The Day Between

Ahab Admonitions Part II:  The Widow of Zarephath

            In my last post, I started a conversation revolving around Ahab, Israel’s worst king.  Because he was so bad, God sent Elijah to proclaim a drought.  This was a divine slap in the face to Ahab, because Baal was the god of the weather.  Israel was an agrarian society and dependent on rain for their crops – drought meant famine, famine meant death.  The true God meant to show Ahab and all Israel who was really in charge.

            As things begin to dry up in the land of Israel and food becomes scarce, God tells Elijah to do a strange thing. 

            Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you,”(1 Kings 17:8-9).

            Sidon is Jezebel’s home country.  It is under the control of her dad, Ethbaal.  These are the folks that Ahab wants to emulate.  It is Baal territory – and it is also suffering from a drought.  This widow is a Sidonian, just like Jezabel.  She's a foreigner, a Gentile, yet God commands her to provide for Elijah.  Weren’t there any widows in Israel or even Judah that could have done the job?  Jesus tells us:

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 (Luke 4:25-26).

Only this woman, we don’t even know her name, but God commanded her to provide for Elijah.  I wonder what that command sounded like?  Did she hear a voice?  Did He show her some sign?  Did she doubt?  Did she recognize the voice of a God she had not been serving?

And Elijah – did he blink when God told him to go to a widow in Zarephath of Sidon?  Were there no faithful in Israel?  Why Jezebel territory?  How does a widow provide for anyone during a famine – and a pagan widow at that?  He just obeys, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

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,”(1 Kings 17:10-12).

This is a remarkable meeting.  Elijah goes to the gate of Zarephath and requests help from just the right lady.  This lady addresses him like she knows him – “As the Lord your God lives.”  Maybe the widows in Sidon wore black.  Maybe God told Elijah she’d be at the gate gathering firewood.  We know the Lord had commanded the widow to provide for Elijah, his servant.  However the Lord communicated to the widow, she knew the living God spoke to her.  Not some statue in a temple, but the living God concerned with the sustenance of his prophet.  I get the feeling refusal didn’t seem like an option to her.

She must’ve looked in her flour bowl and looked up to heaven, and wondered how she could possibly provide for anyone.  God's command was impossible for to fulfill.  Was she afraid? 

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,’”(1 Kings 17:13-14).

It is a serious thing to be commanded by God to do something.  I think it is easy in our time to take for granted our relationship with the Lord, to be nonchalant in prayer and Bible reading.  If we know He wants us to do something, do we make sure to do it?  If we think it isn’t in our power to do, do we trust Him?

Elijah wouldn’t have told her to not be afraid if she appeared confident.  She saw an impossible situation, but God had a plan to care for His prophet and save this nameless woman who He knew as only He can know.

This widow went home and did what Elijah said.  Did she believe him?  Did she figure she was going to die anyway?  What did she think when she saw there was still flour in the bowl after making that little cake?

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 (1 Kings 17:15-16).

God performed quite a miracle here.  They ate for many days.  Not only was Elijah provided for, but this woman and her son, and her household.  This gives me the idea that she probably had servants and may have once been a woman of means before becoming a widow and enduring a famine.

The Lord sent Elijah to this widow to be provided for while He taught Ahab a lesson, but that wasn’t the only thing He had in mind.

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!” (1 Kings 17:17-18).

She didn’t seek God out.  He had sought her.  She was prepared to starve and die.  She wasn’t looking to be saved.  There’s a funny thing about spending time with the Lord and being in His presence.  The closer we get to seeing how good and holy He is, the more we realize how unworthy we are.  

If we spend too much time thinking about ourselves and relying on our own strength, we can miss His mercy.  

Her son is dead, and she thinks she is being punished.

He said to her, “Give me your son.”  Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed.  He called to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, have You also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?” (1 Kings 17:19-20).

Whatever God is doing here, He hasn’t shared the plan with Elijah.  This widow’s home is the Lord’s designated haven for Elijah.  What is He doing?  Elijah is feeling the weight of responsibility – a famine, people suffering, a nation’s soul, and now this widow’s son.  The responsibility is not Elijah’s to bear, but he feels the burden all the same.  

Often we can take responsibility for things that are not in our control.  Things the Lord never intended for us to bear.

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the Lord and said, “O Lord my God, I pray You, let this child’s life return to him.”  The Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.  Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and 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.” (1 Kings 17:21-24).

This is the first time in Scripture that God raises someone from the dead.  It seems to me the Lord goes to great lengths to reveal Himself to some insignificant woman – a foreign widow, who remains nameless in the Scriptures, but who can say with confidence that the Word of the Lord is truth. 

I have no doubt that He knows her name.