1 Kings 18:8

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He answered him, It is I: go, tell your lord, Behold, Elijah [is here].

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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אֵלִיָּֽהוּ

ʼÊlîyâh

H452

“Elijah”

Noun, Proper

Appears 71× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Kings 17:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H410 and H3050

TWOT: None

Elijah or Eliah = "my God is Jehovah" or " Yah(u) is God" - the great prophet of the reign of Ahab - Benjamite son of Jeroham - a son of Elam with foreign wife during exile - a son of Harim, and priest, with foreign wife during exile

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
6: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
1 pronoun
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לֵ֛ךְ Qal · Imperative
אֱמֹ֥ר Qal · Imperative

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר to say H559 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 12 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 1 Kings 18:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Kings 18:3 Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly:
Romans 13:7 Give therefore to everyone what you owe: taxes to whom taxes are due; customs to whom customs; respect to whom respect; honor to whom honor.
1 Peter 2:17–18 Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 1 Kings 18:8 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר ל֖וֹ אָ֑נִי לֵ֛ךְ אֱמֹ֥ר לַאדֹנֶ֖יךָ הִנֵּ֥ה אֵלִיָּֽהוּ

He answered him, It is I: go, tell your lord, Behold, Elijah [is here].

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Kings 18:8 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον ηλιου αὐτός ἐγώ πορεύομαι λέγω ὁ κύριος σύ ἰδού ηλιου

And Eliu said to him, I am: go say to your master, Behold, Eliu is here.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ אֲנָא אֱזֵיל אֲמַר לְרִבּוֹנָךְ הָא אֵלִיָהוּ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 1 Kings 18:8 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

1Ki 18:8 And he answered him, I [am]: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah [is here].

Ver. 8. Behold, Elijah is here.] Not ashamed to show my face; but of his mind who said, Malo miserandum quam erubescendum. Memorable was that speech of John Frith to the archbishop’s men that would have let him go and shift for himself; If you should both leave me here, and go to Croyden, declaring to the bishops that you had lost Frith, I would surely follow as fast after as I might, and bring them news that I had found and brought Frith again. Do you think that I am afraid to declare mine opinion to the bishops of England in a manifest truth? {a}

{a} Act. and Mon., 1927.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

8. I am] R.V. It is I. To correspond with the change in the preceding verse.

tell thy lord] It would be news of great interest to the king of Israel, as is clearly shewn by the efforts which he had already made to find Elijah.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

And he answered him, I am,.... He did not desire to be concealed, his orders were to show and make himself known to Ahab, and Obadiah was one of his domestic servants:

go tell thy lord, behold, Elijah is here; in such a place, ready to face him at any time. Elijah, by calling Ahab the lord of Obadiah, as he tacitly reproves him for calling him lord, shows reverence to Ahab as a king, and yet that he was fearless of him, as he was the prophet and ambassador of the Lord of hosts to him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Tell thy lord, Ahab; whom, though a very wicked man, he owns for Obadiah’s lord and king; thereby instructing him that he did well in owning him as such, and that the wickedness of kings doth not exempt their subjects from obedience to their lawful commands.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And he answered him; I am Heb. I: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. The last two words are not in the Hebrew, and the sentence is much more graphic without them.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Thy Lord - Ahab: whom, though a very wicked man, he owns for Obadiah's Lord and king; thereby instructing us, that the wickedness of kings doth not exempt their subjects from obedience to their lawful commands.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

1 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 8 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼÊlîyâh (“Elijah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʼÊlîyâh carries the sense “Elijah.” How does it shape the verse?
1 Kings 18:3 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
“to say” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיֹּ֥אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“to say” occurs 2× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.