And he cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?
A grieving mother has just asked Elijah if he came to her house to bring her sin to mind and kill her son. He takes the boy upstairs and turns her question back on God Himself.
Elijah is a lodger in this house, and he senses the blow has something to do with him. The verse also does not say he spoke or asked. It says he cried — and the same word comes back in the next verse.
Elijah felt the position. He realized that his coming into the house had something to do with this blow. There is a hint of tender feeling in his prayer to God. This stern man could face an angry king and a wicked nation and pass sentence of judgement. Yet he felt deeply for this poor woman. He had come to know her, and her heart was now very sore... In both verse 20 and verse 21 the Holy Spirit says "he cried to the LORD." We should never pass lightly over this word "cried" when we read Scripture, for it expresses intense longing.
Elijah does not blame the illness. He lays the death at God's door, and that is where hope begins.
There is real beauty in the way he looks beyond the disease and the power of death and sees the hand of the living God in the evil that has come upon them. As he sees it, disease has not killed the child. Death has not struck him down. It is God who has slain the widow's son. If disease and death did this work, there is no hope. They could take the child away, but they cannot bring him back. But if God has slain the child, then God can call the child back to life.
Elijah's question gets no answer in the verse. The mother had her own answer, and it was the wrong one.
The widow had experienced the grace of God in saving her and her son from a dreadful end. But God had another lesson of vital importance to teach her, and it could only come through pain and sorrow... For some reason she connected his death with Elijah and felt that God was punishing her for her sins. But God was seeking the pure blessing of her soul.
Another writer finds mercy inside the loss itself.
The sword entered her soul, yet it came in mercy. Through it, in the sharpest pain of her grief, she learned what she was in the presence of God (v. 18). That prepared her for further blessing. Until we come to the end of self, we cannot take in what God is for us in grace.
Elijah does not stand outside this family's grief. He shares it, and the tears at Lazarus's tomb are not far away.
This whole scene speaks to us of Christ. Elijah is a picture of Him. In sympathy he entered into all the consequences of man's sin. Just as Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Elijah "cried to the LORD, 'O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?'" (v. 20). Then he brought the dead child back to life, taking his place.
Elijah prays as a man with nothing of his own to offer. What he does with his body says the same thing.
Elijah recognizes that in himself he has no power... His act of stretching himself on the child may show this; the margin reads that he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his measure and realizes that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray... by the act of prayer he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
The flour and oil had taught her that God sustains life. The empty bed taught her something more.
The widow responded to God's claim on her handful of meal; and what follows? He sustains her and her house for years! Again the Lord lays His hand upon her son; and what follows? God raises her son from the dead by His mighty power. So He teaches her that the Lord could not only sustain life, but give it... she receives her son now, as she had received her supplies before, straight from the hand of the Lord God of Israel.
- Cried — Elijah did not simply speak to God. The word used in verses 20 and 21 carries intense longing. The same tenderness marks a man who could face a king without flinching.
- Traced — He looked past the illness to God's own hand. Disease can take a child away and never give him back. The God who takes can give back.
- Emptied — He stretched himself on the boy and measured himself against death. He found he had no strength either. What he had was prayer, and prayer reaches the living God.
- Taught — The mother read her loss as punishment for her sin. God was seeking the blessing of her soul. We grasp grace only once we come to the end of self.
- Raised — The flour and oil taught her that God sustains life. The death taught her that He can give it back. She received her son straight from His hand, just as she had received her food.
And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again!
Elijah carries the dead boy up to his own room. He lays himself on the body three times and asks God for something Scripture had never yet recorded. The verse holds two things together: a man who admits he has no power, and a prayer that expects the impossible.
One commentator treats the strange physical act as a confession, not a technique. He points to the margin reading, where the word means "measured".
Elijah recognizes that in himself he has no power. That may be the meaning of stretching himself on the child — or, as the margin reads, he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his own measure and sees that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray. By stretching himself out he identifies with the child's powerlessness. By praying he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
Commentators differ on the "three times". Some tie it to Elijah's own weakness. Another links it to resurrection: "it is only by direct contact with the Lord Jesus raised from the dead that we find the blessing of resurrection life" (Leslie M. Grant).
The verse does not say Elijah spoke or asked. Twice in this passage the text says he cried out.
This stern man could face an angry king and a wicked nation and pronounce judgement on them. Yet his heart went out to this poor woman whom he had come to know, whose heart was now very sore… In both verse 20 and verse 21 the Holy Spirit says, "he cried to the LORD." We should never pass over this word "cried" lightly, because it expresses intense longing.
The prayer is short. The way Elijah addresses God shows a relationship already known and tested.
He is in conscious relationship with God, whom he knows and has proved, so he can say with great confidence, "My God." His faith knows that the living God has power to raise the dead child. With greater faith still, he prays that it will happen. Did any man, before or since, ask God for more in words so simple and a prayer so short? It is plain that earnest, effective prayer is neither elaborate nor long.
That brevity becomes a practical test of our own praying:
Notice that Elijah's prayer was short and definite. Shall we not learn a lesson from this? Do we go to our prayer meetings with something definite in mind? Or do we come out of sheer habit — a good habit, of course — with minds that are not engaged and not prepared?
Nobody had ever come back from the dead in the record up to this point. Elijah asked anyway.
Scripture has no earlier record of any person — Jew or Gentile, old or young — ever returning from the dead. Yet the prophet prayed like this! His faith went beyond Abraham's on Mount Moriah, where he laid Isaac on the altar, counting that God was able to raise him from the dead, and in a figure did receive him back (Heb. 11:19). Both Abraham and Elijah believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that death was no difficulty to Him. But it was one thing for Abraham to reckon that God could raise a boy from the dead. It was another for Elijah to ask outright that this great miracle be done.
Elijah asks that the child's life "come into him again". Older translations read "soul" here. One writer takes up that word and compares Paul over Eutychus, the young man who fell from a window and seemed dead.
The separation had not yet taken place; he was stunned by the fall… Life had not yet gone out of the body. But in the case of the child raised by Elijah (1 Kings 17:21-22), the soul had already left the body and then returned to it. From these cases, as everywhere else, we see that the soul is quite distinct from the body. In our present state the soul works through the body, yet the body is only the house it lives in.
The answer to this prayer taught the mother something new about God.
The moment she had learned the lesson about herself, God came in. Through Elijah, and in answer to his prayer, He raised the widow's son to life again… So the Lord revealed Himself to her soul as the God of resurrection. This established her in the truth and confirmed her faith, resting her on a foundation that lies beyond death and can never change.
- Measured — Elijah lay on the child to take his own measure — with no more strength than the dead child under him.
- Powerless — the man with no power still had prayer, and prayer put him in touch with the living God.
- Cried — twice the text says he cried, a word marking intense longing, not routine words.
- Brief — one definite sentence, spoken to "my God". The greatest request ever asked, in the plainest words.
- Beyond — no one had ever returned from death, yet he asked. The widow learned God as the God of resurrection, a foundation beyond death.
And Jehovah heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he lived.
Elijah has carried the dead boy up to his own room. He has stretched himself over him three times and cried out to God. Here the answer comes. The verse turns on two things: a prayer God listened to, and something that had left the child coming back. (The ESV calls it the child's "life"; older translations call it his "soul.")
No one in Scripture had asked for this before. One writer compares Elijah's faith here with Abraham's.
Such a prayer as Elijah uttered over the dead child had probably never gone up to heaven before: "O Jehovah my God, I pray You, let this child's soul come into him again." Wonderful! Scripture has no earlier record of anyone — Jew or Gentile, old or young — returning from the dead. Yet the prophet prayed like this! His faith went beyond Abraham's on Mount Moriah, when he laid Isaac on the altar, "considering that God was able even to raise him from the dead" (Heb. 11:19). Both Abraham and Elijah believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that even death would be no difficulty to Him. But it was one thing for Abraham to reckon that God could raise a boy from the dead. It was quite another for Elijah to ask outright for this great miracle.
The prayer was also short. Its power was not in its length.
As One with whom he is in conscious relationship, well known and proved, he can say with great confidence, "My God." ... Did any man, before or since, ask a greater request of God in language so simple and in a prayer so brief? It is very clear that the effective, fervent prayer is neither elaborate nor lengthy.
Before the prayer came the stretching. One writer reads that act as Elijah measuring himself against the dead boy.
Elijah recognises that in himself he has no power. Perhaps the act of stretching himself on the child shows this, or, as the margin reads, he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his measure and sees that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray. By stretching himself out he identifies with the powerlessness of the child. By praying he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
Something left the child and came back. Commentators take that as evidence that a person is more than a body. One writer sets the case beside a man others picked up for dead, whom Paul declared still alive.
The men picked him up as dead. Paul naturally breaks off his talk, goes down and throws himself on him, saying that life is still in him. The separation had not yet taken place... In the case of the child restored to life by Elijah (1 Kings 17:21-22) the soul had already left the body, and returned to it. From these cases, as always elsewhere, we see that the soul is entirely distinct from the body. In our present state the soul works through the body, but the body is only its dwelling. Life in this world is the activity of the soul through the functions of the body.
The way the miracle happened matters. Commentators contrast Elijah's manner with the Lord's own way of raising the dead.
On this occasion the Lord acted simply and with dignity. That stands in striking contrast with the Old Testament prophets doing similar miracles. The Lord spoke and acted in His own right. The prophets had to look up with deep earnestness for power to raise the dead, because that power was not in themselves.
The boy's mother learned something from this, and she was not the last.
The three times speaks of resurrection... The Lord answered the prayer of Elijah and the soul of the child returned. So the widow learned that God was able not only to save from dying, but to restore life after death. Mary and Martha learned this lesson in John 11. They had only hoped the Lord would come to them in time to keep Lazarus from dying... But the Lord had a more important lesson to teach them, that He can bring life out of death.
The miracle also did something for Elijah himself. It backed up the words he spoke.
It was resurrection that made Elijah known as a man of God, and the word of God in his mouth as the truth. So nothing else will make the word of God in our mouth known as truth in any adequate sense, or approve us as men of God.
- Powerless — Elijah measures himself against a corpse and finds he has no more strength than it. That emptiness is where the miracle starts.
- Prayer — Short, definite, addressed to "my God." He asks for something no one in Scripture had received before. God listens to his voice.
- Return — What came back had truly left. The soul is distinct from the body; the body is only its home.
- Contrast — Elijah must look upward for power he does not own; Christ raises the dead by His own word. The prophet borrows the power; the Lord already has it.
- Proof — Resurrection showed the widow that God gives life after death. It also proved true the word in Elijah's mouth.