Elijah’s Sleeping Baal
There is a pertinent and interesting parallel to Elijah’s mocking words in 1 Kings 18:7 that has gone unnoticed until recently.1 When the priests of Baal fail to get any response from their god, Elijah mocks them saying, “call loudly … perhaps he is asleep and needs to be awakened.” Aside from the biting satire, Elijah’s words may recall some cultic awakening of the deity in morning rites that prevailed in his day. Thus, the Pyramid Texts of the third millennium contain a composition with the refrain “awake in peace,” about which Lichtheim observes, “a litany with which the gods were greeted each morning by the priests performing the daily cult service in the temples.”2 Elijah’s words are even more pointed than this and may be intended to recall – and provide a contrast to – a particularly famous passage in Near Eastern literature.
Elijah fed by an angel
In the Mesopotamian epic, the Atrahasis, there is a non-Biblical account of the flood. Here the god Enlil is angered at men and, after several failed attempts to reduce their population, he brings great rains that flood the earth and destroy most of humanity.3 The cause of his anger is straightforward. Mankind makes too much noise and keeps him awake: “With their uproar I am deprived of sleep.”4 “With their uproar sleep does not overcome me.”5 In contrast, 1 Kings’ Baal seems oblivious to the noise of his priests and sleeps undisturbed. The Bible’s narrative will also culminate with a rainstorm (1 Kings 18:45), but this rain, brought by one who does not sleep, will not bring destruction but salvation for his people.
(1) Jacobson, H., “Elijah’s Sleeping Baal,” Biblica 79 (1998) page 413.
(2) Lichtheim, L., Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume 1, Berkeley (1973) pages 35, 49. Similarly, Porphyrius attests to such a practice at the Egyptian temple of Sarapis (abstin. 4.9.5).
(3) Lambert, W.G. and A.R. Millard, Atrahasis (Oxford 1969) pp. 67-129.
(4) Lambert, op. cit., pages 67, 73.
(5) Lambert, op. cit., page 107. The non-Biblical traditions testimony to man’s noisiness prior to the flood may provide some insight into the antediluvian world.