The Widow of Zarephath

Then the Word of the Lord came to him (Elijah) saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow here to provide for you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks that I may go in and prepare for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.” Then Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you have said, but make me a little bread cake from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son. For thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘The bowl of flour shall not be exhausted, nor shall the jar of oil be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.’”

So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah. (I Kings 17:8-16)

Our story takes place during the reign of the wicked Ahab and Jezebel in Israel. It contains an
interesting contrast between the widow of Zarephath and Jezebel. Jezebel was a Jew and a wealthy queen in Jerusalem. Jezebel was a member of the chosen people. The unnamed widow was a foreigner, a Gentile living up near Tyre, and very poor. (Zarephath is the second city down on the right at the top of the map.) Notice how far away Zarephath was from Jerusalem – the center of life for the Israelites. The temple was there and most of the prophets were there. The widow lived far away in the land of Gentiles. Before Elijah turned up in the widow’s life she had probably never even heard of the one true God – Yahweh.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t make mistakes in His Bible. There is a good reason that this story is placed inside of the larger story of Ahab and Jezebel. The contrast between the unfaithful Jews and the grateful Gentiles is intended. All through the Old Testament God showed the Israelites that He intended to rescue people from among all nations. This was confirmed when Jesus came.

At the beginning of His ministry Jesus went into a synagogue in Nazareth and began to speak. At first the Jews were listening politely. But Jesus knew that in their hearts they were rejecting Him. “And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.’ … And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things” (Luke 4:24-28).

It is well known that the Jews felt that they were God’s specially chosen people and that Gentiles were lesser beings, some Jews even referring to them as “dogs”. It was hard for the Jews to understand what we now take for granted – Jesus died on the cross for all peoples.

The story in I Kings confirms for us what Jesus said and did and shows us that God can work with whomever He chooses. Jesus was not doing something new and the Israelites should not have been so surprised. The Jews did not know their Scriptures!

Consider the difference between Jezebel and the widow. (For more on Jezebel, see my post on August 5, 2010.) Jezebel was a grasping, conniving, evil woman who felt that her position gave her privileges. The widow graciously gave up the last bit of food that she had to a stranger. She was probably not even a believer when Elijah came to her town. But God chose to bless this woman and the Holy Spirit had her story recorded in the Bible for us to show us part of God’s larger plan of salvation for the whole world.

We are not sure how the widow was led by God to provide for Elijah. The Bible says that God told Elijah that He commanded this widow to provide for him. What form did God’s command take? Was it an audible voice? We don’t know, but it does not seem at the beginning of the story that the widow had full trust in Elijah’s God.

So, Elijah came and asked her to make a sacrifice for him. She was graciously willing to give up her last morsel of food, even taking it out of the mouth of her own child for Elijah. She knew that her food was at an end and believed that she and her son were about to die from starvation.

Elijah said, “Do not fear.” He then gave her hope when he said that her supply of oil and flour would not run out. The widow trusted Elijah and made him a meal. Her trust was rewarded and her supply of oil and flour was providentially renewed daily. Things went along well for many days. Then one day the widow was tested.

Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. So she said to Elijah, “What do I have to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death!” He said to her, “Give me your son.” (I Kings 17:17-19)

The woman seems unclear about what causes trouble in life. It seems that she did not yet trust God or His prophet fully. But she had some idea that trouble came when people sinned. What sin could this kind, generous woman have been referring to? Maybe the goodness of God in giving her sustenance during the famine caused her to think about the difference between a holy God and a sinful person. In any event, her son was taken mortally ill and whatever faith she may have had was not strong enough to stand up to this test. Did God provide for them only to take her son away?

Elijah had faith to believe that God could work a miracle here – even the most spectacular kind of miracle. This boy was the first person recorded in the Old Testament to have been raised to life after dying.

The widow decided to trust Elijah. Elijah stretched himself across the child’s body and prayed three times. He begged God to restore life to the child and God heard “the voice of Elijah and the life of the child returned to him and he revived. … Elijah said, “See, your son is alive. Then the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth” (I Kings 17:22-24).

At this point we see real confirmation that the woman had become a believer.

It is amazing that this humble, poor, Gentile woman who had been willing to listen to Elijah was blessed and rewarded for her faith. The proud queen Jezebel refused to listen to the prophet of God. The merciless Jezebel would eventually go to her death fighting God. In contrast, the widow of Zarephath would be restored to health from starvation and see the restoration of life to her son thanks to the goodness of God.

The story emphasizes how good God is. He is the defender of the fatherless and the widow (even if they are Gentiles). He blessed this woman and helped her to conquer her fears and grow in faith. The Zarephath widow could then walk confidently in faith trusting God. She could not know that the Savior of the world, preaching many centuries later, would refer to her as an example of faith. We can be thankful that her story is recorded for our encouragement.