1 Kings 18:14 (ASV)

Passage

And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah [is here]; and he will slay me.

Nearby Context

1 Kings 18:12 And it will come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of Jehovah will carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he will slay me: but I thy servant fear Jehovah from my youth.

1 Kings 18:13 Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of Jehovah, how I hid a hundred men of Jehovah`s prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?

1 Kings 18:14 And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah [is here]; and he will slay me.

1 Kings 18:15 And Elijah said, As Jehovah of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him to-day.

1 Kings 18:16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "thou", "sayest", "tell", "lord", "behold", "elijah", "here", and "slay". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "thou" and "sayest", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 13's "Was it not told my lord what..." into verse 15's "And Elijah said As Jehovah of hosts...", so "thou" and "sayest" belong inside that flow. In 1 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "thou" and "sayest" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.