This year I took some time to dive into stories about women in Hebrew Bible in a series of Facebook posts.
One of my favorites was the Widow of Zarephath. This series was originally four posts. I’ll modify and condense it into three. This is part two. You can find part one here.
A Woman of Valor
We find the story of the Widow of Zarephath and Elijah in 1 Kings 17. This post will focus on 1 Kings 17:6-16 in particular.
While I discussed the background in part one, in brevity, there is a famine in the land, and God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath where he will find a widow there who will sustain him. (v: 9. Note: we will dive into this verse and verse 12 in post 3).
So Elijah travels some odd 100 miles and arrives in Zarephath. He then finds a widow woman gathering sticks and asks her to bring him some water.
This raises some important questions.
How did Elijah know she was a widow?
Did the spirit confirm it somehow? Or was she wearing widow’s mourning clothes still? If the latter, it seems like her husband may not have been dead that long.
Notably, Zarephath has also been plagued by famine and drought, so likely water is hard to come by. But when Elijah asks the Widow for water, she doesn’t tell him any of this. Instead, as custom required, she immediately begins to fetch it. (Note: while we have many stories where this custom is followed, Rebekah being one, we have many where it is not followed. In a drought, many may have grumbled or hesitated. She did not. This speaks a great deal about her character.)
As far as we are aware, Elijah doesn’t know of the Widow’s full plight, though he may have gleaned some clues. But the Widow is fully aware of her situation. Leading up to Elijah’s request, the Widow was going to fetch sticks to make a last meal for her and her son before they died (v: 12).
“The widow’s response to this first request amazes me,” says Paul Tripp. “Why? Because she steps out of her own suffering to provide this man she doesn’t know with a drink.”
The story doesn’t pause here, but we should. This is an act of great charity and compassion in and of itself. Stepping outside of her own tragedy to care for another is a remarkable feat here. She believes she is on death’s doorstep and she still stops to help a stranger.
As she is going to fetch the water, Elijah asks her to bring him bread too. At this point, she stops and says, “As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” (v.12).
As Betsy Kerekes (a mother) writes, “As a mom, there’s nothing worse than a child in pain. It had to be hard enough for her to feel her hunger pains and know she was going to die, but her sorrow must’ve been compounded a thousand times knowing there was nothing she could do to quiet the hungry cries of her child.”
The sense of desperation is apparent while reading these verses. It almost leaps off the page. Rather than simply refusing him or turning him away, she’s letting him know she cannot offer this hospitality and the depth of her plight. We are three and a half years into a famine.
Questions this verse raises but does not answer:
How long has she watched this barrel dwindle? How long has she been hoping for an out? What has she been doing to try to get food and keep her son alive? How long has she been rationing? (Presumably, she was cutting her rations over her sons as well, and if so, for how long?) Has any of her community been supporting her? Could any of them afford to help her? How long has she been alone in providing for her son? How long ago was she asked by God to provide for Elijah? Did that affect her rationing?
Elijah responds: “Fear not.” And tells her to feed him first and then her and her son and that if she does this, “the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail” until there is rain and the famine and drought end. (v. 13-14).
The next verse indicates she followed Elijah’s instructions. She cooks Elijah her last meal and gives it to him first. Then like Elijah promised, the “barrel never wastes” and the cruse of oil “never fails.” (v.15).
Leigh Powers says: “We don’t know what was in her mind. […] Again, she lived in Sidon. She would have been more familiar with Baal’s cruelty than God’s kindness. Though she recognized Elijah as a man of God, she was clear that the Lord was Elijah’s God—not hers. But whatever she knew of God, it was enough. She responded in faith to what she knew of God, and God kept his promise.”
Others have brilliantly dissected the widow’s exceptional faith shown in this story. Faith to obey, faith to act, faith despite being in the depths of trial and despair. Faith to try. And she’s rewarded for that faith. She chose to trust a man from a religion that wasn’t hers and take him at his word and to trust a God who wasn’t hers and take him at his word.
Without the miracle that comes, she would have had to go to her son empty-handed without even a last meal. That takes faith and courage.
We don’t know whether it took faith on her part every subsequent time to trust that the barrel would never waste and the cruse would never fail, but it may have.
The Widow’s faith has received much attention as it should. However, her compassion, kindness, and hospitality also deserve more attention.
While many scriptural accounts translate Provers 31:10 to be a “virtuous woman,” most Hebrew scholars actually say a better translation would be a “woman of valor.” A woman of valor is exactly how subsequent rabbis describe the Widow. And that is truly beautiful. They use Proverbs 31:20 to describe the Widow as a woman whose “hands are stretched out to the needy.”
I love this insight. I love how much time Jewish rabbis take to extol all her virtues. Let’s continue to extol her faith, but let’s also extol her charity and kind heart too that she demonstrated even before the promise of a miracle.
You can find part three here.
Citations:
Photo: The widow of Zarephath (public domain)
Half Drafted 