And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s life returned to him, and he lived.
We have here a further recompence made to the widow for her kindness to the prophet; as if it were a small thing to be kept alive, her son, when dead, is restored to life, and so restored to her. Observe, I. The sickness and death of the child. For aught that appears he was her only son, the comfort of her widowed estate.
Commenting on 1 Kings 17:17-24
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house,.... Being come to life, he took it off of the bed in his bedchamber, and brought it down to the lower part of the house, where the woman was: and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, see, thy son liveth; which no doubt was to her great...
And the soul - נפש nephesh, of the child came into him again, על קרבו al kirbo, into the midst of him; and he revived, ויח vaiyechi, and he became alive. Did he not become alive from the circumstance of the immaterial principle coming again into him?