And he sent again a captain of the third fifty with his fifty,
&c.] Which was most daring and insolent, and showed him to be dreadfully hardened, to persist in his messages after such rebuffs: and the third captain of fifty went up; instead of calling to the prophet at the bottom of the hill as the other did, he went up to the top of it: and came and fell on his knees before Elijah:
in reverence of him as a prophet of the Lord, and under a dread of the power he was possessed of, of calling for fire from heaven on him and his men, as the former instances showed: and besought him, and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee,
let my life, and the life of these fifty thy servants, be precious
in thy sight:
he owns their lives lay at his mercy; he begs they might be spared, since it was not in contempt of him, and through ill will to him as the prophet of the Lord, but in obedience to the king's command, that they were come to him.