As Elijah’s prayer turned from a question to a request, he also performed an action. It is difficult to choose a word to describe the type of action that it was. It scarcely deserves to be called a ritual, since rituals are sacred actions that are repeated on like occasions, but this event was, up to that time, unique. The return of life to a dead body had never taken place before. Elijah had no experience to fall back upon.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to insist that his behaviour is purely arbitrary. He stretched himself upon the boy’s body three times. There may well have been a symbolic significance to this action, but to state what it was would be pure speculation.
At the same time he did this stretching, Elijah asked the Lord to allow life to return to the body of the widow’s son. This was an astounding prayer! It also required an amazing faith! He was asking the Lord for something that had never been seen before in the history of the world.
As amazing as the faith was, it was not unique, for the writer to the Hebrews tells us that when Abraham took his son to be sacrificed, he believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead. Perhaps it was the memory of that event that gave Elijah courage to pray as he did.
21 Et il s'étendit trois fois sur l'enfant, invoqua l'Eternel, et dit: Eternel, mon Dieu, je t'en prie, que l'âme de cet enfant revienne au-dedans de lui!