“He’s smart,” the woman continued, “I never have to ask him twice but he does the job well. His father worked in bronze. You should see him with the wares in the market. Strong and spry as a spider.”
In front of her, a big, bald man poked at his chin with a black finger. “I have my own sons, Hanni,” he said.
“Yes but he would live with me,” Hanni amended. “There’d be no extra burden to you. He’d come here and learn the trade and then come home.” Behind Hanni, a little wan boy, scrubbed so clean he squeaked, gripped her skirt. “He’d work twice as hard as the others—”
“No.”
“He could clean the shop,” Hanni insisted.
“No,” the man said, louder.
“He could sweep the yard.”
“Hanni!” the big man gruffed. “He cannot work with me!”
Hanni leaned forward. “Please,” she pleaded, in a tiny voice. “The boy has no father. You are my husband’s cousin. Please.”
Sadness fell on the man’s face then. Like dirt he brushed it away. “That is Baal’s business,” he said. “I cannot train him.” With that he shut the door.
Hanni looked down. She was thin as a prune left to dry in the sun, and her eyes were a library of sadness. The boy tugged on her arm, and she suddenly straightened.
“Well,” she piped, “who wants to work in bronze anyway? Let’s go home.” The woman took her son’s hand and slowly walked through Zarephath.
It was not a glad place. Zarephath was an economic hub—in good times ships came and went like clouds of seabirds and the market was crowded with animals for export. Not now. In the market they sold myrrh, and funeral shrouds, and oil at impossible prices. That is what a drought is like.
“Mom,” the boy said, “I’m hungry.”
“Hmm,” his mother replied, “Me too. Let’s see what we have.” They had almost nothing, she knew. That’s why she asked every craftsman in town, and even the fishermen, to take and train her son. No one would.
A minute later they reached their small house. It had a stone wall around a wasted garden and many brick rooms. But there were no relatives then, no cousins to play with. Just a few servants who remained, propped in the corners like forgotten things. Where else would they go?
It was darkening when they entered. Without lighting a lamp Hanni checked their stores.
A palmful of flour. A dram of oil.
Hanni wilted. It’s one thing to fear death. It’s another to see it as empty jars in a drought. Then Hanni felt her son’s worried look.
Slapping her hands, Hanni stood. “Let me go gather sticks,” she said, “You set the table, then I will cook bread and then you and I will have a party.” With a last look at her son’s face, which was very lean, she went out.
There would be no party. They would eat their last loaf and die. What had she not tried? She had gone out early and begged at the palace. She had even offered her home and hand to any enterprising soldier. She was from a good family, after all. But she was not as young as she had been and there were many women trying that now. The soldiers were bloated with options.
Walking out to the fields beyond the gate, Hanni, the widow of Zarephath, wept. The wind had piled chaff against the city walls. In it she dug for fuel. The hard straw cut her fingers, but she did not care. She did not look up to watch the wind rough the sea, or see the last evening light stab at the high clouds.
And so she did not see the figure, very thin but spry, and with a long white beard, coming down the road.
The first thing anyone will tell you about Zarephath is that it’s near Jezebel’s hometown and therefore very much Baal’s turf. It’s a Phoenician city but, unlike the other Phoenician cities, Zarephath is no longer occupied. The result? Archeologists have been able to dig around there. In the ruins they found, among other things, a long history of manufacturing: In Neolithic times, the Qaraoun culture made flint tools there. Talk about an established industry.
Also they found kilns, a thriving pottery trade, and the cult center for Ishtar, Baal’s sidekick.
Combine those findings with the shipyards and the Phoenician penchant for overseas trade in general and you get an intriguing picture. On the one hand, Zarephath was posh, wealthy, and cosmopolitan. On the other it was industrial, thick-fingered, and down home. If you could combine San Francisco and Pittsburgh, you’d have something like Iron Age Zarephath. Elijah the Prophet would have been out of place there in a dozen ways, but when he shows up, two things occur.
The first is that the prophet’s arrival completes the Old Testament’s trifecta of need: You have the foreigner, the widow, and the fatherless child.
It’s an understatement to say that people in a position like that are near to God’s heart. Not only does He fill the Old Testament with commands to provide for them, but He also assumes their station. When Joseph died, Mary became a widow and Jesus a fatherless child.
If there is a lesson, it is that God loves the needy and never forgets them. Look at Deuteronomy 10:18: “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
The other thing that happens is that the widow of Zarephath gets a major vote of confidence from the uncreated God. In 1 Kings 17:9 He says, “I have commanded a widow to feed you,” but when Elijah shows up, there’s no indication she knows about this command. “I’m out of options and don’t have time for you,” is what she says to Elijah, basically.
So what does it mean for her to be commanded?
You can find one common argument in the Benson Commentary: “Commanded” must mean “appointed” or some such thing. Honestly, I’d think that too but it’s just so unlikely. Check a concordance, and you’ll see that the verb “command” is “tsavah.” It means “appoint” but once in the Bible; it means “command” 332 times.
What does this mean for the widow?
I’ll give you my best guess: When Yahweh says He has commanded the woman to feed Elijah, it means He’s proactively including her in His covenant promises.
Here’s where I get that idea: In some circles, Elijah’s journey to Zarephath makes him an apostle to the Gentiles (the Cambridge Commentary makes that claim). Jesus seems to back that up in Luke 4:25-26: “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.”
Jesus says Elijah was sent, meaning, the trip was for her benefit.
Over the course of the story the widow will experience something of a conversion, as we’ll soon see.
And if that’s true, then the whole point of Elijah being there was to draw the widow as a representative of the foreign nations into the covenant even as Israel was falling away; by saying “I have commanded the widow” Yahweh boldly applied His covenant to this stranger, and so the following commandments would apply:
“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” Exodus 22:21-23
“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:9
“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am Yahweh your God.” Leviticus 19:34
The list really does go on. In fact there’s actually an interesting callback in Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Elijah is Yahweh’s messenger and the widow does host him unawares.
If I’m right (and I think I am), then that’s a big deal for the story. Elijah’s main job is to call Israel back to loving devotion (and therefore put an end to its orgy of tyrannical violence). But his essential miracle takes place among the nations.
(I’ll say more about this next week, but the raising of the widow’s son is a big deal. It’s far more conspicuous than Carmel. Honestly. God’s consuming fire appears all over the Bible. The dead rarely rise. In fact the event in Kings is the first instance in the Biblical record. Did I mention that’s a big deal?)
It’s a clear sign that though God intends to bless the world through His covental partners, He never abandons the world when his partners fail. Even people playing the role of God’s enemy are called to be a part of his redemptive mission.
By the way, the widow of Zarephath provides a much-needed counterpoint to the over-emphasized Jezebel (who could be called the widow of Sidon).
But we’ll get there later.
By the time the sun went down, Elijah had so much dust in his eyes they felt glued shut.
Israel was a changed place. Even the secret creeks he knew were dry and tumbleweed-choked. In the place where the Jordan river had been, the people had dug so many pits the ground looked diseased, and by the roadside, Elijah had seen shepherds sucking on goat hooves for supper. He thought of asking for some, but then, those were not his instructions. Elijah hurried on.
In the end, in the evening, he reached Zarephath.
The prophet did not expect a warm welcome there. He was not the only refugee on the road. Most of these were turned away at the border by leering soldiers—only by employing his signature stealth (and by crawling through many thorn-filled ditches) had Elijah reached the place. Now, he rubbed his eyes against the fading light and looked.
A woman there, like Yahweh had said.
Just one, gathering sticks.
She looked, as Ephrem the Syrian put it, like a burned stick.1 Elijah also noticed that she cried thick, salty tears.
Elijah sighed. This was a woman to offer your change to, not one to ask favors from. But God is God.
Elijah walked her way. The woman noticed him but did not turn.
“Ma’am?” wheezed Elijah. The woman ignored him. Widows are good at avoiding unwanted conversation. But Elijah insisted. “Ma’am?” he called again.
She moved toward the gate.
“Could you get me a drink o’ water?”
Slowly the woman turned. She narrowed her eyes. They were sad, and hard, but very keen. She appraised him for a moment and then nodded.
And the bread, Yahweh prompted.
“And bread?” Elijah called, like it was his idea.
At this the woman spun. She snapped the twigs in her hand and strode his way. “Listen, stranger,” she said, pointing with the sticks, “as Yahweh, who I happen to know you serve, lives, I have a handful of flour and a little oil at home.” She said this without her voice cracking. Sharply she continued. “I am gathering two sticks to make bread for my son so we can eat it and die.” Hanni stopped then and stared into the prophet’s strange eyes.
Elijah looked at her with compassion. His sunburned forehead was stamped with concern. “Well,” he began, when Yahweh interrupted.
Ask for the bread, God said.
Elijah nodded. “You make that bread,” he said. “And bring it to me. Then make something for your son.” The woman’s face fell. But Elijah proceeded. “You know Yahweh? I’ll tell you what He says: The jar ain’t gonna be empty, and the jug ain’t gonna be dry, ‘til the rain returns.”
For a long time the woman stared at him. Prophets do not come in tidy packages, ever, but this man was a genuine mess. Even so his voice was strong and his words rang true.
Well, you know what she did: She sped home.
Those were awful minutes. While her thin son watched, she made a fire. While he asked soft questions, she made the bread. Without a word, she took the palm-sized loaf outside at a run. She handed it to Elijah. Then she stayed, just long enough to see him sip at water and nibble the bread, before she flew back to the house.
“Mom?” wondered her son. His mouth was open but she didn’t explain yet. With one trembling hand she gripped the lid to the jar. With the other she seized the jug. At the same time, she thought. I’ll just look in them both and then I’ll know. So suddenly she broke the lids, Hanni tipped the containers her way.
Like fifty bucks in the bank, like a can of soup in the cupboard, like a quarter tank of gas, a cup of oil was there; in the jar, there was a portion of flour. More than enough for the family to eat.
Hanni sobbed and sank to the floor. While she did, the prophet appeared in the door. “There’ll be more tomorra,” he said, nodding at the jar. “There always is.” Then he held out his clean plate. “Where should I put this?”
…
1. Marco Conti and Thomas C. Oden, eds. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament V. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 104.
Here’s Ephrem the Syrian’s quote in full: “When he found her barefoot and dressed in rags in the act of gathering some wood, wasted by starvation and made miserably thin, he had the impression of seeing a burned stick, and he himself was ashamed of asking her for bread so that he first asked her for water. Later he added the request of bread. He knew for sure that a jug of flour would not have been lacking thanks to the promise of his Lord.”