Today’s Scripture Reading

⁷ Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. ⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to him: ⁹ “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” ¹⁰ So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” ¹¹ As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

¹² “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

¹³ Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”

¹⁵ She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. ¹⁶ For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.

¹⁷ Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. ¹⁸ She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

¹⁹ “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. ²⁰ Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” ²¹ Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

²² The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. ²³ Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

²⁴ Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”

1KI.17.7-24

Today’s Devotional Reading

The Widow of Zarephath

After one of his many confrontations with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel of Israel, Elijah was sent by God to hide in the Kerith Ravine, where the ravens fed him during the drought he had predicted. When the brook dried up, God instructed Elijah to go to the town of Zarephath, a small town seven miles south of Sidon on the Mediterranean coast, to stay with a widow whom he had commanded to take care of the prophet.

Among the poorest members in the society, this widow apparently had no kinsman to take care of her, and she in turn had to provide for a young son. She was facing either the wrenching heartbreak of watching her child die before her eyes or of knowing that her son would be left without love and care if she died first. As a Phoenician, she had no claim upon Israel’s God. Notice her words, “the Lord your God” (1Ki 17:12).

In spite of her despair, she still was able to feel some compassion for Elijah as she moved to get him some water. But when he also asked for a small morsel of bread, she revealed to the prophet the seriousness of her own plight: she had only a handful (not even a cup) of flour and a little bit of oil.

Elijah’s request that she make him a small cake before she prepared food for her son and herself called for a tremendous exercise of faith on the part of this Gentile woman. What elicited from her this response of faith in Elijah’s God? Was there something compelling in the tone of Elijah’s voice? Was it the desperation that she had little to lose, since one small meal was all that stood between them and starvation? Clearly she believed Elijah, did what he asked, and was rewarded for her obedience by the constant provision of flour and oil from the Lord as Elijah had promised.

This widow learned to trust God during those days. What must she have felt when her son fell ill and died, after all that miraculous provision? Why had Elijah allowed such tragedy to happen? Had she committed some sin for which her son’s death was punishment (a common belief)?

The days of trusting God for daily provision surely must have made it a bit easier to follow the prophet’s instructions. Her joy at seeing her son restored to life was crowned by a deeper degree of faith in Israel’s God, the provider for all who trust him (see Lk 4:25-26).

Today’s devotional reading is pulled from: NIV The Woman’s Study Bible