1 Kings 17:10-24

17:10 So he got up and went to Zarephath. When he went through the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood. He called out to her, “Please give me a cup¹ of water, so I can take a drink.” 17:11 As she went to get it, he called out to her, “Please bring me a piece of bread.”² 17:12 She said, “As certainly as the Lord your God lives, I have no food, except for a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. Right now I am gathering a couple of sticks for a fire. Then I’m going home to make one final meal for my son and myself. After we have eaten that, we will die of starvation.”³ 17:13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go and do as you planned.⁴ But first make a small cake for me and bring it to me; then make something for yourself and your son. 17:14 For this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘The jar of flour will not be empty and the jug of oil will not run out until the day the Lord makes it rain on the surface of the ground.’” 17:15 She went and did as Elijah told her; there was always enough food for Elijah and for her and her family.⁵ 17:16 The jar of flour was never empty and the jug of oil never ran out, just as the Lord had promised⁶ through Elijah.

17:17 After this⁷ the son of the woman who owned the house got sick. His illness was so severe he could no longer breathe. 17:18 She asked Elijah, “Why, prophet, have you come⁸ to me to confront me with⁹ my sin and kill my son?” 17:19 He said to her, “Hand me your son.” He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him down on his bed. 17:20 Then he called out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, are you also bringing disaster on this widow I am staying with by killing her son?” 17:21 He stretched out over the boy three times and called out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, please let this boy’s breath return to him.” 17:22 The Lord answered Elijah’s prayer; the boy’s breath returned to him and he lived. 17:23 Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upper room to the house, and handed him to his mother. Elijah then said, “See, your son is alive!” 17:24 The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a prophet and that the Lord really does speak through you.”¹⁰

¹tn Heb “a little.”

²tn The Hebrew text also includes the phrase “in your hand.”

³tn Heb “Look, I am gathering two sticks and then I will go and make it for me and my son and we will eat it and we will die.”

⁴tn Heb “according to your word.”

⁵tn Heb “and she ate, she and he and her house [for] days.”

⁶tn Heb “out, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke.”

⁷tn Heb “after these things.”

⁸tn Heb “What to me and to you, man of God, that you have come.”

⁹tn Heb “to make me remember.”

¹⁰tn Heb “you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is truly in your mouth.”

sn This episode is especially significant in light of Ahab’s decision to promote Baal worship in Israel. In Canaanite mythology the drought that swept over the region (v. 1) would signal that Baal, a fertility god responsible for providing food for his subjects, had been defeated by the god of death and was imprisoned in the underworld. While Baal was overcome by death and unable to function like a king, Israel’s God demonstrated his sovereignty and superiority to death by providing food for a widow and restoring life to her son. And he did it all in Sidonian territory, Baal’s back yard, as it were. The episode demonstrates that Israel’s God, not Baal, is the true king who provides food and controls life and death. This polemic against Baalism reaches its climax in the next chapter, when the Lord proves that he, not Baal, controls the elements of the storm and determines when the rains will fall.