1 Kings 17.19-24:
| 17.19 ויאמר אליה | He says to her, |
|---|---|
| תני לי את בנך | “Give me your son.” |
| ויקחהו מחיקה | He takes him from her lap. |
| ויעלהו אל העליה | He takes him up to the upstairs |
| אשר הוא ישב שם | which is where he lives. |
| וישכבהו על מטתו׃ | He loads him onto the bench. |
| 17.20 ויקרא אל יהוה | He summons Yahweh. |
| ויאמר יהוה אלהי | He says, “Yahweh, my God, |
| הגם על האלמנה אשר אני מתגורר עמה | surely, to the widow whom I stay with, |
| הרעות להמית את בנה׃ | You do evil to kill her son.” |
| 17.21 ויתמדד על הילד | He stretches himself over the boy |
| שלש פעמים | three times. |
| ויקרא אל יהוה | He summons Yahweh. |
| ויאמר יהוה אלהי | He says, “Yahweh, my God, |
| תשב נא נפש הילד הזה על קרבו׃ | please return this boy’s lifeα to his heart.” |
| 17.22 וישמע יהוה בקול אליהו | Yahweh listens to Eliyahu’s voice. |
| ותשב נפש הילד על קרבו | The boy’s lifeα returned to his heart. |
| ויחי | He lives. |
| 17.23 ויקח אליהו את הילד | Eliyahu takes the boy. |
| וירדהו מן העליה | He goes down from the upstairs |
| הביתה | into the house. |
| ויתנהו לאמו | He gives him to his mother. |
| Eliyahu says, “See, your son is alive.” | |
| 17.24 ותאמר האשה אל אליהו | The woman says to Eliyahu, |
| עתה זה ידעתי | “Now I know this: |
| כי איש אלהים אתה | that you’re a God-follower.β |
| ודבר יהוה בפיך אמת׃ | Truly Yahweh’s word comes from your mouth.” |
Last time, on Fuller Understanding, the son of the woman whom Elijah is staying with dies. She blames her sin. She wants to know what point there is to having a God-follower living with her. In general she’s not happy.
Nor is Elijah. He takes the boy from her, takes him upstairs to the roof where he’s staying, puts him on the bench where he (probably) sleeps, and tells God, “Surely You break her to kill her son.”
This doesn’t sound at all like the usual translations, which try to avoid making Elijah accuse God of doing something hurtful. Some turn it into a question: “Have You broken her?” as if it might not be His fault or His intention. Some turn רעע into “bring calamity” or “bring tragedy” or something else watered down. The term literally means “break to pieces,” and figuratively means “do evil,” which is how the KJV puts it. In general, the impact of Elijah’s statement gets watered down.
Why? Well, because we’re moving into the area of theodicy. Theodicy is the branch of theology that defends God’s behavior. It argues that God is always good, and never does anything evil. This is contrary to the scriptures—God sometimes does “evil,” though it’s only evil from our perspective. God’s command is for us to not murder, but He can kill anyone He wants.
So when God decided that this widow’s son was going to die, Elijah calls it evil—which, to her, it is. Here she’s been helping out His prophet, and she’s been (I presume) following God; and then her son dies. Pretty rough.
But we forget that God considers these things negotiable. We forget this all the time. We consider death to be so final that we never consider—even though Jesus and Elijah and Paul and Peter and a whole slew of people raised the dead—that maybe death isn’t the final word we make it out to be. Elijah wasn’t willing to settle for death. He wanted God to put the boy’s life back.
I’ve actually heard it preached that this “stretching himself over the boy” was some strange form of ancient CPR. I doubt it. It seems more of a prayer posture. People kneel, lift hands, fold hands, bow down, lay hands on people, and in this case Elijah stretched over someone. It isn’t necessary, like an incantation, to get the boy raised; it’s just that sometimes our posture helps us focus on who or what we’re praying for, and certainly who we’re praying to. Stretching worked for Elijah.
God’s response was to put the boy’s life back, and Elijah brought him down to his mother. She immediately took back everything she said against him. Note that she never actually says anything against God—she just wasn’t sure about Elijah. But if Elijah can talk to God, and God will afterward bring kids back to life, then obviously the two of them have a relationship that erases any previous doubts.
α. Or “soul,” or “breath of life.”
β. Lit. “man of God.” I translate it “God-follower” because she’s referring to his religion.
