Widow of Zarephath - Eat it and die?

[chipmafia]

As I'm preparing to teach on 1 Kings 17:8-24, I was struck my something I hadn't really picked up on before.

The Lord said to Elijah, "I have commanded a widow there to feed you."

When Elijah arrives, the widow is apparently afraid to see him, as the prophet says to her, "Do not fear.."

Do you think it is because she has chosen to feed herself and her son rather than Elijah, and thus is fearing the Lord's judgment (death)?

I have never heard it taught that way, and I may be way off.

Thanks for your insight.

 

[VictorBravo]

I think it is more along the lines of her looking at her resources, despairing that she has next to nothing--only a handful of meal and a dollop of oil.

She's at the end of her rope and thinks she has no way out. We aren't told whether she was commanded by God directly, or through Elijah, but when he comes along asking for bread, she feels the situation is hopeless.

But she does show herself to be faithful, invoking God as her witness in a serious fashion. It sounds more like Elijah, when he says "do not fear," is reassuring her that her plight is not hopeless at all, but that God will provide.

So it does not seem proper to think of her as being disobedient, but rather fearfully faithful.

 

[Jack K]

The most plain meaning from the context seems to be that she had very little food left and feared starving to death with her child. That fear made her unwilling to feed Elijah. It is often these sorts of fears—that things will not go well for us in the world and God will not take care of us—that keep us from doing what we might for God.

By the way, welcome to the board. This is a great place to discuss Scritpure! We'd love to know your name and where you're from (and it's a requirement that this be in your signature, so sooner or later a moderator will get on you about it).

 

[VictorBravo]

By the way, welcome to the board. This is a great place to discuss Scritpure! We'd love to know your name and where you're from (and it's a requirement that this be in your signature, so sooner or later a moderator will get on you about it).

Right. That's Jack's way of telling me I'm slipping.

Please click on the "Signature Requirements" below this post--and welcome to the board!

 

[A5pointer]

I think it is more along the lines of her looking at her resources, despairing that she has next to nothing--only a handful of meal and a dollop of oil.

She's at the end of her rope and thinks she has no way out. We aren't told whether she was commanded by God directly, or through Elijah, but when he comes along asking for bread, she feels the situation is hopeless.

But she does show herself to be faithful, invoking God as her witness in a serious fashion. It sounds more like Elijah, when he says "do not fear," is reassuring her that her plight is not hopeless at all, but that God will provide.

So it does not seem proper to think of her as being disobedient, but rather fearfully faithful.

I would be careful with this conclusion. Notice in her vow invoking the name of a deity(a common ANE practice) she says YHWH is Elijah's god. Take note of the irony of the text. Elijah is miraculously provided for by a gentile woman in gentile land while the land of Canaan and the Israelites are suffering under the judgment of drought as prescribed in the Deuteronomic code. Then YHWH through Elijah shows mercy and grace to the gentile woman by raising her son. Apparently one of many foreshadows of future blessing to the gentiles found in the OT. Also note that the ANE audience may be struck by the fact that YHWH and His prophet are effective outside of the land of Canaan. The Gentile woman then acknowledges in the end that the miracle was in fact the work of YHWH. Again more irony as Israel under the influence of Ahab and Jezebel has rejected YHWH in favor of Baal and other false God's. Setting up the climactic show down on Mt. Carmel as recorded in the next chapter. The main focus of the large section 16:29-22:40 devoted by the author to Ahab and Jezebel is to bring in to focus the question, (YHWH or Baal ?) I am teaching through Kings now too, we just started 2 Kings. Feel free to bounce any textual questions off me. Disclaimer the opinions expressed are just my 2 cents.

 

[chipmafia]

We aren't told whether she was commanded by God directly,

When I read verse 9, I read that God did indeed command her to feed Elijah. I would think that she was expecting him, which is how I came to my conclusion.

I guess my question is this - Is her hopelessness a lack of food, or an perceived inability to feed the prophet along with herself and her son.

 

[VictorBravo]

We aren't told whether she was commanded by God directly,

When I read verse 9, I read that God did indeed command her to feed Elijah. I would think that she was expecting him, which is how I came to my conclusion.

My thinking was that a plain reading doesn't necessarily mean that God spoke to her directly before Elijah met her. The word for "command" in the Hebrew can mean "appoint" or "ordain."

I acknowledge that most of the time it is used to mean a direct command to his people, usually through a prophet (it is used very often in that way in Moses' writings). But it also is used to mean that God has ordained something that has not yet come to pass, like in 1 Samuel 13:14 where Saul is being told that he will lose his kingdom in favor of David:

But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee.

Scripture shows that it was a fairly long time in coming for David to actually become King after this command

Gill comments on the 1 Kings passage:

not that this was declared to the woman, or that she had any orders from the Lord to support him; but that he had determined it in his mind, and would take care in his providence that he should be supplied by her

/

I guess my question is this - Is her hopelessness a lack of food, or an perceived inability to feed the prophet along with herself and her son.

I think you can fairly say "both." She felt hopeless before Elijah came along, and she probably felt even more fearfully hopeless now that he was asking for food too. But note that she heard the command as spoken by the prophet and she obeyed. That seems to be as clear an example of faith as one would hope to find.

 

[chipmafia]

I've found various commentators that say something similar. I find it interesting that many English translations still translate it as "command" (NLT was "instructed"). It seems like it would have been more clear to simply translate the text as "appointed" rather than make it confusing, if indeed that is the meaning. I'm still not 100% convinced.

Regardless of the answer to my question, the meaning of the text remains unchanged, so it's not terribly important.