1 Kings 17:19

And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

1 Kings 17:19-20. Give me thy son — Into my arms. He took him out of her bosom — By which it appears he was but a little child. And carried him up into a loft — A private place, where he might more freely and fully pour out his soul to God, and use such gestures and methods as his heart inclined him to use, without any offence or observation. And laid him upon his own bed — So that it was the room where he lodged, though near the top of the house. And he cried unto the Lord — And, in his prayer, humbly reasons with God concerning the death of the child, using most powerful arguments. Thou art the Lord, that canst revive the child; and my God, and therefore wilt not deny me. She is a widow, add not affliction to the afflicted; deprive her not of the support and staff of her age: she hath given me kind entertainment: let her not fare the worse for her kindness to a prophet, whereby wicked men will take occasion to reproach both her and religion.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:17-24 Neither faith nor obedience shut out afflictions and death. The child being dead, the mother spake to the prophet, rather to give vent to her sorrow, than in hope of relief. When God removes our comforts from us, he remembers our sins against us, perhaps the sins of our youth, though long since past. When God remembers our sins against us, he designs to teach us to remember them against ourselves, and to repent of them. Elijah's prayer was doubtless directed by the Holy Spirit. The child revived. See the power of prayer, and the power of Him who hears prayer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Into a loft - Rather, "into the upper chamber;" often the best apartment in an Eastern house.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

1Ki 17:17-24. He Raises Her Son to Life.

17-24. the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick—A severe domestic calamity seems to have led her to think that, as God had shut up heaven upon a sinful land in consequence of the prophet, she was suffering on a similar account. Without answering her bitter upbraiding, the prophet takes the child, lays it on his bed, and after a very earnest prayer, had the happiness of seeing its restoration, and along with it, gladness to the widow's heart and home. The prophet was sent to this widow, not merely for his own security, but on account of her faith, to strengthen and promote which he was directed to go to her rather than to many widows in Israel, who would have eagerly received him on the same privileged terms of exception from the grinding famine. The relief of her bodily necessities became the preparatory means of supplying her spiritual wants, and bringing her and her son, through the teachings of the prophet, to a clear knowledge of God, and a firm faith in His word (Lu 4:25).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Give me thy son into mine arms.

Into a loft; a private place, where he might more freely and fully pour out his soul to God, and use such gestures or methods as he thought most proper, without any offence or observation.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he said unto her, give me thy son, and he took him out of her bosom,.... Where she had laid him, mourning over him; from thence the prophet took him with her leave:

and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed; an upper room, which was his bedchamber; hither he carried him, that he might be alone, and use the greater freedom both in his expressions and gestures.

Geneva Study Bible

And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. And he took him out of her bosom] Her arms were clasped about the dead boy. We need not understand the expression as of a child who was still young enough to be carried in the arms, though the prophet was able to carry him into his own chamber.

into a loft] R.V. the chamber. The word is so rendered in 1 Kings 17:23, and the two should be made to agree.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out Of her bosom, [the age of the child may hence be roughly inferred] and carried him up into a loft [Heb. הָעֲלִיָּה the upper chamber. LXX. τὸ ὑπερῷον. Loft is most misleading. The upper room, was often [rather, always] the best apartment in an Eastern house" (Rawlinson). It was sometimes the guest chamber (Luke 22:11, 12), and, from the uses to which it was put, must have been large (Acts 1:13; Acts 9:39; Acts 20:8; 2 Kings 1:2). Thomson (L. & B. 1:235) infers from the fact that the widow's house had an upper room, "that the mode of building in Elijah's time and the custom of giving the alliyeh to the guest were the same as now; also that this poor widow was not originally among the poorest classes (who bare no alliyeh), but that her extreme destitution was owing to the famine"], and laid him upon his own bed. [It may be doubted whether the verb תךל יַשְׁכִּבֵהוּ., made him to lie down, would be used of a corpse.] 1 Kings 17:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Elijah told her to carry the dead child up to the chamber in which he lived and lay it upon his bed, and then cried to the Lord, "Jehovah, my God! hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, to slay her son?" These words, in which the word also refers to the other calamities occasioned by the drought, contain no reproach of God, but are expressive of the heartiest compassion for the suffering of his benefactress and the deepest lamentation, which, springing from living faith, pours out the whole heart before God in the hour of distress, that I may appeal to Him the more powerfully for His aid. The meaning is, "Thou, O Lord my God, according to Thy grace and righteousness, canst not possibly leave the son of this widow in death." Such confident belief carries within itself the certainty of being heard. The prophet therefore proceeds at once to action, to restore the boy to life.