And the word of Jehovah came to him saying,
The brook at Cherith, where God had hidden Elijah, has dried up. What comes next is not the prophet's own plan but a fresh word from God. It sends him out of Israel — to Sidon, to a widow who has nothing.
Elijah's supply changed, but the ground of his confidence did not.
Elijah's faith must still rest on the same unchanging basis. "I have commanded." How truly blessed this is! Circumstances change. Human things fail. The streams of creation dry up. But God and His Word are the same yesterday, today, and forever. Nor does the prophet seem to have been disturbed in the least by this fresh order from on high.
Elijah answered this word as he had answered the last one — he went. That says more about his power than his public victories do.
An unfailing mark of a true servant is obedience. When God told Elijah to hide by the brook Cherith, "he went and did according to the word of the LORD." Now, told to go to Zarephath, "he arose and went to Zarephath." … If asked to name the greatest display of power in Elijah's service, many would point to the scene on Mount Carmel. … But true spiritual power is silent and constant, and obedience to the will of God shows it far more clearly to the spiritual eye.
God did not send him somewhere safe. He sent him out of Israel, into the land whose worship had ruined Israel.
He is to leave the promised land and go to a city of the Gentiles. And of all cities, one that belonged to Sidon — the home of Baal, whose worship had brought ruin on the land. It was the home, too, of the wicked Jezebel, who had brought in the worship of Baal and murdered the prophets of the Lord. … And stranger still: once he arrived in that foreign land, the great prophet had to depend on a widow for his daily food. … Had the Lord commanded the prophet to sustain the widow we might think it more fitting. But no, God's plan is that the widow is to sustain the prophet.
The word that came to Elijah had two ends in view. Here the widow feeds Elijah; in Luke's Gospel he is sent to feed her.
When the brook had dried up, Elijah was sent to Zarephath to be sustained there by a widow (v. 9). In Luke 4:25-26 he is sent to the widow to sustain her. Both of these are true, and our account proves it. God had a double purpose: to sustain His servant, and to bring a message of grace to the widow through him. … The evangelist finds his own sustenance in bringing the good news of grace to others. … It is the same word, whether it comes straight to the prophet or whether it reaches people through him. So it is today with the gospel.
The choice of the poorest possible host was itself part of Elijah's training. It also follows a pattern that runs right through Scripture.
Everywhere in the Scriptures we learn the same thing. When God's people fall away and refuse His testimony, He turns, as it were, to those outside. There He displays the sovereignty of His grace. … A widow in Scripture stands for someone desolate and without resources. Elijah had to go to such a person for support. In this way he would learn the lesson himself, and be ready for his future work: when all created streams are dried up, the fullness of God remains unchanged.
Even the name of the town he was sent to carries a lesson.
Now Zarephath means the place of the smelting furnace. The prophet has passed the test of the failing brook at Cherith; he must now face the furnace of trial at Zarephath. But this is God's road to Carmel. Is he to call down fire from heaven? Then he must indeed pass through the fire on earth.
- Word. When the brook failed, the word came. Supplies change; God and His Word do not, and Elijah's faith rested on "I have commanded," not on Cherith.
- Obedience. He arose and went. Quiet obedience to that word is a truer display of spiritual power than the fire on Carmel.
- Furnace. Zarephath means the place of the smelting furnace. The road to calling down fire from heaven ran through fire on earth.
- Grace. The word sent him out of Israel into Sidon — Baal's home, and Jezebel's. God turns to those outside when His own people refuse His testimony.
- Supply. The double purpose held: the widow sustained the prophet, and the prophet carried grace to her. Once every created stream is dry, the fullness of God remains unchanged.
Arise, go to Zarephath, which is by Zidon, and abide there behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to maintain thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the entrance of the city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.
Elijah goes to Zarephath on nothing but a word he has been given. What he finds there matches the word in no visible way, and one writer draws out how little the scene offered him.
This was the scene that met the prophet's eye when he arrived at the place God had appointed. It was a gloomy and depressing sight to flesh and blood. But Elijah did not consult flesh and blood. The unchanging Word of the Lord held up his spirit. His confidence rested on the faithfulness of God, and he needed no help from the things around him. The horizon might look dark and heavy to human sight, but the eye of faith could see through the clouds.
The sending itself was already a test for the prophet, before he ever reached the city gate.
A widow in Scripture stands for someone who is desolate and without resources, and it was to such a person that Elijah had to go for support. He had to learn the lesson for himself, to fit him for his later work: that when all created streams are dried up, the fullness of God stays unchanged.
Elijah could have judged by her rags and looked for a better-off host. His first request is also strikingly small — water, not bread.
When faith is simple — and it is always simple when it comes only from the Word of God — we find the right thing in the right place. He might have passed by the widow who was to support him, because she was poor, and looked for someone better off. But he kept his eye on God, and her extreme poverty did not put him off, for faith always finds confirmation in its own activity. A soul led by God always feels its way. It does not doubt its way, but at first it asks only for the least; The answer it gets then encourages it to press on to its full requirement.
Israel had its own starving widows. God sent His prophet to the land that gave Israel Baal worship and Jezebel.
He is to leave the promised land and go to a city of the Gentiles — and of all cities, one that belonged to Zidon. Zidon was the home of Baal, whose worship had ruined the land. It was also the home of wicked Jezebel, who brought in Baal worship and murdered the prophets of the Lord. Stranger still, in that foreign land the great prophet was to depend on a widow woman for his daily food. … There were "many widows" in Israel in as sad a state, but they will not suit God's plan. As always, God has Christ in view. A thousand years later, in the city of Nazareth, the Lord would need an illustration of sovereign grace. So Elijah must go to a needy widow in the guilty land of Zidon.
This errand runs in two directions at once.
When the brook had dried up, Elijah was sent to Zarephath to be sustained there by a widow woman (v. 9). In Luke 4:25-26 he is sent to the widow to sustain her. God had a double purpose: to sustain His servant, and to bring a message of grace to the widow through him. … The evangelist finds his own support in bringing the good news of grace to others.
The stick-gathering is not thrift; it is the end of everything. Her own words later expose how thin her hold on God was.
At the city gate the prophet comes face to face with the widow. To natural sight and human reason it seems impossible that this can be the widow who is to sustain him. In complete poverty, this desolate and starving woman has come to the end of her resources. … The widow does speak of the living God, but He is Elijah's God, for she says "your God," not "my God." She had no personal faith in the living God. Her hopes hung on the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil, and as they run out there is nothing ahead of her but the gates of death. God, however, has another way for the widow than death. … Zarephath means the place of the smelting furnace. Elijah passed the test of the failing brook at Cherith; now he must face the furnace of trial at Zarephath.
She left home that morning for sticks and nothing more.
She had gone out of the city with no object higher or happier than the "two sticks," but she found the Lord, as it were, at the gate. There she met His prophet, and there she heard His word. How many believers are like her that day, full of their own thoughts and fears! In what they have and what they seek, self is their motive. So they rise no higher and see no further than the couple of sticks. They have not yet met the Lord at the gate. In other words, they have not yet received their commission, the service He has assigned to them here.
- Word first. Elijah moved on a command, not on evidence. The scene at Zarephath gave his senses nothing. His confidence rested on God's faithfulness alone.
- Word finds. Simple faith found the right person in the right place. Her poverty did not stop Elijah, and he asked at first only for a little water.
- Word reaches. God sent him past Israel's own widows into Zidon, the home of Baal and Jezebel. The errand fed the servant and carried grace to the woman.
- Word exposes. The widow at the gate was down to her last resources and had no faith of her own; she spoke of Elijah's God, not hers.
- Word commissions. She went out for two sticks and a last meal. She met God's messenger at the gate, and got a life and a service instead.
And she went to fetch [it], and he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand.
God sent Elijah to a foreign town, to a widow who would feed him. He finds her at the gate, gathering sticks for what she expects to be her last meal. He asks her for water. Then, while she is already on her way, he calls after her for bread. Why would a prophet press a starving woman like this?
Elijah did not size up the widow before speaking. God had told him she would feed him, and he acted on that alone. So the second request was not thoughtless. It was a probe, and it drew the truth out.
When he arrived at Zarephath, he met the poor widow who was to be his hostess straight away. There she was, by the gate of the city, gathering sticks. Elijah's faith saw no difficulty in her appearance, or in her obvious poverty. He knew God had told her to sustain him. So, resting on the sure word of the Lord, he asked her to fetch him a little water in a vessel to drink. As she was going to fetch the water, he added another request: "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." This second request drew out the condition this poor widow was in. She hid nothing.
One writer hears an echo of the Gospels in how Elijah asks. He also finds something surprising in her reply: a woman outside Israel names Israel's God, while Israel was turning away from Him.
When Elijah found himself face to face with the widow of whom the Lord had told him, he asked her for a drink of water, much in the same way as the Lord Jesus asked a drink from the woman of Samaria. As the widow turned to fetch it, he said, "Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." … Notice that she brought in the name of the Lord. This is wonderful! The foolish people of Israel were turning their backs on the one true God, preferring the false gods of the Zidonians. Yet here is a woman who, despite the ungodly influences around her, believed that Israel's God was the true God.
The two small requests did not create her poverty. They uncovered it. That uncovering is necessary, not cruel. God gives nothing until the truth is out.
Yet how humbling to pride, to be kept alive by a widow! How the distressing circumstances wither all self-confidence! But the desolate widow, the handful of meal, the cruse of oil, and death hovering over all, only serve to unfold the resources of the living God. And once the utter weakness and hopelessness of the circumstances comes to light, God is free to unfold the resources of grace. Elijah's request for "a little water" and "a morsel of bread" bring to light the condition of the widow. Truth is upheld, and so grace can be displayed.
God could have stocked her house before Elijah ever knocked. Instead every detail presses harder. One writer says this is how God treats faith He means to bless.
The prophet asks a great deal of her pity. He puts her faith fully to the test. If he had not been a prophet, and if this had not been a trial of faith, his words would have been most cruel and selfish… But this was exactly the trial of it. God, when He gives a trial of faith, does not pare it down so as to spoil the very force of His blessing; but the opposite. The greater the faith the more He tries… clearly God did not use the prophet to give her a barrel of meal to encourage her, or a cruse that began pouring out oil in a wonderful way — though He could easily have done it. This would have spoiled the whole teaching.
God did not send Elijah to a stranger by chance. It follows a pattern, and Jesus later pointed back to this very household.
We learn this everywhere in the Scriptures. When God's people drift away and refuse His testimony, He turns, as it were, to those outside. There He shows the sovereignty of His grace. The Lord Himself reminded His hearers in the synagogue of Nazareth of this fact. He cited this very case of the widow of Zarephath in support, along with that of Naaman the Syrian… In Scripture a widow stands for someone who is desolate and has no resources. Elijah had to go to such a person for support, so that he might learn the lesson himself… when all created streams are dried up, the fullness of God remains unchanged.
- The ask — Elijah's call for a morsel of bread rests on God's word to him, not on anything he could see in the woman at the gate.
- The exposure — The request does not cause her emptiness. It reveals it, and her whole situation comes into the open.
- The opening — Once the truth of her weakness is told, God is free to show what He has. Truth maintained first, grace displayed after.
- The pressure — God does not soften a trial of faith. He leaves the difficulty standing, so the blessing carries full weight.
- The reach — When His own people refuse His message, God turns to an outsider. Jesus later named this household as proof.
And she said, As Jehovah thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.
A famine grips the land. Elijah reaches Zarephath and asks a starving stranger for bread. Her reply lists all she owns: a handful of flour, a little oil, two sticks — and a plan to die. What happens when someone hits the end of their resources and meets the word of God there?
She lives among the Sidonians, in Jezebel's own country, yet she swears by Israel's God.
Notice that she brought in the name of Jehovah. This is wonderful! The foolish people of Israel were turning their backs on the one true God, preferring the false gods of the Sidonians. Yet here is a woman who believed that Israel's Jehovah was the true God, despite the corrupting influences around her… But the widow's faith when Elijah arrived was very low. She did not say "my God," as Paul does in Philippians 4:19. Her heart was indeed towards Jehovah — no other god had any place with her. But perhaps she felt that He had quite forgotten her! Her words were the words of despair.
Her inventory is honest, and the total comes to death. What she leaves out is God.
Here is a gloomy picture. An empty barrel, an exhausted jar, and death! Was that all? That was all for blind unbelief… God is shut out, though she could say, "As the LORD your God lives." In reality she was outside His presence. She had lost the sense of His all-sufficiency to meet her need and her household's… She looked at the things that are seen, not at the things that are unseen.
Elijah stood in the same famine and read it differently, because he had a word from God about it.
Not so the man of faith. He looked beyond the barrel and the jar. He had no thought of dying of hunger. He rested on the word of the Lord. Here was his precious resource. God had said, "I have commanded a widow there to feed you." This was quite enough for him. He knew that God could multiply the flour and the oil to sustain both him and her.
The same famine pressed on the king of Israel. He and this woman faced the same death.
This woman was going to die, and she knew it. Elijah's words stirred up the faith that lay in her heart… What he promised would happen in a way human reason could not grasp. She did not doubt it. She accepted this impossibility and found salvation in it for herself and her son. The king of Israel also felt this coming death pressing on himself and his people. But instead of being sure of his lot, he looked for ways to escape it. This is the opposite of faith: it is unbelief. Ahab thought he could find human resources against famine and death; this woman had none.
Jesus later pointed back to this widow.
When the brook had dried up, God sent Elijah to Zarephath to be sustained there by a widow (v. 9). In Luke 4:25-26 God sends him to the widow to sustain her. Both are true… God had a double purpose: to sustain His servant, and to bring a message of grace to the widow through him… The widows of Israel are set aside. Judgment on Israel's state opens the door for the nations to receive grace — in the very territory that Jezebel, the great corrupter of God's people, came from.
Two sticks are the smallest detail in the verse. One writer makes them a picture of a shrunken Christian life.
How many believers today are like this poor widow before she met Elijah. They know so little of the wonderful service the Lord has appointed them to do for Him here. So they look only for a couple of sticks. They reckon they have just enough in the barrel and the jar to die on, but nowhere near enough to live on! They have hardly grasped that they already have Christ and the Holy Spirit as the endless resources of faith — pictured by the flour and the oil. So their piety is mainly getting ready for death.
Those same two sticks end up lighting a different fire.
This widow from outside Israel gathered her "two sticks" for one last desperate mouthful before death. But Jehovah's bounty used them to prepare "enough and to spare" — the beginning of a new lease of life for herself and for the prophet.
What Elijah said next asked her for the very last of it.
Whenever God commands, He also gives the power to obey, if we can receive it… So, despite her declaration of utter poverty, Elijah said, "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." How hard and unreasonable such a request would have seemed to the natural mind. Unbelief might have said it should never have been made. But He who made it, through His servant, upheld the widow's faith with a sure word of promise… If all things are possible with God, all things are also possible to the one who believes.
- Empty. Her count was honest: flour, oil, two sticks, death. Unbelief leaves God's all-sufficiency out of the inventory.
- Named. She swore by Israel's God but said "your God," not "my God" — real faith, at a very low ebb, in Jezebel's own country.
- Chosen. God sent His prophet past the widows of Israel to a woman outside Israel, for a double purpose: to feed His servant, and to carry grace to her.
- Asked. He then asked her for the last cake of all — and God gives the power to obey what He commands.
- Multiplied. Two sticks gathered for a dying meal lit the fire of a new lease of life, with flour and oil that picture resources never running out.
And Elijah said to her, Fear not; go, do as thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first; and bring it to me; and afterwards make for thee and for thy son.
Elijah reaches Zarephath during a famine. He asks a starving widow for the last food she owns — and he asks for it first, before she feeds herself and her son. It sounds cruel until you see what surrounds it: a "do not fear" in front of it, and a promise from God behind it.
The whole verse turns on one small word. Elijah did not ask as a hungry traveller. He asked as the man who stood for God, so the order he set was a claim on her.
Elijah said to her: "Do not fear" — oh, how blessed are God's "fear nots!" — "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." If the prophet had said no more than this, his words would have sounded heartless and selfish. With only enough meal left for one cake, he asked her to make him one first! Note the word "first." Elijah stood before the woman as the representative of the great God. He was asking her to put God first, even at this grave crisis in her life. The Lord Jesus taught the same thing in Matthew 6:33. And when a man once asked Him to let him "first" go and bury his father, He rebuked that attitude towards His call (Luke 9:59). God must stand first with every one of us, and where He has His rightful place in the hearts and lives of His people, blessing is sure.
He could have filled her jar before asking anything of her. He did not — and commentators see that as deliberate.
The prophet makes no small demands upon her pity. He puts her faith fully to the test. If he had not been a prophet, and if this had not been a trial of faith, his words would have been most cruel and selfish... God, when He gives a trial of faith, does not trim it down so as to spoil the force of His blessing. He does the opposite. The greater the faith, the more He tests it... God could easily have given her, through the prophet, a jar of flour to encourage her, and a jug that started to pour out oil. Clearly He did not. This would have spoiled the whole teaching of the Lord.
Her earlier answer had named the two people she intended to feed. That instinct is not unique to her.
Our prophet heard no such words as "me and my son" when he took up his home by the brook. There was there no selfish interest acting as a barrier to his sustenance and enjoyment. But the moment he left his quiet retreat and came among people, he had to feel that the human heart does not like its own objects interfered with in the least. He had to enter into the deep meaning of the words "me and my son." They uncover the hidden springs of selfishness that drive humanity in its fallen condition.
The command did not stand alone. Elijah backed it with a promise from God, and her faith rested on that.
Whenever God commands He gives the power for obedience, if we can receive it... God tests her obedience and her confidence in Him and in His word. So, despite her statement of utter poverty, Elijah said, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it..." But He who made that demand, through His servant, sustained the widow's faith with a sure word of promise. The LORD, the God of Israel, said that the jar of flour would not run out, and the jug of oil would not fail, until the day He sent rain on the earth. And so the widow trusted God, and went and did as Elijah said.
The two words of the verse set an order, and the order held for the rest of the famine.
But how could it be done? Only in this way: if she cared for God's interests FIRST, He would care for hers AFTER. This putting God first brought her the brightest reward of her life.
Commentators also read the jar and the jug as a picture of something larger.
Few will doubt that the jar of flour and the jug of oil carry a deeper meaning. The flour points to Christ, and the oil to the Holy Spirit. The lesson has two parts. First, Christ and the Holy Spirit supply all our needs in full, as long as faith is at work... Christ is all-sufficient in our deepest needs. Yet even though we have the Holy Spirit, we cannot use the resources we have in Him without faith. Second, we may be cut off from the usual means of blessing and from all Christian fellowship. Even then the Lord will prove Himself enough for us in the power of the Holy Spirit. All our springs are in Him.
- Fear not. The hardest demand in the verse opens with God's reassurance, not with a threat.
- First. Elijah stood as God's representative, so the little cake was God's claim on her last supply — and Jesus taught the same order (Matthew 6:33).
- No shortcut. God did not soften the test by filling her jar in advance. He never trims a trial of faith down to a size that would spoil the blessing.
- Me and my son. Those words uncover the hidden springs of selfishness in the human heart.
- Afterward. The demand came with a promise — flour and oil until the rain came — and Christ and the Spirit still meet every need where faith is at work.
For thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel The meal in the barrel shall not waste, neither shall the oil in the cruse fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the face of the earth!
A starving widow in Zarephath has flour for one last meal, and a stranger asks for it first. He backs that request with a promise from the God of Israel, and everything turns on whether she trusts that word more than her empty jar.
Elijah does not argue about how much flour is left. He points her to something outside the jar.
He did not deny that the jar and the jug were almost empty, as the woman had said. That could have given her no comfort, since she knew the facts of her case too well. But he brought the living God and His faithful Word before her aching heart. That is why he could say, "Fear not." He wanted to lead her soul to the true resting place where he himself had found rest. That place is the Word of the living God — blessed, unfailing, a divine resting place for every anxious soul!
The same prophet who had just carried God's word to King Ahab now speaks to a starving woman.
He who pledged the LORD for judgement with Ahab now pledged Him for blessing with the widow. Her weak faith answered at once: "she went and did as Elijah said." She made a cake for him first. Then she found, to her delight, that there was enough flour in the jar to make another cake for herself and her son.
The order he asks for — his cake before hers — is not rudeness. It puts a claim on the little she has.
Elijah was putting God's claim on the widow's resources. And as we know, a true and ready response to that claim brings a rich harvest of blessing to the soul. But all this made a demand on the widow's faith. She was called to play a hard and testing part, in the strength of faith in a divine promise.
Notice what God does not promise. He does not offer a full storehouse, only flour that will not run out.
The life given by grace is a dependent life. It was not a jar of flour or a jug of oil that God promised. The supplies of grace are indeed unlimited, but grace gives no stock in hand such as nature loves to have. The promise was that the handful of flour would never run out, and the oil in the jug would never grow less. There would be enough for each day, but no store for tomorrow. Grace teaches us to live in dependence on the Giver of the grace.
The promise carries a time limit, and that limit is itself good news — the drought has an end date fixed by God.
Note the words, "until the day." They come from the very heart of a faithful God, who would give deliverance and blessing at His own time. The fields would not always be scorched, nor the trees fruitless, nor the streams dry. The LORD graciously meant to reverse these disastrous conditions... The crowds around them might be full of unbelief. Even so, the little group in the cottage would treasure the words of God and wait in faith for Him to act in goodness by His almighty power.
Her town lies outside Israel's borders. Commentators note that Scripture describes this errand from two directions.
When the brook had dried up, Elijah was sent to Zarephath to be sustained there by a widow woman (v. 9). In Luke 4:25-26 he is sent to the widow to sustain her. Both of these are true, and our account proves it. God had a double purpose: to sustain His servant and to bring a message of grace to the widow through him. The Lord, speaking in the synagogue, compares this message to the good news spread among the nations beyond the borders of Israel. The one who preaches finds his own sustenance in bringing the good news of grace to others.
She acted on a single sentence from God. That should press on anyone who owns a whole Bible.
One verse from God was enough at Zarephath. Without hesitation the hungry woman acted on it. She proved God's word true; and it is always true. We must pause here and take account of ourselves. We have what the widow did not have — the whole Word of God... The widow of Zarephath gave her all on the strength of one verse from God.
- Word first. Elijah never disputes the empty jar. He sets the faithful Word of the living God in front of her, and then says, "Fear not."
- Claim first. The cake made for the prophet first is God's claim on her resources, and a real demand on her faith.
- Daily, not stored. God promises flour that never runs out, not a full pantry. Grace supplies each day and keeps her leaning on the Giver.
- Dated, not endless. "Until the day" the rain comes sets a limit on the famine and gives the household a hope to wait for.
- Outward, not confined. One errand feeds the prophet and carries grace beyond Israel's borders. The messenger is fed while he brings good news to others.
And she went and did according to the word of Elijah; and she, and he, and her house, ate a whole year.
In the town of Zarephath, Elijah meets a starving widow. She has one handful of flour and one last meal planned, a stranger has just asked her to feed him first — and this verse records what she did.
One message from God was all she had, and she acted on it at once. One writer turns that into a question for readers who own the whole Bible.
One verse from God was enough at Zarephath. Without hesitation the hungry woman acted on it. She proved God's word true; and it is always true. We must pause here and take account of ourselves. We have what the widow did not have — the whole Word of God... The widow of Zarephath gave her all on the strength of one verse from God.
Verse 16 calls that same message the word of the Lord. One writer ties it back to verse 5, where Elijah obeyed in the same way, and then forward to how God speaks now. (The quote follows an older translation of verse 15: "she went and did according to the word of Elijah.")
This widow's faith is of the same kind and quality as that of the prophet; so she walks the same path he does. It is always so: "And he went and did according to the word of Jehovah" (v. 5). "And she went and did according to the word of Elijah" (v. 15), but the word of Elijah was "the word of Jehovah which he had spoken through Elijah" (v. 16). It is the same word, whether it comes directly to the prophet or whether it is addressed to men through him. So it is today with the gospel.
Elijah asked her to bake for him before she fed herself. One writer puts the whole test in that order.
But how could it be done? Only in this way: if she cared for God's interests FIRST, He would care for hers AFTER. Putting God first brought her the brightest reward of her life.
The miracle never produced a surplus. The jar was never full; it just never ran empty.
All the way through, Elijah has to learn the lesson of dependence... He has no stock of his own, we may say, ever to live on... And then when he comes to Zarephath you find the same thing. The widow is called on to sustain him, and there is a little oil in a jar and a handful of flour in a barrel. The flour does not fail in the barrel, and the oil does not fail in the jar. It does not increase, however — it stays a handful of flour and a little oil. That keeps him in constant dependence on God.
The verse widens from the woman and her son to her household. One writer draws four points from that wording.
The first is that if God commanded the widow to sustain Elijah, He Himself supplied her with the means of doing it. The second follows from the first: when we use what we have for the Lord, our means are multiplied... Another is that the son is no longer mentioned; now it is "her house." This shows God's ways of grace with His people, blessing their households through those who head them... Lastly, God will magnify His own faithfulness. His word had promised, and the blessing came according to His word — the word which He spoke by Elijah.
She was not an Israelite. One writer traces her place in the story back to God's own choice.
There was the electing grace of God at work in this widow... There were many widows in Israel; God chose this one outside Israel... But if grace works, God will prove that it is grace. He will show that there is no ground for acceptance to be found. Any such ground would strip grace of its character.
One writer reads the flour and the oil as a picture of what keeps believers fed now.
We can picture a happy, contented household in Zarephath. The flour and the oil did not fail. The woman and her son had the benefit of Elijah's helpful conversations and his prayers. There was no home on earth more favoured by God at that time. The food suggests what nourishes the souls of believers today. The flour speaks of Christ, and the oil of the Holy Spirit.
- One word. She had a single sentence from God and gave everything on it; we have the whole Bible and must ask what we have done with it.
- Same word. God's word to Elijah and His word through Elijah to her carried the same authority. The gospel carries it now.
- First, then after. God's interests came before her own, and that order was both the test and the way into blessing.
- Daily, not stored. The supply never became a stockpile. It stayed a handful, so prophet and widow leaned on God every morning.
- Her house. One woman's obedience fed a whole household for many days. God chose her from outside Israel, which shows grace to be grace.
The meal in the barrel did not waste, neither did the oil in the cruse fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he had spoken through Elijah.
God sent Elijah to a widow who had almost nothing, and told her to feed him. Day after day her flour and oil held out, and the verse gives the reason: not the size of her supply, but the word spoken through Elijah. (The quotations below say "barrel of meal" and "cruse of oil." That is older wording for the jar of flour and the jug of oil.)
The verse ends by tracing the miracle back to a promise. One writer draws several threads out of that single sentence — who funded her obedience, what her giving returned, and who is honoured at the end.
Several points in these words are worth attention. The first is that if God commanded the widow to sustain Elijah, He Himself supplied her with the means of doing it. The second follows from the first: using what we have for the Lord multiplies our means. Can anyone give to the Lord without reaping an abundant return? Another is that the text now says "her house" instead of the son. This shows God's ways of grace with His people: He blesses their households through the head of the house... Lastly, God will magnify His own faithfulness. His word had promised, and according to His word the blessing came — the word which He spoke by Elijah.
Elijah asked for his share before hers, and the request was not rudeness but a claim.
Elijah was simply putting in God's claim upon the widow's resources. As we know, a true and ready response to that claim brings a rich harvest of blessing to the soul. There was, however, a demand upon the widow's faith in all this. She had to act a trying and difficult part, in the strength of faith in a divine promise.
The order of the two cakes turned out to be the order of her whole future.
But how could it be done? Only this way: if she cared for God's interests FIRST, He would care for hers AFTER. This putting God first brought her the brightest reward of her life.
Notice what the promise did not say. It never offered a full barrel.
Not only does grace bring salvation to the needy, it teaches us how to live. The life given by grace is a dependent life. It was not a barrel of meal or a cruse of oil that was promised. The supplies of grace are unlimited. But grace gives no store in hand, the kind of store nature loves to have. The promise was that the handful of meal should not waste nor the oil in the cruse grow less. There would be enough for each day but no store for tomorrow. Grace teaches us to live in dependence on the Giver of the grace.
Commentators picture the containers differently — some see the quantity always replaced, others see her scraping the bottom every morning — but they agree the supply arrived as it was needed.
We need not suppose that either the barrel or the cruse ever filled up. She would probably always be working on the bottom; but day after day there was enough for them all.
God chose a home outside Israel for this. That says something about how He acts when His own people shut Him out.
We learn this everywhere in the Scriptures. When God's people slide away from Him and refuse His testimony, He turns, as it were, to those outside, and shows there the sovereignty of His grace... So it was with Elijah. Israel would not listen to his message. So the LORD sent him for a time to a woman outside the community of Israel, a stranger to the covenants of promise. Yet the very service He sent him on tested his own faith. In Scripture a widow stands for someone left alone and without resources. Elijah had to go to such a person for support, so that he might learn the lesson himself... that when all created streams dry up, the fullness of God remains unchanged.
Writers read the two containers as a picture, with a warning inside the comfort.
The barrel of meal points to Christ and the cruse of oil to the Holy Spirit. And the lesson is twofold. First, Christ and the Holy Spirit richly supply all our needs, as long as faith is active... Christ is all-sufficient in our deepest needs. Yet even though we have the Holy Spirit, we cannot draw on the resources we have in Him without faith. Secondly, we may be cut off from the ordinary channels of blessing and isolated from all Christian fellowship. Even then the Lord will prove Himself enough for us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Word. The flour and oil held out "according to the word of the LORD." The miracle rests on a promise, so that God magnifies His own faithfulness.
- First. She put God's interests first and her own after. That order brought her the brightest reward of her life.
- Daily. God never promised a full barrel. There was enough for each day and no store for tomorrow, because grace teaches us to live depending on the Giver.
- House. God supplied the very means she needed to obey Him, and the blessing widened from the son to "her house."
- Outside. Israel refused the message, so God sent His prophet to a widow outside Israel. When every created stream dries up, the fullness of God remains unchanged.
And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And she said to Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come to me to call mine iniquity to remembrance, and to slay my son?
The widow of Zarephath had watched her flour and oil outlast a famine. Then she watched her only son stop breathing. Her cry to Elijah pushes the prophet away and drags her own sin into the open. Commentators read both halves as God's own work in her.
She had already learned that God sustains life. Commentators say this second blow carried a different lesson — for Elijah as much as for her.
God would reveal Himself not only as the Sustainer of life, but as the Giver of life. To be equipped for the great day of Carmel, Elijah must know God as the God of resurrection. The widow needed to be settled in peaceful relations with God. For that she must know Him as the God of truth as well as the God of grace. So her conscience had to be awakened, her sin recalled, and her sin judged.
She says Elijah has come to bring her sin to remembrance. Months of daily bread had raised no such question. Death raised it at once.
A person can go on day after day in the ordinary routine of life, enjoying a jar of flour and a jug of oil that never run out, and never search his conscience deeply before God. That deeper searching only comes where someone walks closely with God, or where God's hand touches him in some special way. If the Lord had only met the poor widow's need from day to day, the question of "sin" might never have come up in her mind. But when death came in, her conscience began to work, for death is the wages of sin.
One writer turns the same pattern on the reader:
And perhaps God has some sin to bring back to your memory. While life runs smoothly you can go on. But when death comes in, and you lose your boy, your husband, your father or your mother, what comes up? Some long-forgotten sin rises up on the conscience. That is often the way God puts His finger on people's souls.
She ties her son's death to her own sin. One commentator calls that link correct, and the doorway to something she could not have learned any other way.
At the same time she admits what is true: death is the wages of iniquity… It is not enough to know that death is waiting and will catch up with us. We must also feel the real power that death has over us as sinners. The widow needed this experience to learn the full extent of the power of grace. If her son had not died, how could she have known the power of resurrection that delivers from death?
Even the name of the town fits what she was going through.
Zarephath means "smelting furnace," and the woman was now feeling its heat. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego lost nothing in the fire but the ropes that tied them. In the same way, this woman came out of the trouble a happier soul, with a fuller knowledge of God. There was clearly something in her past, or in her heart at that very moment, that she was trying to cover up. God, in His goodness to her, brought it out into the light in His own way.
She calls Elijah "man of God" and blames him in the same breath. Commentators differ. Some read the blame as a wrong conclusion drawn in grief:
For some reason she connected his death with Elijah and felt that God was punishing her for her sins. But God was seeking the pure blessing of her soul.
Others note that Elijah did not dismiss the link she made:
Elijah felt the weight of it. He realized that his coming into the house had something to do with this blow.
She had held her son as the child born to her. She got him back on different terms.
Before, she held him on the shaky terms of the old creation, as the child of her own body. She gets him back on new creation terms, as the fruit of resurrection. And now both the man of God (a picture of Christ) and the word of the Lord stand settled before her soul.
The verse shows one half of a method that runs through all God's dealings.
There is a double action in everything God does with us: an action of truth, and an action of grace. Truth uncovers the evil; grace puts it away. Truth shows what man is; grace shows what God is… Both are needed: truth, to maintain God's glory; grace, to establish our blessing.
- Deeper, not harsher. She knew God as the One who sustains life. The blow came so she could know Him as the Giver of life, and as the God of truth, not only of grace.
- Deeper conscience. A full jar of flour raises no question of sin. God's hand in trouble does. That is often how a forgotten sin surfaces.
- Deeper confession. She was right to link death with her sin. Death is the wages of sin, and she had to feel its power on herself.
- Deeper furnace. Zarephath means "smelting furnace." She was covering something. God brought it into the light His own way, and she came out happier.
- Deeper hold. She had her son on the shaky terms of nature. She received him back on resurrection ground. Truth exposes the evil; grace puts it away.
And he said to her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.
The widow's only son is dead. Elijah answers her grief with three words and an action. He takes the boy from her arms and carries him up to the room where he was staying. What does God mean to teach in that room?
Elijah could face down a king without flinching. Here he shows another side.
This stern man could face an angry king and a wicked nation, and announce God's judgement. Yet he felt deeply for this poor woman. He had come to know her, and her heart was now very sore. The prophet spoke to Jehovah twice... we note that both in verses 20 and 21 the Holy Spirit says "he cried to Jehovah." We should never skip over this word "cried" when we read Scripture, because it expresses intense longing.
Elijah lays the boy where he himself slept. What happens next is contact — living man on dead child.
Elijah took the boy and laid him on his own bed. Then he prayed earnestly to the Lord and stretched himself on the child three times. Direct contact with the one who had life resulted in life coming back to the child. The three times speaks of resurrection. So it is only by direct contact with the Lord Jesus raised from the dead that we find the blessing of resurrection life... So the widow learned that God was able not only to save from dying, but to restore life after death.
A jar of flour that never ran out had already kept her alive. God had more to teach her.
It is not enough to know that death waits for us and will catch up with us. We also need to feel the real power death has over us as sinners. The widow needed this experience to learn the full extent of the power of grace. How, if her son had not died, would she have been able to know the power of resurrection that delivers from death?
Others read the death as God pressing a claim. She had given up her last handful of flour. Now the claim reaches further.
Whenever we let anything block our path of simple obedience and devotion to Christ — parent or child, husband or wife, brother or sister — we can be sure that thing will be taken away. This widow had given her son a higher place in her thoughts than the Lord's prophet. So the son was taken from her, to teach her this: not only "the handful of meal" but also her dearest treasure on earth must be kept under the Lord's control and ready for Him.
The room upstairs taught Elijah as much as the widow. He does not act at once. He goes through something first.
The widow's son dies, and Elijah, though not without resource, goes through deep soul exercise before he takes hold of the grace that is in God to meet the need... Now he is led into the deepest of all mysteries — resurrection from among the dead. He had seen death stopped and its terrors eased. But now he meets sorrow at its depth, for a widow losing her only son, her last link to earth, is the sharpest picture of human grief. And God uses him to show His power and grace in overcoming death and bringing in new life.
Elijah does not stand back from the trouble. He goes down into it.
This whole scene speaks to us of Christ. Elijah is a picture of Him. In sympathy he entered into all the consequences of man's sin. Just as Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Elijah "cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, have You also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" Then he brought the dead child to life again, taking his place.
The mother gets her son back alive. Her verdict names two things — the man, and his message.
She had learned two things by the resurrection of her son: First, that God had come to manifest Himself here below in a man — "You are a man of God"... Before, God had shown Himself to her as the One who met her needs. Now He gives new life, resurrection life, in the very place where death came in through man's "iniquity". The second thing is that through resurrection she gained the assurance that the word of the Lord in Elijah's mouth was the truth. Resurrection proves that the word of grace is true.
- Given. "Give me your son" is the turning point. The prophet who thundered at a king now cries out to God over a dead child.
- Carried. He carries the boy up to his own room and his own bed — direct contact with the one who has life is what brings life back.
- Emptied. The flour jar taught her that God provides. Only losing her son could teach her death's real power over sinners, and how far grace reaches past it.
- Claimed. Commentators differ on why the child died. Was it to teach her the power of resurrection, or to claim her dearest treasure and not just her last meal?
- Proved. Resurrection is what settled both questions for her: this is a man of God, and the word in his mouth is truth.
And he cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?
A grieving mother has just asked Elijah if he came to her house to bring her sin to mind and kill her son. He takes the boy upstairs and turns her question back on God Himself.
Elijah is a lodger in this house, and he senses the blow has something to do with him. The verse also does not say he spoke or asked. It says he cried — and the same word comes back in the next verse.
Elijah felt the position. He realized that his coming into the house had something to do with this blow. There is a hint of tender feeling in his prayer to God. This stern man could face an angry king and a wicked nation and pass sentence of judgement. Yet he felt deeply for this poor woman. He had come to know her, and her heart was now very sore... In both verse 20 and verse 21 the Holy Spirit says "he cried to the LORD." We should never pass lightly over this word "cried" when we read Scripture, for it expresses intense longing.
Elijah does not blame the illness. He lays the death at God's door, and that is where hope begins.
There is real beauty in the way he looks beyond the disease and the power of death and sees the hand of the living God in the evil that has come upon them. As he sees it, disease has not killed the child. Death has not struck him down. It is God who has slain the widow's son. If disease and death did this work, there is no hope. They could take the child away, but they cannot bring him back. But if God has slain the child, then God can call the child back to life.
Elijah's question gets no answer in the verse. The mother had her own answer, and it was the wrong one.
The widow had experienced the grace of God in saving her and her son from a dreadful end. But God had another lesson of vital importance to teach her, and it could only come through pain and sorrow... For some reason she connected his death with Elijah and felt that God was punishing her for her sins. But God was seeking the pure blessing of her soul.
Another writer finds mercy inside the loss itself.
The sword entered her soul, yet it came in mercy. Through it, in the sharpest pain of her grief, she learned what she was in the presence of God (v. 18). That prepared her for further blessing. Until we come to the end of self, we cannot take in what God is for us in grace.
Elijah does not stand outside this family's grief. He shares it, and the tears at Lazarus's tomb are not far away.
This whole scene speaks to us of Christ. Elijah is a picture of Him. In sympathy he entered into all the consequences of man's sin. Just as Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Elijah "cried to the LORD, 'O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?'" (v. 20). Then he brought the dead child back to life, taking his place.
Elijah prays as a man with nothing of his own to offer. What he does with his body says the same thing.
Elijah recognizes that in himself he has no power... His act of stretching himself on the child may show this; the margin reads that he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his measure and realizes that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray... by the act of prayer he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
The flour and oil had taught her that God sustains life. The empty bed taught her something more.
The widow responded to God's claim on her handful of meal; and what follows? He sustains her and her house for years! Again the Lord lays His hand upon her son; and what follows? God raises her son from the dead by His mighty power. So He teaches her that the Lord could not only sustain life, but give it... she receives her son now, as she had received her supplies before, straight from the hand of the Lord God of Israel.
- Cried — Elijah did not simply speak to God. The word used in verses 20 and 21 carries intense longing. The same tenderness marks a man who could face a king without flinching.
- Traced — He looked past the illness to God's own hand. Disease can take a child away and never give him back. The God who takes can give back.
- Emptied — He stretched himself on the boy and measured himself against death. He found he had no strength either. What he had was prayer, and prayer reaches the living God.
- Taught — The mother read her loss as punishment for her sin. God was seeking the blessing of her soul. We grasp grace only once we come to the end of self.
- Raised — The flour and oil taught her that God sustains life. The death taught her that He can give it back. She received her son straight from His hand, just as she had received her food.
And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried to Jehovah and said, Jehovah, my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again!
Elijah carries the dead boy up to his own room. He lays himself on the body three times and asks God for something Scripture had never yet recorded. The verse holds two things together: a man who admits he has no power, and a prayer that expects the impossible.
One commentator treats the strange physical act as a confession, not a technique. He points to the margin reading, where the word means "measured".
Elijah recognizes that in himself he has no power. That may be the meaning of stretching himself on the child — or, as the margin reads, he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his own measure and sees that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray. By stretching himself out he identifies with the child's powerlessness. By praying he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
Commentators differ on the "three times". Some tie it to Elijah's own weakness. Another links it to resurrection: "it is only by direct contact with the Lord Jesus raised from the dead that we find the blessing of resurrection life" (Leslie M. Grant).
The verse does not say Elijah spoke or asked. Twice in this passage the text says he cried out.
This stern man could face an angry king and a wicked nation and pronounce judgement on them. Yet his heart went out to this poor woman whom he had come to know, whose heart was now very sore… In both verse 20 and verse 21 the Holy Spirit says, "he cried to the LORD." We should never pass over this word "cried" lightly, because it expresses intense longing.
The prayer is short. The way Elijah addresses God shows a relationship already known and tested.
He is in conscious relationship with God, whom he knows and has proved, so he can say with great confidence, "My God." His faith knows that the living God has power to raise the dead child. With greater faith still, he prays that it will happen. Did any man, before or since, ask God for more in words so simple and a prayer so short? It is plain that earnest, effective prayer is neither elaborate nor long.
That brevity becomes a practical test of our own praying:
Notice that Elijah's prayer was short and definite. Shall we not learn a lesson from this? Do we go to our prayer meetings with something definite in mind? Or do we come out of sheer habit — a good habit, of course — with minds that are not engaged and not prepared?
Nobody had ever come back from the dead in the record up to this point. Elijah asked anyway.
Scripture has no earlier record of any person — Jew or Gentile, old or young — ever returning from the dead. Yet the prophet prayed like this! His faith went beyond Abraham's on Mount Moriah, where he laid Isaac on the altar, counting that God was able to raise him from the dead, and in a figure did receive him back (Heb. 11:19). Both Abraham and Elijah believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that death was no difficulty to Him. But it was one thing for Abraham to reckon that God could raise a boy from the dead. It was another for Elijah to ask outright that this great miracle be done.
Elijah asks that the child's life "come into him again". Older translations read "soul" here. One writer takes up that word and compares Paul over Eutychus, the young man who fell from a window and seemed dead.
The separation had not yet taken place; he was stunned by the fall… Life had not yet gone out of the body. But in the case of the child raised by Elijah (1 Kings 17:21-22), the soul had already left the body and then returned to it. From these cases, as everywhere else, we see that the soul is quite distinct from the body. In our present state the soul works through the body, yet the body is only the house it lives in.
The answer to this prayer taught the mother something new about God.
The moment she had learned the lesson about herself, God came in. Through Elijah, and in answer to his prayer, He raised the widow's son to life again… So the Lord revealed Himself to her soul as the God of resurrection. This established her in the truth and confirmed her faith, resting her on a foundation that lies beyond death and can never change.
- Measured — Elijah lay on the child to take his own measure — with no more strength than the dead child under him.
- Powerless — the man with no power still had prayer, and prayer put him in touch with the living God.
- Cried — twice the text says he cried, a word marking intense longing, not routine words.
- Brief — one definite sentence, spoken to "my God". The greatest request ever asked, in the plainest words.
- Beyond — no one had ever returned from death, yet he asked. The widow learned God as the God of resurrection, a foundation beyond death.
And Jehovah heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he lived.
Elijah has carried the dead boy up to his own room. He has stretched himself over him three times and cried out to God. Here the answer comes. The verse turns on two things: a prayer God listened to, and something that had left the child coming back. (The ESV calls it the child's "life"; older translations call it his "soul.")
No one in Scripture had asked for this before. One writer compares Elijah's faith here with Abraham's.
Such a prayer as Elijah uttered over the dead child had probably never gone up to heaven before: "O Jehovah my God, I pray You, let this child's soul come into him again." Wonderful! Scripture has no earlier record of anyone — Jew or Gentile, old or young — returning from the dead. Yet the prophet prayed like this! His faith went beyond Abraham's on Mount Moriah, when he laid Isaac on the altar, "considering that God was able even to raise him from the dead" (Heb. 11:19). Both Abraham and Elijah believed that nothing was impossible with God, and that even death would be no difficulty to Him. But it was one thing for Abraham to reckon that God could raise a boy from the dead. It was quite another for Elijah to ask outright for this great miracle.
The prayer was also short. Its power was not in its length.
As One with whom he is in conscious relationship, well known and proved, he can say with great confidence, "My God." ... Did any man, before or since, ask a greater request of God in language so simple and in a prayer so brief? It is very clear that the effective, fervent prayer is neither elaborate nor lengthy.
Before the prayer came the stretching. One writer reads that act as Elijah measuring himself against the dead boy.
Elijah recognises that in himself he has no power. Perhaps the act of stretching himself on the child shows this, or, as the margin reads, he "measured" himself. He fully identifies himself with the dead child. He takes his measure and sees that, like the dead child, he has no strength. Elijah is powerless in the presence of death. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray. By stretching himself out he identifies with the powerlessness of the child. By praying he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
Something left the child and came back. Commentators take that as evidence that a person is more than a body. One writer sets the case beside a man others picked up for dead, whom Paul declared still alive.
The men picked him up as dead. Paul naturally breaks off his talk, goes down and throws himself on him, saying that life is still in him. The separation had not yet taken place... In the case of the child restored to life by Elijah (1 Kings 17:21-22) the soul had already left the body, and returned to it. From these cases, as always elsewhere, we see that the soul is entirely distinct from the body. In our present state the soul works through the body, but the body is only its dwelling. Life in this world is the activity of the soul through the functions of the body.
The way the miracle happened matters. Commentators contrast Elijah's manner with the Lord's own way of raising the dead.
On this occasion the Lord acted simply and with dignity. That stands in striking contrast with the Old Testament prophets doing similar miracles. The Lord spoke and acted in His own right. The prophets had to look up with deep earnestness for power to raise the dead, because that power was not in themselves.
The boy's mother learned something from this, and she was not the last.
The three times speaks of resurrection... The Lord answered the prayer of Elijah and the soul of the child returned. So the widow learned that God was able not only to save from dying, but to restore life after death. Mary and Martha learned this lesson in John 11. They had only hoped the Lord would come to them in time to keep Lazarus from dying... But the Lord had a more important lesson to teach them, that He can bring life out of death.
The miracle also did something for Elijah himself. It backed up the words he spoke.
It was resurrection that made Elijah known as a man of God, and the word of God in his mouth as the truth. So nothing else will make the word of God in our mouth known as truth in any adequate sense, or approve us as men of God.
- Powerless — Elijah measures himself against a corpse and finds he has no more strength than it. That emptiness is where the miracle starts.
- Prayer — Short, definite, addressed to "my God." He asks for something no one in Scripture had received before. God listens to his voice.
- Return — What came back had truly left. The soul is distinct from the body; the body is only its home.
- Contrast — Elijah must look upward for power he does not own; Christ raises the dead by His own word. The prophet borrows the power; the Lord already has it.
- Proof — Resurrection showed the widow that God gives life after death. It also proved true the word in Elijah's mouth.
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and delivered him to his mother; and Elijah said, See, thy son lives.
Elijah carries the boy down from the upper room and puts him back into his mother's arms alive. The whole chapter has been building to this moment, and it leaves one question: why did God let the child die at all before giving him back?
The widow had already learned to take her daily food from God. Now she takes back her son on the same terms.
The widow responded to God's claim on her handful of flour; and what follows? God sustains her and her household for years! Again the Lord lays His hand upon her son; and what follows? The mighty power of God raises her son from the dead, so teaching her that the Lord could not only sustain life, but give it. Resurrection power comes to bear on her circumstances, and she receives her son now, as she had received her supplies before, straight from the hand of the Lord God of Israel.
The boy's death was no accident. It was the one experience that could teach her what grace can do.
This poor widow came to know the divine resources for a dying soul. Now God calls her into deeper and more blessed experience still. Her son dies, and she has to deal with the reality of death. At the same time she admits what is right: death is the wages of iniquity… It is not enough to know that death awaits us and will overtake us. We must also feel the actual power of death over us as sinners. The widow needed this experience to learn the full extent of the power of grace. If her son had not died, how could she have known the power of resurrection that delivers from death?
Elijah hands back a child he had no power to raise himself. First he stretched himself out on the body.
Elijah recognizes that in himself he has no power. Stretching himself on the child may signify this — or, as an alternative reading has it, he "measured" himself. He identifies himself completely with the dead child. He takes his measure and sees that, like the dead child, he has no strength. But if the child is dead, God is living. If Elijah has no power, Elijah can pray. By stretching himself out he identifies with the powerlessness of the child. By praying he puts himself in touch with the mighty power of the living God.
The prophet keeps nothing for himself:
Elijah, laying no claim to the risen child, delivers him back to the mother.
The miracle taught the mother two things: who Elijah was, and whether his message could be trusted.
She had learned two things by the resurrection of her son. First, that God had come to show Himself here below in a man — "You are a man of God." And so Christ was "marked out" — much more than a man of God — "Son of God in power… by resurrection of the dead."… Second, that through resurrection she gained the assurance that the word of the Lord in Elijah's mouth was the truth. Resurrection proves the truth of the word of grace.
Heaven was shut over Israel at the time. The widow Elijah was sent to lived outside it.
In the case of Elijah, God shut heaven over His rebellious people. Yet He takes care of the remnant according to grace, and here He even oversteps the limits of the covenant of law. He sent Elijah past all the widows of Israel to a widow in Sidon, who listened to the voice of God's testimony and by faith acted on it in a case that required self-denial; and her life is preserved. That grace reveals itself in power equal to the need, and the dead is restored to life.
What the widow learned about the messenger, we learn about Christ.
Elijah restored the boy to his mother, saying, "See, your son lives"… In the same way, when we have learned that the Lord Jesus has the power of resurrection life, we know He is not only a man of God but the eternal Son of God. His resurrection takes from us the fear of death.
- Sustainer, then Giver. First she learned that God keeps life going in the flour jar. Then she learned that He gives life back where death has already won.
- Death opened the lesson. Her son's death woke her conscience to sin, and only real loss let her measure the real reach of grace.
- Prayer, not power. Elijah measured himself against the dead boy and found he was just as helpless. So he prayed. That was all he had to give.
- Given, not earned. The prophet claimed nothing. The mother took her son straight from God's hand, just as she had taken her daily food.
- Resurrection proves the word. "See, your son lives" drew out her confession: the messenger was God's, and his message was true. The same proof marks out Christ as Son of God.
And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of Jehovah in thy mouth is truth.
The chapter ends with the widow speaking, not Elijah. God had already fed her through a famine, so why did only her son's return from death make her sure of the prophet and his word?
Her words have two halves. One writer reads them as two discoveries: one about the man in front of her, one about his message.
She had learned two things by the resurrection of her son: First, that God had come to manifest Himself here below in a man — "You are a man of God." And so Christ was "marked out" — much more than a man of God — "Son of God in power … by his resurrection from the dead." Before this, God had shown Himself to her as the One who provided for her needs. Now He showed Himself as the One who gives new life, resurrection life, in the very place where death had come in through the "iniquity" of man. The second thing is that through resurrection she gained the assurance that the word of the Lord in Elijah's mouth was the truth. The truth of the word of grace is proven by resurrection.
Ravens had already fed Elijah. A handful of flour had kept a whole household alive. Yet only the last miracle draws her confession.
What is it that makes the man of God specially known to her, and gives his testimony the character of truth? It is this: not merely that he knows the living God, but that he knows and has had to do with the God of resurrection. Death visits the house of the widow of Zarephath. God has taken away her son. Death confronts not the widow alone, but Elijah himself. The woman's conscience knows that this death is the fruit of sin — as our conscience knows it too, if it is awake at all.
Two experiences in that one house taught her two different lessons.
God's dealings with the widow of Zarephath would not have been complete if they had not drawn from her the confession in the last verse of our chapter... She had learnt grace in the marvellous supply of her need; she learnt truth in the death of her son.
The same writer applies this to the reader.
While we see our jar of flour and jug of oil kept full, conscience tends to sleep. But when the Lord knocks at the door of our hearts by some correcting dealing, it wakes up at once and sets to work with energy on the fitting task of self-judgement.
The title is hers, not a claim Elijah made for himself. A commentator names what stood behind it.
Elijah, laying no claim to the risen child, delivers him back to the mother. The woman at once discerns that he is a "Man of God." We know also that Elijah was a "man with a nature like ours." And the man with a nature like ours was transformed into a man of God because he was a "man of prayer."
Her confession came only after the miracle. Another writer compares her with a woman who later welcomed a different prophet.
The Shunammite woman stood on higher spiritual ground than this widow of Zarephath. She saw that her visitor was a man of God before any miracle happened, while the widow needed a miracle to bring her to that conclusion. Yet God places both women in His gallery of witnesses in the words, "through faith … women received back their dead by resurrection" (Hebrews 11:35).
Death had come into her house and been undone. A commentator shows what that gave her to stand on.
So the Lord revealed Himself to her soul as the God of resurrection. In this way He established her in the truth and confirmed her faith, by causing her to rest on a foundation that lies beyond death and therefore never changes. The effect was to prove, beyond all doubt, that Elijah was a man of God, and that the word of the Lord he spoke was certain.
One writer carries the same logic forward to Christ.
In the same way, when we have learned that the Lord Jesus has the power of resurrection life, we know He is not only a man of God but the eternal Son of God. His resurrection takes from us the fear of death.
- Grace first. The flour and oil showed her God as the One who supplies need — real kindness, but not yet the whole of what she had to learn.
- Then truth. Her son's death woke her conscience. One writer ties that death to sin: a full jar lets conscience sleep, loss wakes it.
- Then resurrection. The living God is also the God who gives life back, and that is what turned her gratitude into certainty.
- Two certainties. She ends knowing the messenger and the message. He is a man of God, made so, one writer says, by prayer, and his word of grace is proven true by resurrection.
- A foundation beyond death. What she came to rest on could not be touched by the grave; One writer sees the same pattern in Christ, whose resurrection removes the fear of death.