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.]

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.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.