1 Kings 18:27

And it came to pass at noon,.... When they had been from the time of the morning sacrifice until now invoking their deity to no purpose:

that Elijah mocked them; he jeered and bantered them:

and said, cry aloud; your god does not hear you; perhaps, if you raise your voice higher, he may;

for he is a god; according to your esteem of him, and, if so, he surely may hear you: unless

either he is talking; with others about matters of moment and importance, who are waiting on him with their applications to him; or he is in meditation; in a deep study upon some things difficult to be resolved:

or he is pursuing; his studies, or his pleasures, or his enemies, to overtake them; or he is employed on business t:

or he is in a journey; gone to visit his friends, or some parts of his dominions; so Homer u represents Jupiter gone to pay a visit to the Ethiopians, and as yesterday gone to a feast, and all the gods following him, from whence he would not return until twelve days; and in like manner Lucian w speaks of the gods, mocking at them:

or, peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked; with a loud crying to him: it being now noon, Abarbinel thinks this refers to a custom of sleeping after dinner; Homer x also speaks of the sleep of the gods, and which used to be at noon; and therefore the worshippers of Baal ceased then to call upon him; and it is said y, the Heathens feared to go into the temples of their gods at noon, lest they should disturb them; but such is not the true God, the God of Israel, he neither slumbers nor sleeps, Psalms 121:4.

t David de Pomis Lexic. fol. 211. 1. u Iliad. ver. 1. 423. w Jupiter Tragoedus. x Ut supra, (Iliad. ver. 1. 423.) in fine, Iliad. 2. ver. 1, 2. y Meurs. Auctuar. Philol. c. 6. apud Quistorp. in loc.