“Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” This place is called Sarepta in the New Testament. It lay upon the great public road which connected the two towns. A little village called Sarafend now occupies the situation.
But how did it come about that Elijah was sent to a place so near the city of Jezebel’s father? It has been suggested that it would be the last place that he would be suspected of having chosen as a retreat. When Elijah came to the gate of the city the widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he asked her for a little water in a vessel, that he might drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he asked her to bring also a morsel of bread in her hand. But she had no bread—not so much as a cake—only a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse.
She was just going to dress this little food for herself and her son, “that we may eat it and die.” But Elijah claimed it in the name of the Lord, and gave to her in return the gracious promise: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the Earth.”
We may here admire and imitate one of the finest instances of ancient faith. The woman was asked for all she had, and she gave it. But mark, she was put in possession of a promise. This is God’s law. He gives the promise first, and then asks for the faith of man. It was so in the ease of Abraham. It is so with ourselves today.
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.” This is the continual miracle of nature; this is the security of life. We are puzzled by it, but what of that? Are possibilities to be determined by our weakness or by God’s strength? We could have increased the flour had we sown the seed, reaped the grain and called in the aid of the miller. Now let us venture on the supposition that Almighty God is able to do just a little more than we can do, and the whole difficulty is gone. The air wastes not, nor the light, nor the force of nature; what if God can touch points which happen to lie beyond the range of our short fingers? We must allow something for Deity.
And now sorrow fell upon the poor woman’s house. Her only child died, and her heart was lacerated even to torment and agony. But the Lord was merciful. Elijah took the dead child away into a loft—the upper chamber, which was often the best part of an Eastern house—and cried unto the Lord, and stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried again and again unto the Lord, and the child’s life returned. Then the glad mother hailed Elijah as a man, and one in whose mouth was the word of the Lord.
Elijah had put himself beyond the reach of Ahab—not because he feared him or distrusted the power of God in critical circumstances—but because God’s providence or government is a great scheme with innumerable sides, and requires time for its full disclosure and accomplishment. We are not to hasten the march of God. To every thing there is a season. Everywhere we see this idea of time observed and honored. Though there is famine in the land, we can not urge the seasons forward. The child, too, must have years of growth, though his father be disabled and there be none to earn the household bread but himself.
So in the case before us. Ahab must be wearied out with searching for Elijah. He must be made to see how fruitless may be the efforts even of a king. And at last, when success does come, it must come not from his side at all.
We have said that Ahab was a speculative idolater rather than a cruel persecutor. Jezebel acted the part of cruelty; Ahab acted the part of unbeliever and spiritual rebel generally. A proof of the probable correctness of this view is found in the incident before us, for when Ahab met Elijah he did not show a spirit of cruelty. He said unto the prophet: “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” He did not threaten Elijah with the sword; he did not demand his immediate surrender and arrest. He seems rather to have looked upon Elijah with wonder—perhaps not unmixed with admiration of a figure so independent and audacious.
The tone of the king’s mind may be inferred from the kind of challenge which he accepted. It exactly suited his speculative genius. Elijah proposed a trial between himself and the idolatrous prophets, 850 in number—proposing that the god who answered by fire should be God. The idea instantly commended itself to Ahab as excellent. He liked the high and practical speculation. He was fond of intellectual combat, and he warmed at the notion of a holy fray. The man who could accept a notion of this kind was not cruel, wild or fond of human blood. Ahab was even wickedly religious; the more altars and groves the better—yea, altar upon altar, until the pile reached to Heaven; and grove after grove, until the line met itself again and formed a cordon around the world. If he had started from a right center, Ahab had been the foremost evangelist in the ancient Church.