As Peter traveled throughout the area, he went to visit the saints in Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you! Get up and put away your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up, and all who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which is translated as Dorcas), who was always occupied with works of kindness and charity. At that time, however, she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples heard that Peter was there and sent two men to urge him, “Come to us without delay.” So Peter got up and went with them. On his arrival, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood around him, weeping and showing him the tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Then Peter sent them all out of the room. He knelt down and prayed, and turning toward her body, he said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. Peter took her by the hand and helped her up. Then he called the saints and widows and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. And Peter stayed for several days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon.
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.”
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.
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.
Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.”
Significance
The story of Peter's cure, or rather resuscitation, of Tabitha contains deliberate structural parallels to the raisings of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-37): a death reported, messengers sent, the man of God arriving, the mourners put out, private prayer, direct address to the dead ("Tabitha, get up!"), and the raised one presented alive to the community. The same patterning can be observed in the narration of the healings and raisings that run through Luke-Acts (Luke 7:11-17 at Nain; Acts 20:7-12, Eutychus). Luke's parallelism signals that the apostolic mission carries the prophetic raising-the-dead trajectory forward — with the decisive escalation that the apostles act not by their own prophetic gift but by the power of the risen Christ ("Jesus Christ heals you!", Acts 9:34), whose own resurrection is the life-giving power at work.
