1st Kings Chapter 18 verse 33 Holy Bible
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt-offering, and on the wood.
read chapter 18 in ASV
And he put the wood in order, and, cutting up the ox, put it on the wood. Then he said, Get four vessels full of water and put it on the burned offering and on the wood. And he said, Do it a second time, and they did it a second time;
read chapter 18 in BBE
and he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill four pitchers with water, and pour it on the burnt-offering, and on the wood.
read chapter 18 in DARBY
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.
read chapter 18 in KJV
And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt-sacrifice, and on the wood.
read chapter 18 in WBT
He put the wood in order, and cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood.
read chapter 18 in WEB
And he arrangeth the wood, and cutteth in pieces the bullock, and placeth `it' on the wood, and saith, `Fill ye four pitchers of water, and pour on the burnt-offering, and on the wood;
read chapter 18 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 33. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood [Rawlinson says "He obeyed, that is, all the injunctions of the law with respect to the offering of a burnt sacrifice (see Leviticus 1:3-9), and adds, "He thus publicly taught that all the ordinances of the law were binding on the kingdom of Israel." But it is very probable that the priests of Baal had done the same things. All sacrifice involved such manual acts. Cf. Genesis 22:9, where the same word עָרַך is used. No doubt the prophet did everything in an orderly and regular way; but the people could hardly learn a lesson of obedience from such elementary acts as these, and the less so as the law provided, that the sacrifice should be offered only "by the priests, the sons of Aaron" (Leviticus 1:8), and Elijah's ministrations, consequently, might seem to warrant or condone the ministrations of Jeroboam's intrusive priesthood. That they did not lend any real sanction to those irregularities is clear, however, to us. For, in the first place, priests were not to be had, all having long since left the kingdom. In the second place, the higher commission of the prophet embraced within itself the authority for all necessary priestly acts. Cf. 1 Samuel 16:2. Elijah acted, as Grotius well observes, jure prophetico, minoribus legibus exsolutus, ut majores servaret], and said, Fill four barrels [Heb. כַּדּים. Cf. 1 Kings 17:12. It designates the ordinary water-pitcher, generally carried then, as now, by women: Genesis 24:14-20; Judges 7:16; Ecclesiastes 12:6] with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. [The water, as already remarked, was doubtless brought from the adjoining spring (though it is clear from ver. 40 that the Kishon was not dry, and Thomson thinks that its sources, and particularly the fountain of Saadieh, furnished the supply). "In such springs the water remains always cool, under the shade of a vaulted roof, and with no hot atmosphere to evaporate it. While all other fountains were dried up, I can well understand that there might have been found here that superabundance of water which Elijah poured so profusely over the altar" (Van de Velde, 1. p. 325).]
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(33) Fill four barrels--or pitchers. The filling of these at the time of drought has naturally excited speculation. A ready surmise, by those unacquainted with the country, was that the water was taken from the sea flowing at the base of Carmel; but a glance at the position and the height of the mountain puts this not unnatural surmise out of the question, as difficult, if not impossible. Examination of the locality has discovered a perennial spring in the neighbourhood of the traditional scene of the sacrifice, which is never known to fail in the severest drought. From this, no doubt (as indeed Josephus expressly says), the water was drawn, with, of course, the object of precluding all idea of fraud or contrivance, and bringing out strikingly the consuming fierceness of the fire from heaven, so emphatically described in 1Kings 18:38.
