An attested pagan cultic practice, either a gesture of self-immolation or an act of sympathetic magic (blood spurting to stimulate fire springing out from the wood.)
[3] ibid. The Hebrew Bible, p. 509- “Pouring water over the wood and the animal magnifies the miraculous nature of the appearance of fire that is about to occur. Elijah, together with his gift of rhetoric and satire, is a grand stage manager at this event.”
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El or to his chavurah.