A widow and her son living in the town of Zarephath [ZAIR-uh-fath] in the region of Sidon

Transcription

1 1 Session 9: APRIL 29 SundayTeacher.com PASSWORD: Pathway Elijah in the Town of Zarephath A widow and her son living in the town of Zarephath [ZAIR-uh-fath] in the region of Sidon [SIGH-duhn] had a life-saving encounter with a prophet of Israel: the prophet Elijah. Sidon was ruled by no other than the father of Jezebel, wife of King Ahab. Ahab was ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel during Elijah s day. He was wicked and idolatrous, and Jezebel was callous and calculating. A clash between Elijah and these two was inevitable. So how did this prophet end up in the homeland of the wife of his worst enemy? The God of Israel vs. Baal of the Canaanites It all started with a succession of wicked and idolatrous rulers. When Solomon s son and heir Rehoboam [ree-huh-boh-uhm] rejected the wise advice of his father s advisors and promised the people of Israel that he would make them come to hate him, 10 of the 12 tribes who had faithfully followed David and Solomon rejected Rehoboam s rule. They selected a man named Jeroboam [jer-uh-boh-uhm] to lead them, leaving only the remaining two tribes (Judah and Benjamin) to follow David s heirs. This divided the nation of Israel into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom

2 2 of Judah. After a succession of these wicked kings, one followed who did even greater evil than those who went before. First Kings 16:31, 33 reports that Ahab not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.... [Ahab] did more to arouse the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him. Enter Elijah. Elijah was a prophet in the northern kingdom. His name means Yahweh (jah) is my God (eli). It reflects his mission to the people of Israel. Elijah was God s chosen servant to call the people of Israel to repentance. First Kings 17 tells us that Elijah was a Tishbite [TISH-bight], from Tishbe [TISH-bee] in Gilead [GIL-ee-uhd] (v. 1). We know nothing about Tishbe, which has led some commentators to speculate that it might not be the name of a city at all. Rather, the word might have the meaning of settler. In this case, the phrase might be translated Elijah the settler, from the settlers in Gilead. * Gilead was a mountainous region east of the Jordan River in the southern part of Israel. We are introduced to Elijah in a rather abrupt manner. His first words are found in verse 1: As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. The theme of drought is a fitting one here. Baal, the god of the Canaanites, was worshiped as the god of rain and fertility. God s punishment of Israel for the sin of worshiping this god was therefore a direct challenge to the people s faith in this pagan idol. If the Israelites were going to turn to an idol of stone and wood for bountiful harvests and healthy livestock, than a drought was the perfect way to demonstrate how foolish they were! Ahab, Jezebel, and the people of Israel were left to ponder who really had power over the rain:

3 3 the Lord God Almighty or the Canaanite idol Baal. Perhaps to drive the point home, we are later told that the drought continued not just for one season but for three long years (18:1). Elijah delivered his warning to Ahab and then immediately set out for the Kerith [KAIR-ith] Ravine, east of the Jordan (v. 3). Kerith (also known as Cherith or Corath) Ravine is another unknown location, although some have proposed that it be identified with modern Wadi al-yabis [WAH-dee al-yah-bihs], a stream in western Jordan that is particularly secluded and wild. This spot would have been ideal as a hideout from an angry ruler! God s instructions to Elijah to leave for Kerith Ravine may have been two-fold. First, Elijah s retreat took him out of harm s way in case Ahab and Jezebel decided to silence this troublesome prophet. Second, it brought him to a small creek that supplied his needs for water in an increasingly dry land. Eventually, even this brook dried up, and God sent Elijah on to his encounter with the widow in Zarephath. A Widow in Zarephath Zarephath [ZAIR-uh-fath] was a Phoenician city on the Mediterranean coast between Sidon and Tyre [TIGHR], north of Israel in what is now Lebanon. Its modern name is Sarafand. This was part of the territory ruled by Jezebel s father (1 Kings 16:31). The archaeological record of this site revealed an eighth-century BC shrine to the goddess Astarte-Tanit. Astarte was Baal s consort; Tanit was a goddess usually worshiped in the western Mediterranean regions. In another ironic twist, then, we find that God chose to send Elijah, whose name, as noted above, means Yahweh is my God, to the heart of the worship of Baal!

4 4 This is not the last irony we find in this story. God sent Elijah to ride out the drought in the home of a poor widow. In the ancient world, there was no other kind of widow than a poor one. Women depended on their male relatives--fathers, husbands, brothers, sons--for almost everything. This does not mean they were not capable of taking care of themselves; there just were few options for women to be independent in that patriarchal society. Yet here was God instructing Elijah to depend on this poor woman for all his needs! God not only sent Elijah to a poor widow, but to a Gentile widow as well (see Luke 4:25-26). This widow was not an Israelite, but because God chose her out of all the people to whom He might have sent Elijah, she learned the power of the one true God. Perhaps this is one reason why Zarephath was known as a very Christian village by sixth-century believers, and maintained that reputation until it was all but abandoned in the 15th century. * Simon J. DeVries, Word Biblical Commentary: 1 Kings (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1985), 216. JUDI KING is editor of Illustrated Bible Life, Kansas City.

5 5 Think about it... Why was Elijah in the town of Zarephath? What are some of the ironies we see in this story? What does it say to you about God that He seems to have used these ironies purposely to get His message across to the people? What do you know about the rest of Elijah s life and ministry? How do you think his time in Zarephath affected his trust in God for the rest of his life?