The woman's step of faith paid off. The author of 1 Kings told us, "There was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry." Every time the woman goes into her kitchen, there is enough flour and oil to prepare the next meal. I think each time there is exactly the amount needed, no more and no less, so she will learn to depend on the Lord to "give us this day our daily bread" just as the people of Israel learned to depend on the Lord to provide the exact amount of manna needed each day in the wilderness. The Lord is teaching her to trust Him, little by little, day by day. This is building her faith in Him, little by little, day by day. A day is coming in which she will need to muster all the faith she can to believe the Lord is capable of performing the greatest miracle a person could ever ask for.
"Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing." (1 Kings 17:17) We don't know the age of her son but I think we can safely assume he is under the age of thirteen because the author of 1 Kings will refer to him as a "boy" ("child", in the original language). In the Jewish culture a male of thirteen is considered a young man, no longer a child, and although the widow and her son are not Jewish, the author of 1 Kings is and wouldn't be expected to refer to a male thirteen or older as a "boy". We'll also learn that he's small enough for Elijah to be able to pick him up and carry him.
If any of you has ever lost a child, you know the devastation experienced by the widow woman. I am not a mother and have never been through such a loss but I have no trouble believing it's the worst grief a person can ever experience. This woman's loss is compounded by many other factors. She's all alone in the world now. Her husband was already dead and now her only child is dead. In ancient times a woman without a husband or son to provide for her in her old age could end up a homeless beggar. After Elijah came to her and after the Lord began multiplying her provisions, she must have begun to look forward to the future again, believing that she and her son would make it through the famine. She thought the drought would end eventually and she was looking forward to watching her son grow to become a hardworking, responsible man who would provide for her. She must have envisioned a future in which he would marry and have children and she pictured herself as a happy grandmother. But now all her dreams for the future are gone.
As most of us do when something bad happens, the widow begins wondering why it happened. As most of us do when something bad happens, she begins asking herself whether anything she did or didn't do has caused this tragedy. She starts believing her sins of the past are to blame for her son's death. "She said to Elijah, 'What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?'" (1 Kings 17:18) She thinks perhaps Elijah's arrival was a harbinger of doom---that judgment is being visited upon her for her idolatrous youth.
We don't know how long her son was ill before he perished. It could have been a fairly sudden illness during which Elijah was absent from the house. If that's the case, it explains why she didn't appeal to him to cry out to God on her son's behalf. It explains why Elijah didn't take it upon himself to cry out to God to heal the boy. But there could be another reason why the boy perished even if Elijah was in the house when it happened: because healing the boy is not as great of a miracle as raising him from the dead. The widow is going to have her son raised back to life again.
A similar incident happens in the New Testament when word comes to Jesus that His friend Lazarus is gravely ill. Jesus could have gotten to Lazarus in time to heal him before he perished but Jesus stayed where He was so that His arrival in Bethany would take place after Lazarus had been dead for four days. Resurrecting a man who had been dead for four days was a far greater miracle than if Jesus had arrived in time to heal him from his illness. A miracle of resurrection was necessary to prove the power of God (and to prove Jesus was the Messiah); therefore it was better for everyone involved that Jesus allowed Lazarus to die. It is better for the widow woman and her son that the Lord raises her son from the dead than if He'd healed her son. After all, many people recover from illnesses every day and in time the widow woman and her son might have convinced themselves that his recovery had nothing to do with the Lord. Worse yet, they might have fallen back into idolatry over time and told themselves that Baal or some other heathen god healed him. But when the Lord's prophet intercedes on the boy's behalf when the boy is clearly dead, and when the Lord raises him from the dead, there can be no doubt that the God of Israel performed the miracle. I imagine the woman published this news far and wide in her pagan country and a large number of people may have come to faith in the Lord because of her testimony.
"'Give me your son,' Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. Then he cried out to the Lord, 'Lord my God, have You brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?' Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, 'Lord my God, let this boy's life return to him!'" (1 Kings 17:19-21) The "upper room" is probably the type of rooftop room that many ancient people had on their flat-topped dwellings. These rooms were used as guest rooms and may have had their own separate means of access such as a staircase or ladder. It would have given an improper impression if Elijah had dwelled in a bedroom in the main part of the house since he wasn't married to the woman. But why doesn't Elijah lay the boy out on the boy's own bed or on the floor in the widow's living room? I think it may be because Elijah's own room is where he's used to praying. If you have a particular spot in your house where you do most of your praying, isn't that where you'd naturally go to pray in your most extreme circumstances? I think Elijah's room is where he feels closest to God and that's where he takes the child.
"The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, 'Look, your son is alive!' Then the woman said to Elijah, 'Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.'" (1 Kings 17:22-24) This miracle proves to her that everything Elijah says about the Lord can be trusted. I think it proves this to many other people who will hear her story. I believe another thing of great importance has happened here: the miracle helps her to stop beating herself up over the sins she committed before she knew the Lord. The Lord didn't allow her son to die as a judgment for her sins; He allowed her son to die so He could prove to her that He is the only God and that He alone has the power over life and death. A God who did all this to save her soul is not going to keep reminding her of her past. She displayed a clear awareness of her sinful past when she made the statement that maybe her son died because of her sins. By this we know she acknowledged her sins and was sorry for them. But she still harbored the fear that God was going to keep holding her sins against her. Raising her son back to life proves to her that the Lord has forgiven her of her sins and is not going to keep flinging them in her face. He's put them behind His back and she needs to do the same.
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