CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
1 Kings 17:17. Fell sick … no breath left in him—This phrase does not absolutely imply death (comp. Daniel 10:17; also 1 Kings 10:17). Josephus renders the incident thus—ὡς καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν�. We may concede that the boy was in a state of fatal exhaustion, sinking away into death, and not absolutely dead. But whichever was the case, his recovery was as really supernatural and miraculous.
1 Kings 17:18. What have I to do with thee?—The bitter upbraiding of incoherent grief. My sin to remembrance—No particular sin, but the current error that affliction was a punishment (comp. John 9:3). In the first passion and dismay of sorrow we strangely misread God’s design.
1 Kings 17:19. Carried him into a loft—The upper chamber; alone there with God, to plead for Divine interpretation and removal of this unexpected calamity.
1 Kings 17:21. Stretched himself upon the child three times—“Stretched himself,” &c., thereby employing rational means for warming, and thus revivifying the body; but not relying on natural methods for his restoration, but on God’s intervention, using means of themselves ineffectual for the miraculous result. “Three times” “because the calling upon the name of Jehovah in the old covenant was a threefold act (Psalms 55:18; Daniel 6:10); thrice in the high priestly benediction was the name of Jehovah laid upon Israel (Numbers 6:22); thrice did the seraphim before the throne of Jehovah cry out holy (Isaiah 6:3).”—Lange. And Jesus himself “left them and went away and prayed the third time, saying the same words.” (Matthew 26:44).
1 Kings 17:24. Now by this I know—“Because thou hast seen thou hast believed;” yet she had already shown faith when proof was not visible. This was a most gracious seal to her faith, which had thus been doubly end sorely tried.—W. H. J.
HOMILETICS OF 1 Kings 17:17-24
THE MARVELLOUS POWER OF AN INTREPID FAITH
I. We see here how an intrepid faith may be sorely tried.
1. By sudden and unexpected bereavement (1 Kings 17:17). The youth who had escaped from the merciless fangs of famine, and who, for some time, was sustained by a miraculous supply of God, is smitten down with a mysterious disease, and, as it would appear, with appalling suddenness, expires. It is sad to lose our health, sad to lose our fortune, but it is sadder still to lose the loved ones of our hearth and home.
’Tis hard to lay our darling
Deep in the cold, damp earth;
His empty crib to see, his silent nursery,
Once gladsome with his mirth.
The thought of death gives a tinge of melancholy to every event of life, and reveals the frailty and transitoriness of all earthly things. The Roman Emperor who had commanded a world, exclaimed, when he came to die, “I was everything, and have found that everything is nothing.” And yet, if it were something, in one moment death robs us of it all. No wonder that while complaining of life we turn away from death. “We live hating life, yet full of fear to die.” And when death comes, slowly or suddenly, it tests the faith of the staunchest believer.
2. By the spectacle of a bewildering sorrow (1 Kings 17:18). Only a mother knows a mother’s grief. How ready we are, says Bishop Hall, to mistake the grounds of our afflictions, and to cast them upon false causes. The passionate mother cannot find weather to impute the death of her son but to the presence of Elijah, to whom she ones distracted with perplexity, not without an unkind challenge of him from whom she had received both that life she had lost and that she had: “What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God?” As if her son could not have died if Elijah had not been her guest, whereas her son had died but for him. Why should she think that the prophet had saved him from the famine to kill him with sickness? He who had appeased God towards her is suspected to have incensed him. This wrongful misconstruction was enough to move any patience. Elijah was of a hot and fiery temperament, and a strain was put upon his self-control. But his faith in God, and the sympathy roused within him for the afflicted widow, not only taught him forbearance, but made him the more anxious to do what he could to alleviate her anguish.
II. We see here how an intrepid faith is sustained and strengthened by earnest and importunate prayer (1 Kings 17:19-21). This incident brings out for the first time in his history one of the most marked and powerful features of Elijah’s character as a man of prayer He was personally deeply moved by the distress which this bereavement had brought into the widow’s home; and his prayer is an urgent appeal to God, as a just and merciful and righteous Being. He pleaded for the restoration of life to the dead boy—a bold and hitherto unheard of request from the lips of mortal man! “We can imagine the Tishbite pacing up and down his little chamber in importunate, impassioned prayer; but yet with no doubt as to the result of his intercession. It was a mighty demand, indeed, for a mortal to make a request that had no previous parallel in praying lips. It was nothing short of this: that unassailable death be stormed in his own strongholds; that the iron crown be plucked from the head of the king of terrors. When Elijah does manifest faith, it is always of the noblest type.” The higher exercises of faith are possible only to earnest, resolute, and incessant prayer.
III. We see here how an intrepid faith is honoured by a signal display of Divine power (1 Kings 17:22-23). This is the first recorded instance of a resurrection from the dead. Many suppose that this youth afterwards became the servant of Elijah (1 Kings 18:43; 1 Kings 19:3): and an old Jewish tradition identifies him with the prophet Jonah. “It was a proud thought for Greece that on one and the same day she gained the battle of Platæa on the land, and the battle of Mycalè on the sea. And what would be the grateful joy of this widow woman that by one and the same agency, in the retirement of her home, and in a period of the severest national distress, in place of two victims there had been two victories—a victory over famine, a victory also over death.” Nothing is impossible to believing prayer. If Elijah by his fervent supplications could bring about supernatural results, why should we fail in securing blessings with. In the ordinary sphere of nature, by the agency of prayer?
IV. We see here how an intrepid faith is the means of strengthening and confirming the weak (1 Kings 17:24). This Sareptan widow believed in God before, but she is a stronger and more decided believer now. The miraculous replenishing of her store convinced her of the mercy and love of God, and the raising of her son from the dead gave her a still deeper insight into the Divine Majesty and power, and invested the mission of the prophet with a still more awful authority. The design of miracles is not for display, or to excite wonder, but for the confirmation of truth. The strongest faith sometimes gives way and needs heavenly support. Had this widow’s son continued dead, her belief had been buried in his grave: notwithstanding her meal and oil, her soul had languished. The condescension of God provides new helps for our infirmities, and meets us on our own ground, that he may work out our faith and salvation. The onus of unbelief is thrown wholly on man. God takes care there shall be no lack of evidence for the encouragement and building up of faith.
LESSONS:—
1. Bereavement and sorrow intensify our sympathy with humanity.
2. The soul in its deepest suffering finds rest and consolation alone in God.
3. Faith in God achieves the grandest moral victories.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
1 Kings 17:17-24. Raising the Widow’s Song of Song of Solomon 1. No home exempt from the trials and sufferings of this life. This widow would doubtless be looked upon with envy by her neighbours. They would think that in the midst of the distress suffered by them she was free and protected by an unseen hand from wretchedness and woe. But a deeper sorrow than they imagined was soon her portion. In looking upon some homes, we are apt to think they are strangers to the ordinary trials and sorrows of life. But there is no home that can exclude these. However well provided temporarily, however diligent and devoted in the path of Christian duty the inmates may be, still there comes to them, more or less, trial and suffering of one kind or another—affliction, disappointment, bereavement. To know this should prepare us to meet trials when they come.
2. The deepest sorrow may be the instrument of our highest good. Nothing could have been a greater affliction to this woman than the death of her son; but it gave God the opportunity of exercising His power in raising him from the dead. By means of this she was enlightened, and her faith in God confirmed. She was on the borderland of true faith before; now she enters into its fulness. “Now, by this, I know, &c.” Many have been similarly blessed by trial and sorrow; they have obtained clearer and loftier views of God and stronger faith in Him. ‘J hey have been raised up into a higher region of life and affection (Hebrews 12:11).
3. An illustration of the power of prayer. How differently would this woman regard prayer to Jehovah to what she had done before! She would see that it was the way of access to God and of prevailing with Him; and lead her to imitate that earnest and confident prayer of Elijah which brought her son back from the regions of the dead. We have many rich and valuable illustrations of the power of prayer in Holy Writ and in our own history, which should lead us to a more earnest and persevering use of it.—The Study and Pulpit.
1 Kings 17:18. The voice of conscience.
1. Is heard in the midst of calamity.
2. Is an unfailing remembrancer of sin.
3. May mislead as to the reasons for which calamity is permitted to overtake us.
4. Should be listened to with a view of moral improvement.
1 Kings 17:19-21. Behold this great man in his chamber, alone with the corpse of that fair child. See how vehemently he strides up and down, gradually working himself up to the height of the great demand which gleams before his thought, a demand which had not crossed the mind of man since the beginning of the world, only because no man before had had the same degree of faith—the faith to deem it possible that the dead might be restored to life at man’s urgent prayer. It is done. His purpose is taken. The child may live. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. It is as easy for Him to give back life as to take it; and He will do this if asked with adequate faith. Elijah knew that men too often expect to move the mountains by such faith as suffices not to shake the mole-hills; and that because, from the insufficiency of the means, the hoped-for results do not follow, the power of faith is disparaged. But he felt the true mountain-moving faith heaving strong within him, and he gave it unrestrained vent. He threw himself upon the corpse, as if, in the vehement energy of his will, to force his own life into it; and he cried with mighty and resistless urgency to God to send back to this cold frame the breath he had taken away. Faith conquered. It was adequate, and therefore irresistible.—Kitto.
1 Kings 17:22. Even if the Lord do no miracle, there are still a thousand ways and means by which He sends comfort and strength, or help and salvation, in answer to the believing prayer of His faithful servants. Each granting of prayer is indeed a miracle, and never is one humble, believing prayer uttered in vain—no, not even when it is refused.—Menken.
—The illimitable power of God.
1. Has absolute control over life and death.
2. Can accomplish whatever does not imply a contradiction: it is never uselessly employed.
3. Is exerted in answer to believing prayer.
4. Confirms the faith of the wavering.
1 Kings 17:23. He who testified that man did not live from hour to hour by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, testified also to a stranger from the commonwealth of Israel that God can give back that life which He has taken away. The poor woman of Zidon learnt the amazing lesson that the power which she had looked upon as emphatically the destroyer, is warring with death, and can win a victory over it, not for some great and holy person, but for her whose sins had been brought to remembrance by the presence of the prophet and the death of her child—Maurice.
1 Kings 17:24. Real knowledge of the truth. I. There is a kind of knowledge of scriptural things which leaves a man perfectly satisfied with himself. This widow seems to have been acquainted with the God of Israel, in the way of providence, and seems to have known Elijah to be a prophet by his dress; and her obedience appears to have been of that kind which springs from the intellectual knowledge that a man has, that God is almighty; that, being perfect, He is therefore faithful; and that what He says must come to pass; but it does not seem to have been that which springs from a heart knowledge of Him as a just God and a Saviour, who “pardoneth iniquity,” and which knowledge begets an appropriation of God as “my God” to the heart—for, you observe, she says, “As the Lord thy God liveth.” She does not say, “As the Lord my God liveth!” This lesson of knowing God as our God she has yet to learn. And this she was to learn in the school of affliction—a furnace in which many of God’s children are chosen and made to know Him. There are many persons in the same state as the widow of Zarephath before the prophet came to her. Like her, they have heard of God; they have heard that there is a God; they do not deny the truth and power of God; they believe that the Word of God is true; they do not hesitate to render a sort of outside obedience to His commands. We find them continually speaking calmly of death, just as this woman did; but all the peace which apparently accompanies this calm statement about death is false. It arises from ignorance of sin. When this is brought vividly and clearly to remembrance, then their peace flies away, because there is no real acquaintance with Christ. They know the inconvenience of sin, they know the disgrace of it; but as to the real nature of sin, they are ignorant of it, because no man ever can abide under a knowledge of the nature of sin without fleeing to Jesus for the remedy that God has provided in Him.
II. This kind of knowledge is shown not to be a real acquaintance with truth, by impatience under affliction. “What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?” By some this is understood to express her deep sense of the vast difference between herself and the prophet, and the feeling she entertained in consequence; as when Peter, astonished at the marvellous draught of fishes, exclaimed, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” But it seems as if the words are expressive of a feeling of impatience of the sorrow which had come upon her, in consequence, as she thought, of the presence of the prophet: as if she had said, “If this be the consequence of thy visit, would I had never seen thee.” She forgets God’s goodness, and thinks only of her trial. Are there not many who go on for years partaking of God’s bounty, who are favoured above thousands around them, but who have no knowledge of the state of their own hearts, and who, when the Lord afflicts them, are irritated, and think themselves hardly dealt by; or when, by the preaching of the Word of God; He graciously opens their eyes to the condition of their hearts, are impatient at those doctrines, those statements, which God frequently makes use of to affirm His purpose of love? This widow saw in Elijah not the servant of the Lord, so much as one who brought her sins to remembrance, and slew her son; and this she could not bear. Trials which mellow and ripen the saint, irritate and enrage the graceless sinner; and heart-searching preaching leads men to speak evil of the way of truth. This woman could not have talked so calmly of dying if she had known what her sins were; but when she was stripped of self-confidence, of all those false hopes which were dear to her as her son—and when God calls upon men now-a-days to relinquish their all to Him, in His love He will take them off from every false confidence, till they are left like the childless widow, with their sins staring them in the face, and all their creature-comforts gone, stripped and made bare by God’s Holy Spirit, then they are alive to the Scripture truth that they are in themselves “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
III. It is generally under a deep sense of sin, or through deep waters, that God leads to real acquaintance with the truth. “And he said unto her, Give me thy son: and he took him out of her bosom.” The dead son she can part with readily; she is brought so low, she is willing to do anything for a remedy. She sees matters cannot be worse, and therefore she is willing to listen to any remedy which may make them better. And that is just the point which a man is brought to who receives the Lord Jesus with thankfulness. He sees things cannot be worse; he sees a truth which the world is very slow to believe, that there is no such thing as exaggerating the evil of sin. And when the Lord says to the convicted sinner, “Give me thine heart,” that heart which is dead to every hope but that which the Gospel gives, it is immediately yielded up. As God gave back life to the widow’s son, so in regeneration does God give back that principle of eternal life which was forfeited in Adam; God breathes into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man becomes a living soul again, in contradistinction to what he is naturally, in Scripture language, “dead in trespasses and sins.” Thus was the widow taught what she did not know, perhaps, in heart before, and by means which were utterly at variance with her best affections; and thus also our proud hearts are humbled, and made to know that those doctrines and statements of the Word of God which they long scoffed at are truth.
LESSONS.—
1. There is such a thing as being acquainted with the Word, and obeying it in a certain outward sense, and being calm in the prospect of death, and yet not knowing that Word experimentally to be truth.
2. Until we are brought to know the evil of sin, we shall be ignorant of the spiritual meaning of the Word of God, and in that degree resist the truth.
3. Until we yield ourselves wholly to God, we shall never know the truth savingly, or find peace really.—The Pulpit.
—We pass through much grief and humiliation before, with joyful assurance, we can say to Him who is greater than Elijah, Now know I that thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God. Only by means of individual experience does each man come to the blessed confession that the Word of the Lord is truth. He only is a servant of God in whose mouth the Word of the Lord is truth, not mere appearance and sham.—Lange.