2 Kings 1:10

Let fire come down] The king in despatching soldiers to arrest the prophet dishonoured the Lord, whose servant Elijah was; and the unity that subsisted between a king and his subjects (as between a father and his children) was so strongly felt in ancient times that there was little sense of the injustice involved in the death of so many innocent persons for the sin of another: see on 2 Kings 9:26. A consciousness of individual rights only asserted itself gradually in Israel (see Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18:2); and a spirit akin to that of Elijah was manifested even by the Apostles, but met with rebuke from then-Lord (Luke 9:55).