Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 23, 2025
Again, in the time of the Old Testament high-priest there were many holy men who were not under him, such as Job and his family for he was not alone. Likewise the king of Babylon, the queen of Sheba, the widow of Zarephath, the prince Naaman of Syria, and many others in Eastern lands, together with their families, who are all commended in the Scriptures.
Patience is an element in strength. It was a far cry from Cherith to Zarephath, right across the kingdom of Ahab; and to run for refuge to a dependency of Zidon, Jezebel's country, looked like putting his head in the lion's mouth. But the same 'command' which the ravens had obeyed had smoothed his way. So he girded up his loins, and left, no doubt reluctantly, the brook for a city.
Morning and evening the ravens came bringing bread and meat, and the brook brought him water out of the rock, but as there was no rain, the brook at last dried up, and there was a great famine. Then Elijah was told to go to Zarephath, for a woman there had been told to feed him, and he went at once.
Sleeping now in a cave, now in a friendly tent, avoiding villages and bands of men, the wild prophet came to the fields outside Zarephath and waited; for the place was a walled town with a low stone archway, and gatekeepers to question all who came in. Now as he loitered among the trees a poor woman came out to gather broken branches to kindle her fire, and the prophet called to her,
The ravens, the widow of Zarephath, an angel, were his caterers; and, instead of taking away his life, God Himself sends the bread and water to preserve it. The revelation of a watchful, tender Providence often rebukes gloomy unbelief and shames us back to faith.
It would not have been strange, if this widow of Zarephath had been unwilling to divide her handful of meal with Elijah, or if she had doubted the promise which was made to her, but she did not. She baked the little cake for the stranger, and afterwards one for herself and her boy, and there was plenty of meal and of oil left for another repast.
And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." Elijah went, and the ravens brought him bread and meat, morning and evening, and he drank of the brook. But after many days the brook dried up, and God told him to go to Zarephath, where a widow would sustain him. So he arose and went to Zarephath.
Why, he thought with himself, should one believing there is in very truth a live, thinking, perfect Power at the heart and head of affairs, count it impossible that, in their great and manifest need, their meal chest should be supplied like that of the widow of Zarephath? If he could believe the thing was done then, there could be nothing absurd in hoping the thing might be done now.
He left behind him his servant, his 'young man, as the original has it, whom Rabbinical tradition identified with the miraculously resuscitated son of the widow of Zarephath, and supposed to become afterwards the prophet Jonah. His complaint is not to be wondered at, though it was wrong. The very overstrain of the scene on Carmel brought reaction.
Then God told him to go to the city of Zarephath, or Sarepta, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and that he had commanded a widow woman there to sustain him. He did not tell him the name of the woman; nor the street she lived in; nor the number of her house. Elijah went. When he came near the place he met a woman, picking up some sticks of wood.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking