1 Kings 19:18

Yet I have left me [So St. Paul, Romans 11:4 , κατέλιπον ; but the LXX . ( καταλείψεις ) and all the versions translate the word as future, as in the margin, 1 will leave, and so the ו conversive seems to require. See Gesen; Gram. § 124-26] seven thousand [not so much a round as a symbolical number—"the ἐκλογή of the godly" (Keil). "The remnant according to the election of grace" ( Romans 11:5 ). It is like the 144,000 and the 12,000 of Revelation 7:4-8 . The prominent idea is perhaps this: Though the children of Israel have forsaken My covenant, yet I have kept and will keep it. It also suggests how the still small voice had been speaking in the silence] in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal , and every mouth which hath not kissed him. [We gather from Job 31:26 , Job 31:27 that it was customary to kiss the hand to the idol, or object of worship, and from Hosea 13:2 to kiss the image itself. Most of the commentators adduce Cicero in Verrem 4:43, where he speaks of the statue of Hercules at Agrigentum, the lips and chin of which were a little worn by the kisses of devotees.]