The Lord corrected Elijah's thinking. The prophet was not alone. Earlier, he forgot about the 100 prophets protected by Obadiah (1 Kings 18:4, 13). Now he learned that 7,000 others stayed faithful to the Lord.
bowed … kissed him: These were common ways to show submission in the ancient Near East (2 Kings 21:3; Isaiah 46:6; 60:14; Hosea 13:2). They are often mentioned in the records of victorious kings or ancient stories. Ashurbanipal reported that during his sixth campaign, an Elamite king kissed his royal feet and cleaned the ground with his beard. In the Mesopotamian creation story (Enuma Elish, V 86), even the great gods bowed down and kissed the feet of Marduk, the victorious leader of the gods.