And he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing 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.
The Cry
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.
W. W. FeredayElijah 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.
God's Hand Behind the Death
Elijah does not blame the illness. He lays the death at God's door, and that is where hope begins.
Hamilton SmithThere 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.
Why The Blow Fell
Elijah's question gets no answer in the verse. The mother had her own answer, and it was the wrong one.
Leslie M. GrantThe 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 Christian's FriendThe 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.
A Picture Of Christ
Elijah does not stand outside this family's grief. He shares it, and the tears at Lazarus's tomb are not far away.
H. L. RossierThis 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.
Empty Hands, Answered Prayer
Elijah prays as a man with nothing of his own to offer. What he does with his body says the same thing.
Hamilton SmithElijah 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.
What She Learned
The flour and oil had taught her that God sustains life. The empty bed taught her something more.
C. H. MackintoshThe 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.
Summary
- 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.