1 Ki. 17: Like Lazarus

1 Kings 17:22 "The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived."

Ahab was king on the throne of Israel, and was pretty freaking naughty, having built temples to Baal, and Asherah pole, and hooking up with a woman named Jezebel, a foreigner. This all added up to very unhappy God.

The next prophet, Elijah, passed on word from the LORD that as punishment for being a jackass, there will be no rain in Israel unless Elijah says so. Then the LORD gets him out there. Which is good. Evil kings have not reacted positively to bad news about their actions (See: Jeroboam). Where Elijah ends up, he will be fed bread and meat by ravens. The raven was last seen being Noah's signal that the earth was still flooded back in Genesis 8, and being declared an unclean animal in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. So what's the deal with that? Why would God send an unclean animal to feed Elijah? Ravens weren't to be eaten, but if they were unclean, wouldn't what they touched be unclean (Lev. 7:19)? Were they exempt from the cleanliness laws that governed people? I don't want to get hung up here, I'm just curious. It is an amazing thing to be brought sustenance by something unclean. By a bird, period. Pretty awesome.

Because of the drought, the brook that Elijah called home dried up, God sends him to Sidon, a foreign town outside Israel. There he meets a woman who gives him some water when he asks for it. As she's on her way, he asks for bread. This woman was just preparing to make the last meal for her and her son, as they are going to starve. And Elijah asks for bread.

I must admire the faith of this woman. Elijah tells her that if she goes home and makes him a cake, her flour and oil will never run out until the drought ends. And since she's from Sidon, I wonder what she knew about faith in the LORD. If anything. She knew what sin was, as when her son dies, she accuses Elijah of reminding her of her sin and killing her son. So Elijah brings the boy upstairs, prays over him, and he comes back to life! This is new territory. God is capable of restoring life to dead people. Can you imagine being deathly sick, and then what it would be like to be alive and in perfect health? Where did he go? What happened? Was he temporarily gathered to his fathers? What did he see? What did he know? What was that conversation like between him and his mother after that? Whaaaaaaaat?

Its a pretty good miracle, and that's all it took for the woman to declare her trust that the word of the LORD through Elijah was true. Not the neverending flour jar and oil jug. Flour and oil were not enough. Life is.