Later text
Acts 20:10BSB
But Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, and embraced him. “Do not be alarmed!” he said. “He is still alive!”
Intertextuality Pair
Acts 20:10 → 1 Kings 17:17-24
Allusion
Earlier text
Later, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill, and his sickness grew worse and worse, until no breath remained in him. “O man of God,” said the woman to Elijah, “what have you done to me? Have you come to remind me of my iniquity and cause the death of my son?” But Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this boy’s life return to him!” And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s life returned to him, and he lived. Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive,” Elijah declared. Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is truth.”
+ 1 more earlier text
Earlier text
And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters. “My head! My head!” he complained to his father. So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out. And the woman called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return.” “Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.” “Everything is all right,” she said. Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.” So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman. Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’” And she answered, “Everything is all right.” When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.” Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’” So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment, take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.” And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her. Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.” When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed. So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm. Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.” She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
Significance
When Eutychus falls to his death from the window, Paul goes down, throws himself on the young man, embraces him, and says, "Do not be alarmed!... He is still alive!" (Acts 20:10) — a scene deliberately shaped by the prophetic raisings of Elijah and Elisha, who likewise stretched themselves over dead sons and saw them restored (1 Kings 17:21-22; 2 Kings 4:18-37). Luke presents Paul in continuity with the great prophets: the God who gave life through Elijah and Elisha gives life through his apostle. These life-giving signs form a canonical trajectory that terminates in Christ, the resurrection and the life, who needed no stretching or prayer but raised the dead by his word and rose himself as "the firstfruits" (1 Corinthians 15:20). Prophets and apostles were servants of a power not their own; Eutychus restored is a small echo of the morning when the Life-giver will call all his own from death.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Typology
Linked Mentions 1