Scripture Daily

Context No. 1179 of 4322 · 1 Kings

Context · Reflection

1 Kings 17:19-24: in context

19He said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the room where he stayed, and laid him on his own bed. 20He cried to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” 21He stretched himself on the child three times, and cried to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, please let this child’s soul come into him again.” 22The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the room into the house, and delivered him to his mother; and Elijah said, “Behold, your son lives.” 24The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the LORD’s word in your mouth is truth.”

The widow of Zarephath, who had sheltered Elijah and seen her flour and oil miraculously sustained, is suddenly struck by the worst grief: her son sickens and dies. Elijah takes the boy from her arms, carries him up to his own room, lays him on the bed, and cries out to God with raw honesty, LORD, have you brought disaster even on this widow by killing her son? He stretches himself over the child three times, praying, let this child's life come back into him. The LORD hears; the boy revives; Elijah brings him down and gives him to his mother, alive. And she says, now I know you are a man of God, and the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.

Two things move in this scene. First, Elijah's prayer is not polished; it is a wrestling, almost accusing cry, have you brought this evil on the widow, and then a desperate, repeated pleading as he stretches over the child three times. He does not offer neat theology in the face of a dead child; he brings God his anguish and confusion and keeps pressing. There is permission in that to pray honestly in grief, even to bring God our bewildered why, and to keep asking. Second, notice the widow's response: now I know you are a man of God, and the LORD's word in your mouth is truth. She had already seen the flour and oil sustained, a standing miracle, and yet it is through this deeper valley, the death and raising of her son, that her faith reaches certainty. Sometimes the assurance that God is real and his word true comes not in the steady provision but on the far side of the hardest grief, when we have seen him meet us even in death. The raised child convinced her as the sustained flour had not. God brought her, through the worst loss, to a settled knowing.

Can I pray as honestly as Elijah in the face of grief, wrestling and pleading, and do I trust that God can bring me, even through the hardest loss, to a deeper certainty that his word is truth?

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