1 Kings 17:17
And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him. And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no breath left in him.
This took place at Zarephath, which belongs to Zidon, where Elijah found refuge after remaining hidden for many months by the brook Cherith. There he had been miraculously provided with food until the continued drought dried the brook, and then God sent him to that heathen land to find asylum when there was no safety for him in Israel, having commanded the widow there to sustain him. The widow was not an Israelite and had never had the privileges and blessings enjoyed by the chosen people, but she was a believer in the true God and had walked in all the light shining on her pathway.
The event belongs to Elijah's work in the northern kingdom, connected with his stay with the widow and with his confrontation with Ahab. The sickness came after these things, after the widow had shown hospitality by housing Elijah and sharing her morsel with him, and after the household had been sustained through the famine by the miracle of the unfailing meal and oil. The son of the woman, the mistress of the house where Elijah stayed, fell sick, and his sickness was so severe that no breath was left in him.
His mother charged that Elijah had come to call her sin to remembrance and to slay her son, fearing her son had been taken as punishment for her sin. Elijah took the son from her bosom up to the loft chamber where he lived, laid him on his own bed, stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord. The Lord heard him so that the soul of the child came into him again and he revived, which begins the account of his restoration to life through Elijah's prayer.
Elijah carried the child down out of the chamber and delivered him alive to his mother, and she confessed that now she knew Elijah was a man of God and that the word of the Lord in his mouth was truth. In return for her sharing her morsel, when she shared her own life and her son's life, her life and her son's life were preserved. This means that to all who in time of trial and want give sympathy and assistance to others more needy God has promised great blessing, for He has not changed and His power is no less now than in the days of Elijah.