Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Kings 18:27

"And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." — 1 Kings 18:27 (ASV)

Elijah mocked them. —The mockery of Elijah—apparently even blunter and more scornful in the original sense—has been explained with strained ingenuity as applying to various supposed actions of Baal. It is merely the bitter irony of sheer contempt, calling Baal a god only to heap upon him the most ungodlike ideas: He is busy, or he is in retirement; he is far away, or in the noon-day heat he is asleep. Characteristic of the fierce indignation of Elijah’s nature in this crisis of conflict, yet it is not unlike the righteous scorn of the psalmists or the prophets (Psalms 135:15–18; Isaiah 44:9–20; Isaiah 46:1–7; Jeremiah 10:2–10, and others) for the worship of “the vanities” of the pagans.

There was no place for toleration of prejudice, or tender appreciation of a blind worship feeling after God, like that of St. Paul at Athens (Acts 17:22–23). The conflict here was between spiritual worship and a foul, cruel idolatry; and the case was not one of pagan ignorance, but of Israel’s apostasy.