Widow of Zarephath

Scripture: 1 Kings 17:8–24; Luke 4:25–26

The command and the woman (1 Kings 17:8–10), After Elijah had been sustained at the Wadi Cherith by ravens and the wadi had dried up because there was no rain in the land, YHWH spoke to him: "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you" (17:9). The command had already been issued; the widow did not yet know it. Zarephath was in Phoenicia, the territory of Jezebel's homeland, of the Baal-worshipers who had provoked the drought. YHWH sent his prophet for sustenance to the homeland of his enemies. Elijah arrived at the gate of the city. A widow was gathering sticks. He called to her: "Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink" (17:10). She went to get it.

The last meal (1 Kings 17:11–12), As she went, Elijah called again: "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." She answered: "As YHWH your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die" (17:12). She had identified YHWH as the prophet's God, "YHWH your God", not her own. She had a handful of flour, a little oil, and she was preparing the last meal she expected to make. She had already made peace with its being the last.

Elijah's word and her obedience (1 Kings 17:13–16), "Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says YHWH, the God of Israel: 'The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that YHWH sends rain upon the earth'" (17:13–14). The prophet's request was radical: make me the first cake from your last flour. The widow "went and did as Elijah said" (17:15). The jar of flour was not spent, and the jug of oil did not run out, according to the word of YHWH that he spoke by Elijah. She fed him "many days," she and her household.

Her son's death (1 Kings 17:17–18), After some days, the woman's son fell sick. His illness was severe, "so severe that there was no breath left in him" (17:17). She said to Elijah: "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!" (17:18). The accusation is the accusation of the theology of retribution: the prophet's presence has exposed some guilt of hers that YHWH is now executing. She attributed her son's death to hidden sin surfaced by the prophet's proximity.

Elijah's prayer and the child's restoration (1 Kings 17:19–24), Elijah took the child from her arms, carried him to the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried to YHWH: "O YHWH my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?" (17:20). Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried to YHWH: "O YHWH my God, let this child's life come into him again" (17:21). YHWH listened to the voice of Elijah. The child's life came into him again. He lived. Elijah carried him down and gave him to his mother. She answered: "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of YHWH in your mouth is truth" (17:24). The miracle of sustained provision she had received for "many days" had not produced that confession. The death and restoration of her son produced it.

Jesus's reference at Nazareth (Luke 4:25–26), When the synagogue at Nazareth rejected Jesus's application of Isaiah 61 to himself, he responded: "Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow" (4:25–26). YHWH bypassed the widows of Israel and sent the prophet to a Phoenician. This reference enraged the Nazareth congregation. The woman of Zarephath is Jesus's Exhibit A for the sovereignty of grace beyond ethnic boundaries.

She is unnamed. She was gathering sticks to cook the last meal she would ever make. YHWH had already commanded her to feed the prophet, before she knew it. She obeyed when Elijah asked for the first cake from her last flour, and the flour did not run out. When her son died, the raising of the dead through Elijah's prayer was the first resurrection miracle recorded in the biblical narrative. Jesus pointed to her as the paradigm case of grace bypassing the expected recipient. The Sanctum holds her as the unnamed Phoenician who sustained the prophet and received the dead back.