And 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!”
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.
Grace first, then truth
She had already learned that God sustains life. Commentators say this second blow carried a different lesson — for Elijah as much as for her.
Hamilton SmithGod 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.
Why the sin surfaced only now
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.
C. H. MackintoshA 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:
W. T. P. WolstonAnd 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.
The part she got right
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.
H. L. RossierAt 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?
Zarephath, the smelting furnace
Even the name of the town fits what she was going through.
W. W. FeredayZarephath 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.
Why she turned on Elijah
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:
Leslie M. GrantFor 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:
W. W. FeredayElijah felt the weight of it. He realized that his coming into the house had something to do with this blow.
What she received back
She had held her son as the child born to her. She got him back on different terms.
The Bible TreasuryBefore, 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 pattern behind it
The verse shows one half of a method that runs through all God's dealings.
C. H. MackintoshThere 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.
Summary
- 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.