“Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.”
Parallel Translations
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“Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.”
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Lorde they have kylled thy prophetes and dygged doune thyn alters: and I am lefte only and they seke my lyfe.
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Lord, they haue killed thy Prophets, and digged downe thine altars: and I am left alone, and they seeke my life?
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Romans 11:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Kings 19:10-18 He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a still small voice. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” Yahweh said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. Anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel; and anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah to be prophet in your place. He who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and he who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”
- 1 Kings 18:13 Wasn’t it told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed Yahweh’s prophets, how I hid one hundred men of Yahweh’s prophets with fifty to a cave, and fed them with bread and water?
- Nehemiah 9:26 “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.
- 1 Kings 18:4 for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh’s prophets, Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)
- Jeremiah 2:30 “I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
- 1 Kings 18:30-31 Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me!”; and all the people came near to him. He repaired Yahweh’s altar that had been thrown down. Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom Yahweh’s word came, saying, “Israel shall be your name.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged…
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
Ver. 3. And I am left alone] To withstand and reform the common corruptions. Some have commended it to our consideration, that from the first service in the temple when it was built, and the time of Elijah’s reformation, was about a hundred years. And from the reformation in King Edward VI’s days until now is about the same proportion of time.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain See 1Ki 19:10,14.
See 1Ki 19:10,14.
Digged down thine altars: these were not the altars of the high places, for they are commended that cast them down; nor the altars in the temple at Jerusalem, for they were out of the reach of the ten tribes, against whom Elias complains: but such altars (say some) as the godly of the ten tribes did build to serve God with, when they were not permitted to go up to Jerusalem; in which case the building of private altars (as some learned Jews have affirmed) was allowed. Or else by
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altars you may understand such altars as Elias himself, by the special commandment of God, had erected. Others, by digging down God’s altars, do understand their corrupting and destroying the true worship of God; and the words are to be taken synecdochically, or metonomically, the sign being put for the thing signified.
I am left alone; so it was, for aught he knew; for few, if any, did publicly own the true worship of God: so general was the defection of the ten tribes in those days.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Lord, they have killed thy prophets,.... By the order…
Lord, they have killed thy prophets,.... By the order of Jezebel, wife of Ahab king of Israel, Kg1 18:4. This sin of slaying the prophets of the Lord is charged upon the Jews by Christ, Mat 23:31, and by the apostle, Th1 2:15. In the text in Kg1 19:14, it is added, "with the sword": which expresses the manner of death they were put to; and this clause is there put after the following, according to a rule of transposition among the Jews; See Gill on Mat 27:10.
And digged down thine altars; either the altars which the patriarchs had formerly built, and were still in being; and though not used, yet were kept and had in great veneration; wherefore the pulling of them down was done in contempt of them, and of the worship of God, which had been formerly performed there; or else such altars, which the religious among the ten tribes built, since the times of Jeroboam, who forbad them to go up to Jerusalem, but ordered them to go to Dan or Bethel; which they not choosing to do erected altars in different places for divine service, and which the Jews (r) say were allowed; for from that time, the prohibition of altars at other places than at Jerusalem ceased:
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and I am left alone: meaning either as a prophet, not knowing that Obadiah had hid an hundred prophets by fifty in a cave, Kg1 18:4; or else as a worshipper of the true God, imagining that he was the only person in Israel, that had a true zeal for the Lord of hosts:
and they seek my life; lay in wait for it, Jezebel by her emissaries being in quest of him; it is added in Kg1 19:14, "to take it away"; for she had swore by her gods, that by the morrow about that time, his life should be as the life of one of the prophets of Baal he had slain; and in one copy it is added here.
(r) Kimchi in 1 Kings xviii. 30.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain 1 Kings xix, 10.
1 Kings xix, 10.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. Lord, they have killed thy prophets] They…
Verse 3. Lord, they have killed thy prophets] They will not permit any person to speak unto them in thy name; and they murder those who are faithful to the commission which they have received from thee.
Digged down thine altars] They are profligate and profane beyond example, and retain not the slightest form of religion.
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I am left alone] There is no prophet besides myself left, and they seek to destroy me.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Lord, they have killed ... - This is taken…
Lord, they have killed ... - This is taken from 1Ki 19:10. The quotation is not literally made, but the sense is preserved. This was a charge which Elijah brought against the whole nation; and the act of killing the prophets he regarded as expressive of the character of the people, or that they were universally given to wickedness. The fact was true that they had killed the prophets, etc.; 1Ki 18:4, 1Ki 18:13; but the inference which Elijah seems to have drawn from it, that there were no pious people in the nation, was not well founded.
And digged down - Altars, by the Law of Moses, were required to be made of earth or unhewn stones; Exo 20:24-25. Hence, the expression to dig them down means completely to demolish or destroy them.
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Thine altars - There was one great altar in the front of the tabernacle and the temple, on which the daily sacrifices of the Jews were to be made. But they were not forbidden to make altars also elsewhere; Exo 20:25. And hence they are mentioned as existing in other places; 1Sa 7:17; 1Sa 16:2-3; 1Ki 18:30, 1Ki 18:32. These were the altars of which Elijah complained as having been thrown down by the Jews; an act which was regarded as expressive of signal impiety.
I am left alone - I am the only prophet which is left alive. We are told that when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in a cave; 1Ki 18:4. But it is not improbable that they had been discovered and put to death by Ahab. The account which Obadiah gave Elijah when he met him 1Ki 18:13 seems to favor such a supposition.
Seek my life - That is, Ahab and Jezebel seek to kill me. This they did because he had overcome and slain the prophets of Baal; 1Ki 19:1-2. There could scarcely be conceived a time of greater distress and declension in religion than this. It has not often happened that so many things that were disheartening have occurred to the church at the same period of time. The prophets of God were slain; but one lonely man appeared to have zeal for true religion; the nation was running to idolatry; the civil rulers were criminally wicked, and were the leaders in the universal apostasy; and all the influences of wealth and power were setting in against the true religion to destroy it. It was natural that the solitary man of God should feel disheartened and lonely in this universal guilt; and should realize that he had no power to resist this tide of crime and calamities.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain and I am left alone--"I only am left."
and I am left alone--"I only am left."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 3. Digged down—Built of earth and stones, it required…
3. Digged down—Built of earth and stones, it required digging utterly to demolish them.
3. Again, we may contemplate the race as a body of living men, under Christ, but unregenerate. Their condemnation, then, arises from their native pravity responsibly sanctioned by their own free act, and their rejection of Christ and holiness. (Note on Joh_3:19.) Men, then, are damned by nature, damned by justice, and even “damned by grace.” It is in this view of men that Paul calls them “by nature children of wrath.” (Eph_2:3.)
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 3. Lord, they have killed, &c.] 1Ki_19:10. The quotation…
3. Lord, they have killed, &c.] 1Ki_19:10. The quotation is not precisely with either LXX. or Heb.; but substantially exact.—The Gr. past verbs here are aorists.
3. This, and not the evangelical equality of Jew and Gentile, is here in view; with the special object of reminding the Gentile Christian how singular and eminent had been the work of the Jewish Church; how welcome individual Jews must be to return to the Church, which, though now universal in extent, was, and of course is always, Jewish in descent; and how natural it was that a special work in that Church should yet be designed for an aggregate of Jewish believers.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (3) I am left alone—i.e., of the prophets.
(3) I am left alone—i.e., of the prophets.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 3. “Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have…
3. “Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars, I am left alone and they seek my life.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged…
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life . [Against these two proofs adduced by the apostle it might be objected that if God was not rejecting his people he must be receiving them, but you, Paul, practically admit that this is not the case, for, were it so, why can you point only to your single self as accepted? Surely your very proofs are against you. To this objection Paul presents a third proof--i. e., the case of Elijah--and his argument, paraphrased, runs thus: You err in supposing that I alone am accepted, and this I will prove by the case of Elijah, who, prophet of prophets though he was, erred in so judging by appearances as to think that he alone remained acceptable. The law required that the nation use the one altar which stood in front of the sanctuary in Jerusalem ( Lev_17:8-9 ; Deu_12:1-14 ). But the Rabbins say (see Lightfoot and Whitby ad h. l.) that when the ten tribes revolted, and their kings forbade them to go up to Jerusalem to worship, then this law ceased as to them, and the Lord permitted them to build other altars and sacrifice on them as at the beginning ( Gen_12:7-8 ; Gen_13:4 ; Gen_13:18 ; Gen_22:9 ; Gen_26:25 ; Gen_33:20 ; Gen_35:1-7 ; Gen_46:1 ), and as they did before worship was centered at Jerusalem ( 1Sa_7:9 ; 1Sa_7:17 ; 1Sa_9:13 ; 1Sa_11:15 ; 1Sa_16:2-3 ). That this is so is proved by the conduct of Elijah, who reconstructed the Lord's altar on Mt. Carmel (which these apostates of whom he speaks had thrown down) and offered sacrifice thereon, and the Lord publicly sanctioned and approved the altar by sending fire from heaven ( 1Ki_18:30-39 ). The altars were to be made of earth and unhewn stone ( Exo_20:24-25 ), hence it was proper to speak of digging them down.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.