What Does 1 Kings 18:22 Mean in the King James?
Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Hebrew’s “remain” names a remainder: one voice left standing is not made false by the four hundred and fifty voices around it.
THE MEANING
The verse sets one prophet of the LORD against four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. When the faithful voice seems singular, its small number does not erase what it bears. The crowd’s size is not a measure of whose voice is true.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the larger side must be right simply because it is larger.
THE ROOT
נוֹתַרְתִּי
nōṯartî
GROWS FROM
יתר
To remain, be left over, or have a surplus.
The root frames Elijah as what remains after others are gone: a remainder, not a majority. Its wider range also reaches what is left over as surplus or gain, giving “remain” more depth than simply being present.
ALSO GROWS
yether: Remainder; what is left over.
יֶתֶר
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s picture concrete: Elijah is the remaining prophetic voice.
yitron: Profit, advantage, or surplus.
יִתְרוֹן
The same root family can name what remains as an advantage; here, the root’s emphasis falls on what remains when the numbers are stripped away.
THE PATTERN
A small witness can remain true even when the visible majority overwhelms it.
And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few.Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.THE THREAD
Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.This verse expands Elijah’s “only”: one prophet remains in view, while seven thousand remain unbowed. It distinguishes the public prophetic voice from the wider field of faithfulness, so being outnumbered does not mean no one else remains.
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