Does Yahweh sleep ?

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." (1 Kings 18:27)

the above verse reading from context tells us, Elijah challenged Ahab and his false prophets who worshipped Baal. The interesting part this what Elijah asked them to do

Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.  Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.” (1Kings 18:23-24)

Whichever parties bull and wood is set n fire then his God is the true God. Well the false prophets called their god, and when they got no response this is what Elijah said to them

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” ( 1 kings 18:27)

Since their god was false, Elijah was mocking them by saying, “MAYBE HE IS SLEEPING AND MUST BE AWAKENED”. Now why would Elijah make such mocking statements? Simply because their god-Baal was false. Let’s turn to the book of Psalm and read what David had to say about his God, the same God Elijah believed in.

Rouse Yourself; why do You sleep, O Lord?  Awaken, do not reject us forever! (Psalm 44:23)

Amazing! According to King David, the ancestor of Jesus, a forerunner to Elijah (figuratively speaking) said his “God-Yahweh” must be sleeping and needs to awake. The same thing Elijah was mocking those false prophets, backfires to his own God by the very lips of David. What does that tell you.

There have also been attempts to explain the sleep of God from an ancient Near Eastern cultural context. Relying on a very questionable interpretation of Canaanite religion, some have professed to find in Ps 121:4 a Yahwistic polemic against the Canaanite Baals who as fertility gods were alleged to die and rise annually, which in turn supposedly was portrayed as sleeping and awakening (cf. 1 Kgs 18:27).  (So H. Schmidt, Die Psalmen (HAT 15; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1934) 222; Oesterley, Psalms, 504)