1 Kings 18:40 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Elijah said, Take the prophets of Baal He takes the opportunity of ordering the execution of these idolaters, while the people's hearts wore warm with the fresh sense of this great miracle. And they took them For the people, in that fit of zeal wherein they now were, readily obeyed Elijah's command, and executed the sentence he pronounced. And Ahab could make no opposition, being himself also, it is likely, astonished at the stupendous miracle. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon That their blood might be poured into that river, and thence conveyed into the sea, and might not defile the holy land. And slew them there Or, ordered them to be slain by the people. As these idolatrous priests were manifestly under a sentence of death, passed upon such by the sovereign Lord of life and death, so Elijah had authority to execute it, being a prophet, and an extraordinary minister of God's vengeance. The four hundred prophets of the groves, it seems, did not attend, and so escaped, which perhaps Ahab rejoiced in: but it proved, they were reserved to be the instruments of his destruction, by encouraging him to go up to Ramoth-Gilead.