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. 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.
This verse belongs to Elijah's work that included sternly confronting King Ahab and charging Ahab and his father's house with troubling Israel. Zarephath belongs to Zidon, a heathen land to which God sent Elijah to find refuge and asylum when there was no safety for him in Israel. The widow who hosted him there was a Phenician and not an Israelite who never had the privileges and blessings of God's chosen people, but she was a believer in the true God who had walked in all the light shining on her pathway. Before this verse she had shared her food with Elijah during the famine, and her hospitality and generosity toward the prophet had been rewarded by the preservation of her life and her son's life.
Just before this verse her son fell sick until no breath was left in him, and she accused Elijah of coming to call her sin to remembrance in order to slay her son. In the verse Elijah answers by taking the son from her arms or bosom, carrying him up into the loft where Elijah stayed, and laying him on Elijah's own bed to pray for him. Afterward Elijah stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, the Lord heard him, the soul of the child came into him again and he revived, and Elijah brought him down out of the chamber and delivered him alive to his mother.
The child's revival convinced the widow that Elijah was a man of God and that the word of the Lord in his mouth was truth. The account to which the verse belongs shows God's blessing on those who give help and sympathy to people in greater need.