And Elijah said unto them, take the prophets of
Baal
The four hundred and fifty that were upon the spot; for the
number of the people of Israel, now gathered together, were equal
to it; nor was it in Ahab's power to hinder it, and he might
himself be so far surprised and convicted as not in the least to
object to it:
let not one of them escape:
that there might be none of them left to seduce the people any
more:
and they took them;
laid hold on them, everyone of them:
and Elijah brought them down to the brook
Kishon;
which ran by the side, and at the bottom of Mount Carmel, into
the sea; (See Gill on Judges
4:7) (See Gill on Judges
5:21).
and slew them there;
intimating, that it was owing to the idolatry they led the people
into that rain had been withheld, and the brooks were dried up,
as this might be; or, as Ben Gersom thinks, that the land might
not be defiled with their blood, but be carried down the river
after it: these he slew not with his own hand, but by others he
gave orders to do it; and this not as a private person, but as an
extraordinary minister of God, to execute justice according to
his law, ( Deuteronomy
13:1 ) by which law such false prophets were to die; and the
rather he was raised up and spirited for this service, as the
supreme magistrate was addicted to idolatry himself.
