alive.” Verses 21–23. Why did Elijah stretch himself over the little boy’s body three times? It is symbolic of the deliverance that God wants to bring to us; it is threefold. God wants to bring to us a deliverance in spirit, soul, and body. The three times indicate that God will not bring the kind of resurrection that is a reanimation of the physical; God is bringing a total deliverance that involves the whole being. There is a deep significance in this. The desperate means brought a drastic deliverance.