15 ELIJAH’S SECOND MIRACLE

God told Elijah that He would supply food through a widow in Zarephath. Elijah believed God and went in obedience. We have in ten verses a record of the further protection God provided for Elijah and a special provision made for him in his intentional retirement from the public eye, especially the eye of Ahab. Whoever has God for his or her friend can laugh at destruction and famine because he has the living, loving, all-powerful provider and Creator to guard, feed and maintain him or her. The brook Kerith is dried up, but God’s care for His prophet, and kindness to him, never slackens, never fails, but are still the same, are still continued and extended to those that know Him. We can readily identify our need as being addressed in Psalm 36:10, “Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.” When the brook was dried up, Jordan was not; why did God not send him to the Jordan? Possibly because God wanted to show that He has a variety of ways to provide for His people and is not tied to any one location. God will now provide for Elijah where he will have some company and opportunity of usefulness, and not be, as he had been, buried alive.

Zarephath, a city of Sidon was out of the borders of the land of Israel. It is the place God sent him. Verse 9 says ““Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” Jesus mentioned this event as an early and ancient indication of the favor of God designed for the poor Gentiles in the fulness of time as recorded in Luke 4:25-26. “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.” Surely some of those Israeli widows would have welcomed Him to their houses; yet he is sent to honor and with his presence and companionship bless a city of Sidon, a Gentile city.

It seems that Elijah was the first prophet to minister to the gentiles. Abraham and Isaac both lived for a time in a foreign land, but in lying by calling their wives their sisters and bringing temporary baroness to their foreign hosts they certainly were poor example as foreign missionaries. In Elijah’s day Israel had corrupted themselves with the idolatries of foreign nations and become worse than they. Therefore God justly cast them off and gave favor to a Sidonian woman. Elijah was hated and driven out by his countrymen; therefore, he turns to the Gentiles, as the apostles were afterwards ordered to do. But why to a city of Sidon? Perhaps because the worship of Baal, which was now the great sin of Israel, recently came from there with Jezebel, who was a Sidonian. 1 Kings 16:31 fills in this detail for us as it describes the sins of Ahab, “He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.” Jezebel was from Sidon. So to defeat Baal worship God took Elijah to Sidon to prepare him.

What did he learn about the idolatrous worship of Baal while he was there? Did Elijah develop a stronger hatred for that idolatry? Perhaps. He seems to be quite motivated as he led the ceremonial contest between Baal and Jehovah on Most Carmel. He taunted the prophets of Baal as they danced and slashed themselves seeking rain from Baal on the top of Mount Carmel. Did Elijah learn to do that while in Sidon himself? Had he secretly and inwardly taunted the prophets of Baal there in Sidon? This would mean that the human vessel God used to destroy Baal worship in Israel was brought from a place that worshipped Baal in order to defeat Baal. God called this reformer out of Sidon. Jezebel was Elijah’s greatest enemy; yet, to show the powerlessness of her malice, God will find a hiding-place for Elijah even in her country.

Can you see the irony of this? Jezebel hated Elijah and wanted to kill him, but here at this time Elijah was hiding in her own country of Sidon! Can you think of a better place to prepare a prophet to strongly resist Baal worship than to put him in a place where Baal worship is practiced? What place has God put you in? Will He use it and the things you learn there to prepare you for the task He has ahead for you? That is a possibility. Incidentally, as a matter of human interest, as an adult, Jesus never went among the Gentiles except once to the coast of Sidon as recorded in Matthew 15:2. “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.” And He too performed a miracle there for a woman, healing her daughter.

Now let’s look at the person, a woman, who was appointed to entertain Elijah. She was not one of the rich merchants or great men, of Sidon, not such a one as Obadiah, who was governor of Ahab’s house and secretly fed God’s prophets, but a poor widow woman, destitute and desolate. She is commanded, made able and willing to feed him. It is God’s way, and it is His glory, to make use of the weak and foolish things of the world and put honor on them. God is, in a special manner, the widows’ God, and feeds them, and therefore this widow must figure out what she and her son should do in service to Him. How did God do this?

To provide for the widow, her son and Elijah, God arranged that the woman would meet Elijah very opportunely, fortuitously, not by chance, but by God’s plan at the gate of the city as verse 10 says, “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?’” By looking at their conversation we can learn several important things. What was her character? What were her circumstances? She was very poor, had a great need and had no human means to care for herself and her son. She had nothing to live on but a handful of meal and a little oil, needy at the best, and now with what she had all used up, except enough for one last meal, she and her son were reduced to the last extremity; eat what was left and then die. When she has eaten the little she has, she and her son must die. Verse 12 says, “‘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.’” She had no fuel but the sticks she gathered in the streets, and, having no servant, she must gather them herself. She was certainly more in a condition to receive alms and help than give food and entertainment. Yet to this very person Elijah was sent, that he might still live on God’s provision as much as he did when the ravens fed him.

It was in compassion to the low position of his handmaiden that God sent the prophet to her, not to beg of her, but to eat with her, and he would pay well for his table. She did not know it yet, but she was about to receive an extended daily series of miracles. Surely we can see a lesson in that she was very humble and industrious. He found her gathering sticks and preparing to bake her own bread. Her mind was thinking creatively about her situation and realistically considered her condition. She was not a dreamer and she did not complain about the hardship she was brought to. She did not quarrel with the divine purpose of God which included the withholding of rain, but accommodated herself to it as well as she could. While we are learning of the miracles God did through Elijah we can also, by the way, learn from this widow. Those of us that resemble her creativity and industry to do what she could for herself in our own days of trouble are best prepared for honor and relief from God.

We also may notice that she was very charitable and generous. When this stranger wanted her to go and get him some water to drink, she readily went, at the prophet’s first word as the last part of verse 10 and then verse 11 indicate, “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.’” She did not object to the present scarcity of water and did not ask him what he would give her for a drink of water. After all, even water now was worth money. Neither did she hint that he was a stranger, an Israelite, a foreigner with whom perhaps the Sidonians did not want to associate. The Samaritians did not. Why would the Sidonians? John 4:9 says, “The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)” This Sidonian woman did not excuse herself on account of her weakness through famine, or the urgency of her own affairs, did not tell him she herself had something more important to do than to go on a foreign prophet’s errands, but stopped gathering the sticks for herself in order to get water for him.

We do not know her thoughts or how God worked in her mind, but it would be possible that actually the very scarcity of water moved her to do this kindness. In any case we can see the hand of God in this and how He blessed someone who was generous even with something which was in short supply. Can we learn to be ready to do services of kindness even to strangers? Even if we do not have anything of value to give to the distressed, we can be ready to do something for them. A cup of cold water, though it cost us no more than the labour of going to get it, will not lose its reward. Elijah had the faith to ask the woman and the woman had the faith to respond.

Somehow she had a great confidence in the Word of God. It could have been a great trial for her faith and obedience when, having told the prophet how low her supply of meal and oil was and that she had just enough for herself and her son, yet he asked her to make a cake for him, and make his first, and then prepare for herself and her son. If we consider, it will appear as great a trial as could be in so small a matter. She might have said, “My first obligation is to my son, my own child. I cannot be expected to give to an outsider, having such little for ourselves, and not knowing, when that is gone, where or how we can get more.” She had much more reason than Nabal to ask, “Shall I take my meat and my oil and give it to one that I do not know where he came from?” Elijah, it is true, made mention of the God of Israel and this may have made the difference, this may have turned her heart, God’s reputation had perhaps reached her ears in Sidon.

Verse 14 says,“ 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.’” What was that to a Sidonian? Rahab had heard of God’s reputation and hid the spies in Jericho. Perhaps this woman had respect for the name Jehovah, and valued the God of Israel as the true God, but even so what assurance did she have that this stranger was His prophet or had any authorization to speak or make a promise of provision in His name? It was easy for a hungry and unknown traveler, a foreigner, to put her under an obligation. But she somehow gets over all these understandable and natural objections, and obeys the request of the prophet in dependence on the promise. Verse 15 says, “She went away and did as Elijah had told her.”

O woman! great is your faith; one has not found the like, no, not in Israel: all things considered, it exceeded that of the widow of whom Jesus spoke who, when she had just two mites, cast them into the treasury. This Sidonian woman took the prophet’s word, that she should not lose by it, but it should be repaid with interest. Those who can trust on the promise of God will not find it difficult to expose and empty themselves in His service, by giving Him His dues out of a little and giving Him His part first. Those that deal with God must deal in trust; seek first His kingdom, and then other things shall be added. By the law, the first-fruits were God’s, the tithe was taken out first, and the heave-offering of their dough was first offered as Numbers 15:20,21 says, “Present a loaf from the first of your ground meal and present it as an offering from the threshing floor. 21 Throughout the generations to come you are to give this offering to the Lord from the first of your ground meal.” We might be able to understand how the Israelites received, believed and acted on this instruction to give the first of the grain to the Lord, but this was no Israelite!

But surely the increase of this widow’s faith, to such a degree as to enable her this way to deny herself and to depend on the divine promise, was as great a miracle in the kingdom of grace as the increase of her oil was in the realm of physical provision. Happy are those who can like this believe and obey in hope. And we cannot overlook the faith that Elijah himself exercised in requesting the woman to do these things. He may have been inclined to be embarrassed or afraid to appear to be selfish or concerned only for himself, yet he made the request. The fact that God provided the oil and meal shows that the idea Elijah had was indeed from God, but Elijah still had to exercise faith to make the request. Elijah believed and so did the woman. Their combined faith and obedience made it possible for all three of them, Elijah, the woman and the woman’s son to eat until the rains came and the famine was over. One person’s faith can benefit other persons. Your faith and obedience can benefit others around you.

So with joy we now observe the care God took for the woman, her son and her guest. The last part of verse 15 and all of verse 16 say, “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.” Each day as they took from their supply still more was added by God’s divine power. Here was a miracle for the three of them and an illustration from which we today can learn. There is a symbolic application to our lives. We see it and can be thankful.

Neither corn nor olive increase like this in the natural growing of them as this grain and oil did in the using of them. It seems we have an ancient demonstration of what 2 Corinthians 9:10 tells us about, “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.” We see that in the common course of God’s provision, this instance of the power and goodness of God was not to be overlooked just because it was only common meal and oil. The meal and the oil multiplied, not in the hoarding, but in the spending. As Proverbs 11:24 says, “One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.”

When God blesses a little, it will go a great way, even beyond expectation; as, on the contrary, though there be abundance, if He blows on it, it comes to little as Haggai 1:9 and 2:16 remind us. “‘You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.’” and “When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty.” Put the story of Elijah in Sidon and the miraculous provision he experienced there with the experience of Israel during the days of Haggai when they selfishly did not give when they should have and we see a double emphasis on generosity, liberality and largess of heart.

This miracle was a maintenance for the prophet. Still miracles will be his daily bread. Until this time he had been fed with bread and flesh by ravins, now he was fed with bread and oil, which they used as we do butter. Elijah was thankful for this provision, though he had been accustomed to flesh twice a day and now had none at all. Those who cannot live without meat once a day at least because they have been used to it could not have eaten contentedly with Elijah. It was a maintenance for the poor widow and her son, and a reward for her for entertaining the prophet. There is nothing lost by being kind to God’s people and ministers; she that received a prophet had a prophet’s reward; she gave him house-room, and he repaid her with food for her household.

Like Elijah here, Jesus brings to those who welcome Him, not only His own provision of food, but theirs too. See how the reward more than compensated for the service. She generously made one cake for the prophet, and was repaid with many for herself and her son. When Abraham offers his only son to God he is told he will be the father of multitudes. God gives good payment. The poor widow gave one meal to the prophet and we assume she did this every day for the next two years. And she and her son both received the same supply even in a time of scarcity! And doesn’t Psalm 37:19 give us this promise? “In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty.” Miracles happen for people who have faith. Miracles happen for people who believe in and trust in God.

That is an important thing for a Christian leader to know.