Introduction: Elijah had come to Zarephath, a city in Sidon—Jezebel’s home country!—at the LORD’s command after living near the brook Cherith in Israel. In Zarephath, he stayed in a boarding house, we might say, operated by the widow whom the LORD had shown him. It seemed things were going well, but something awful happened. Now what could Elijah do?
1 The problem: the child had died
Text: 1 Kings 17:17-18, KJV: 17 And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?
We’re not told how long Elijah stayed in Zarephath but he seemed to be there for a while. The phrase “after these things” in verse 17 might indicate a relatively long period of time. During this time, the “barrel of meal” and the “cruse of oil” never ran out until rain came, and that was some time later. By way of reference, the “barrel” wasn’t nearly so large as the wooden barrels holding rainwater (my grandparents had one of these) but a vessel for holding water, like a pitcher or jar (see https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3537.htm). The word “cruse” of oil comes from a Hebrew word that’s also translated “jug” or “jar” (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6835.htm) so it probably wasn’t very large, either. At any rate, the LORD supplied!
But something bad was about to happen. We’re not told exactly when, or how, but the widow’s son “fell sick . . . and there was no breath left in him.” Most of us who are parents know that it’s sometimes easier for a child to fall sick than an adult who’s had antibodies, medicines, and the like to help one fight against these problems. Little of that seemed to be available in Zarephath, however, and this woman’s son, as some would say, took sick and died.
And to show how grief overcomes or wins over most everything else, the mother promptly blamed Elijah! Imagine the grief, the anger, the emotion, and even more behind her question, “What business do I have with you, preacher (paraphrased)?” Think about it: her husband had died and she had been widowed, she was a single mother, famine was affecting her homeland, and there’s no evidence she had ever become a believer in the God of Elijah. The grief and other emotions came to a head when her son died and, as some do, she lashed out at the first or most logical target—Elijah.
Then look at her second statement, “Did you do this to remind me of my sin (paraphrased)?” To me, this seems very unfair: true, Elijah did promise she would never run out of meal or oil until the rains came, but God was going to do this, not Elijah himself. Besides, we’re never told just what “sin” was still on her conscience. Pure speculation, but this could mean she was an Israelite who had converted to Baal worship (most of the North had done this already, it seems) and, like the mother of Huram, had married a man of Tyre or Sidon (compare 1 Kings 7:14). Since she was able to recognize Elijah as an Israelite, or at least a worshiper of YHWH, the God of Israel, this at the least allows it to be possible.
Another and more likely interpretation is that she was a native of Sidon, raised and brought up to worship the same “gods” as Jezebel and just about everyone else in Sidon. Elijah’s clothes, speech, and his appeal to “the LORD God of Israel (verse 14)” may have spoken to her directly. An additional thought is that the LORD had already commanded her to provide for Elijah while he sojourned in Zarephath (verse 8). The one thing to remember is that she was, somehow, willing to meet Elijah’s needs and then have the God of Elijah meet her needs!
Right now, though, she felt any number of emotions. Her son was dead; she blamed Elijah, and even hinted that he was responsible! Maybe, “hint”, is too kind a word—she flat-out blamed him for causing her son’s death!
We sometimes forget the fear and even terror pagans felt towards their “gods”. Compare this with the absolute grace—what other word is there?—even under the Law of Moses for Israel. One of the most awful sins in the Old Testament was David’s affair with Bathsheba. The punishment was death for both parties (Leviticus 20:10) but God spared the lives of both David and Bathsheba herself. Besides this, time and again Israel rebelled against God but God in His grace kept Israel alive and well. He always will.
No, we’re not given a specific list of what “offerings” or sacrifices the pagan priests demanded of their followers. There’s a hint of this, perhaps, when Gomer, wife of Hosea the prophet commented about the various gifts her lovers gave her (see Hosea 2:5). Admittedly, there is no record that Gomer was ever a priestess or temple worker who received pay for her service, but there is hardly a religious system anywhere that doesn’t demand something of the followers/
Well, there were various emotions at play but nothing could change the obvious fact: the child, who just a short time before was happy and playing (we can suppose) but now, he’s dead. His mother is completely upset, blaming her guest (!) for all this, and I can almost guess she’s daring Elijah to do something—anything—without saying a word. So, then, what would Elijah do?
2 The prayer: the child came back to life
Text, 1 Kings 17:19-22, KJV: 19 And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. 20 And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? 21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again. 22 And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.
It’s a tribute to Elijah that he was able to maintain his composure (“keep his cool”, as some say) even after this blast from the child’s mother. Elijah said nothing except “give me your son” and then took him up to his “loft” or upstairs apartment as we might say. I had previously mentioned the widow running a “boarding house” and this verse is one reason why. Elijah obviously didn’t stay with the widow herself—oh, imagine the gossip THAT would have caused!—but she did provide him with a “loft”, also translated as parlor, upper chamber, and so forth according to https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5944.htm . Besides, the widow had other members of the household and she would have had to maintain room/space for all of them (verse 15).
The woman was still, apparently, holding on to her dead son’s body as tightly as she could, I take from verse 17. She didn’t give Elijah the boy’s body; rather, he took the body out of her bosom or lap, as we might say. She may have been sitting down or lying down because, after all, few people could remain standing with any amount of literal dead weight. Guessing the boy weighed 40 pounds or so, that sheer amount of weight would literally be a burden after a while.
And even worse when, not if, decomposition or decay set in.
How much of a concern that was to Elijah, we may never know. We do know he felt led of the LORD to solve this problem and took the boy’s body up to his own loft. Probably just after he arrived, Elijah laid the boy’s body on his own bed.
Now what was Elijah going to do?
I’m of the opinion, and it’s just an opinion, that he felt a lot of compassion for this lad. After all, his mother had given Elijah the last of their own food, but they were rewarded; and now, this boy had fallen sick and died. Again, we’re not told what that sickness was that caused this boy’s death but whatever that disease was, the boy was dead from it.
Even though we think of Elijah as a rough, tough customer—and likely, he was—I wonder if even he had a compassionate side. Maybe he and the boy had shared stories about going fishing or hunting. Maybe the boy had listened with open eyes as Elijah told about ravens bringing him food twice a day. At any rate, Elijah, I think, looked on this now-dead boy and began to weep for him. Of course, there’s no proof, but if anyone can look at the body of a dead child and not feel some kind of emotion, to me that means there’s something wrong!
Let’s remember there are two prayers of Elijah in this passage. At first Elijah “cried unto the LORD”, most likely meaning he prayed out loud and not just silently. Elijah seems overwhelmed by all that’s going on now, and he prays with, I think, all the anguish and hurt he can muster, “LORD (and this sounds almost like an accusation), did You bring this on the widow whom I’m staying with, by taking the life of her son (paraphrased)”? James would later say in his Epistle that Elias (Elijah) “17. . . was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:17-18) and that sure seemed to be the case here. Whether in anguish of soul or from anger at the situation, Elijah showed his true humanity here by pouring out his heart to God.
Now the LORD would answer that prayer, but maybe not as Elijah had intended. First, and we don’t know why—the reason isn’t given in the text—Elijah “stretched himself upon the child three times. I’ve heard, and maybe some others as well, that this was the Bible’s first record of attempted CPR (artificial respiration)! That may or not be the case, but here, it didn’t work.
The boy did not come back to life, even after Elijah had laid his own body on the child’s f or three different times.
And no success.
This, then, leads us to Elijah’s second prayer. Note that there is nothing except a 15-word prayer (in the KJV) for the LORD to let “this child’s soul come into him again”. No pacing, no stretching, nothing but a brief prayer for the LORD to do what seemed impossible. Had there ever been a time when anyone, before this, had been raised from the dead?
It was just after this, apparently, that the LORD heard (of course He had heard!) Elijah’s second prayer and answered in a way that must have surprised Elijah completely.
The child came back to life! The text says, “. . . the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived”. Nothing had worked: prayers to Baal didn’t bring the child back from the dead; Elijah’s placing himself on the child’s body didn’t work; only the LORD God of Israel allowed this to happen. If nothing else, this proved beyond any doubt He was greater than any other “god” in existence!
But, there’s a little more to the story.
3 The presentation: the child was given back to his mother
Text. 1 Kings 17:23-24, KJV: 23 And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. 24 And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.
Take a look at the contrasts: just a short time before, a boy was sick and died from that sickness. Now he’s alive again! Just before, Elijah had carried the boy’s body to his own room and prayed at least twice. Now he’s going to take the boy downstairs, back to his mother. Before, the mother had criticized Elijah (and Elijah’s God, by extension) for taking the life of her son; now, the mother knows for a fact that Elijah speaks the Word of the LORD as truth.
We may never know just what took place when mother and son were reunited. Of course, as a father myself, I don’t feel the same set of emotions as a mother would. Naturally, it’s great when any of my children come to visit and I miss them when they’re gone. But, thanks be to God, none of my children have gone through the valley of the shadow of death—they’re all alive and well. So I have been spared the pain of losing a child to the greatest enemy of any parent, death.
This mother must have been overjoyed when she saw her son alive once again! I doubt she was like the caricature of the “mother” whose son left home for one reason or another but finally was able to return. As the story goes, the son said, “Ma, I finally made it back after all these years!” To which the mother allegedly replied, “Took ya long enough.” No, I think this reunion was one of the happiest times the widow of Zarephath could have enjoyed.
The story closes on a somewhat puzzling note, to me: all we have is the mother saying, “Now I know for sure you’re a man of God and the word of the LORD is true when you speak it (paraphrased).”. I find it odd that she didn’t recognize the LORD God of Elijah or even acknowledge His role in bringing her son back to life. Maybe it’s in the background but who knows. The important thing is that this widow’s son had died, but the God of Elijah had brought him back to life!
Conclusion: Elijah’s faithfulness and obedience to the LORD led him to a number of unusual places, Here he was, now, in Jezebel’s (and Baal’s) territory but even there he remained true to the LORD. When tragedy struck, he turned to the LORD Who, in turn, provided one of the greatest miracles up to that date or point in time!
You and I may never be in a position such as Elijah’s. But whether in good times or bad, the same God of Elijah is the same God Who loves us and wants the best for us. May we, like Elijah, always remain true to the LORD no matter when or no matter where we may be.
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
