Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah at Mount Carmel
Ahab married Jezebel of Sidon and Baal became Israel's state cult. One man stood against it — Elijah — and on Mount Carmel the people saw who is God.
Ahab, seventh king of Israel, was a capable ruler who married Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon — and she brought her religion and her will with her. A temple of Baal rose in Samaria; four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred of Asherah ate at her table, while she hunted down the prophets of God. Obadiah hid a hundred of them in caves.
Then Elijah the Tishbite told the king: "As the Lord lives, there shall be no dew or rain these years except by my word." Three years of drought followed. Elijah lived by the brook Cherith, then with the widow of Zarephath whose jar of flour never ran out, and he revived her dead son.
In the third year he summoned the nation to Mount Carmel: "How long will you hop between two opinions?" The prophets of Baal cried and gashed themselves from morning to noon; no voice answered. Elijah rebuilt a ruined altar of twelve stones, had it drenched three times with water — and fire fell from heaven. The people fell on their faces: "The Lord, He is God" — the words that still close Yom Kippur. Jezebel swore to kill him, and Elijah fled to Horeb, where he heard not wind or fire but "a still, small voice."