1-kings 18:3

Obadiah feared the Lord greatly - He was a sincere and zealous worshipper of the true God, and his conduct towards the persecuted prophets was the full proof both of his piety and humanity.

Obadiah's name, "servant of Yahweh," indicates his religious character. It corresponds to the modern Arabic name Abdallah. Ahab could scarcely have been ignorant of Obadiah's faithfulness to Yahweh; and it tells in favor of the monarch's tolerance that he should have maintained an adherent of the old religion in so important an office. There seems to be no doubt that the worst deeds of Ahab's reign sprang less from his own free will and natural disposition than from the evil counsels, or rather perhaps the imperious requirements, of his wife.

18:3 Obadiah - Being valued by Ahab for his great prudence and fidelity, and therefore indulged as to the worship of the calves and Baal. But how could he and some other Israelites be said to fear the Lord, when they did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, as God had commanded? Although they seem not to be wholly excusable in this neglect, yet because they worshipped God in spirit and truth, and performed all moral duties to God and their brethren, and abstained from idolatry, being kept from Jerusalem by violence, God bares with their infirmity herein.