Jesus mentions the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath during His confrontation with the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. Recently I covered that story in Bible time, and while I was preparing for it was led to wonder “Why?” Why did God send Elijah to a gentile widow when there were so many widows in Israel at the time? I was hoping against hope that no student would bring that up (none did), but am always prepared to point them to the utter sovereignty of God and the mystery of His will (iow, “God doesn’t always tell us why He is doing something, but we know that He is most wise and most good.”)
But, in this case, God actually does give us insight. Elijah is placed with the widow because of a famine that God had brought upon Israel; the widow provided Elijah with food and in doing so was provided for herself during the famine. This is recorded in I Kings 17, and in I Kings 18 we find out that at the same time, in Israel, wicked Jezebel was keeping busy trying to kill all the prophets of the Lord, while Ahab was searching “every nation and kingdom on earth and from end to end” (New Living) to try to find Elijah, whom he blamed for the famine. Two very good reasons to send Elijah out of the country! So God safely tucked Elijah away with the widow, hiding him in plain sight, as it were, in her humble home, keeping him safe until it was time to confront the wickedness in Israel.
Filed under: Recent insight
