So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel,.... By messengers, requiring their attendance at Mount Carmel at such a time, at least their chief and principal men:
and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel; the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, but not the four hundred prophets of the groves; for of them we have no account afterwards, only of the former; it may be they were not at the command of Ahab, only of Jezebel, at whose table they ate, who would not suffer them to go.