Day by Day

 

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide food for you.”  So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the entrance of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink.”  As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.”  But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no food, only a handful of flour in the bowl and a little oil in the jar; and behold, I am gathering a few sticks so that I may go in and prepare it for me and my son, so that we may eat it and die.”  However, Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go, do as you have said. Just make me a little bread loaf from it first and bring it out to me, and afterward you may make one for yourself and for your son.  For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘The bowl of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil become empty, until the day that the Lord provides rain on the face of the earth.’”  So she went and did everything in accordance with the word of Elijah, and she and he and her household ate for many days.  The bowl of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil become empty, in accordance with the word of the Lord which He spoke through Elijah.

1 Kings 17:8-16

The Setting

We are introduced to the prophet Elijah in the opening verse of 1 Kings 17.  He appears before the king of Northern Israel, Ahab, declaring God's warning of a coming drought that would last for years.

God then tells Elijah to withdraw to the brook Cherith east of the Jordan River.  While the brook had water during the drought, God provided ravens to bring food to Elijah.  When the water of the brook dried up, God told Elijah to relocate to Zarephath, a small village south of the Phoenician city of Sidon.  As the passage states, Zarephath belonged to Sidon.

History

Zarephath (modern Sarepta) dates back to around 1600 BC in the Late Bronze Age, and is mentioned in an Egyptian papyrus from the time of Rameses II.  Archaeological exploration in the 1970s discovered that Zarephath had remained occupied continuously throughout the Iron Age.  Aside from its sea port, it was a town known for pottery production, olive oil production, metallurgy (with more than 20 kilns discovered), and purple-dye manufacturing.

Sidon is one of the oldest known human settlements dating several thousand years before the time of Christ.  Sidon is often mentioned in conjunction with the neighboring city of Tyre, and Sidon itself is mentioned nearly 50 times in the bible.   

Located outside of Israel, these were Gentile cities.  Zarephath and Sidon remain today as costal sea-port cities in the southern portion of Lebanon. 

Our Lesson

As Elijah entered Zarephath, he found the widow gathering sticks.  He obviously knew that this particular woman was the one God had prepared and sent him to, but we aren't told precisely how that was revealed to him.  

There are two points of particular interest regarding this widow.  First, God told Elijah that He had commanded, or instructed, this widow to provide for him.  Second, her first words to Elijah were "As the Lord your God lives..." which is translated from the Hebrew text Jehovah elohim hay.  Who was this woman of Sidon that knew of Jehovah, "the existing one",  I AM?

What we may likely conclude about her from her response to Elijah that this widow had reached a point of utter destitution that she was unable to purchase even the meagerest of provisions.  She must have had no family members to help her.  The people of the city must have exhausted, or horded for themselves, what provisions they had so they were of no assistance for her.  We learn in later verses that she had a home in which she was able to provide a room for Elijah, but if she had owned items of any value, they must have long been sold or traded for food by this point.

You can almost feel the resignation to doom in her words in the acknowledgement that not only her end was near, but that of her son too.  How many days and weeks had she been rationing what little she had to now face the end of it all.  To have enough for a small loaf of bread for her and her son to share before the long wait for death from starvation.

Imagine yourself in this widow's position.  You can't provide for yourself and your child, you have been instructed by God to provide for another person that you have never met, and now that person is standing right in front of you asking for food.  To be obedient to God's instruction, she not only had to give up what would have been her last bit of food, but she would have had to take the last bit of food out of her child's mouth too.

Elijah obeyed.  The widow obeyed.  And God moved in an astounding way.  The bowl of flour was not used up and the jar of oil never went empty for the time that God withheld rain from the land.  The woman and her household then "ate for many days".

Notice that the text doesn't say that God provided the widow with piled up sacks of flour and grain.  It doesn't say that God provided barrels and barrels of oil stacked to the ceiling.  It says the bowl of flour was not used up and the jar of oil was never empty.  

Which of these two outcomes do you think would foster and grow a stronger and more continuous faith in God?

• Walking into your storeroom every day and seeing many sacks of flour and barrels full of oil that God provided all at once.
• Walking into your storeroom every day and seeing it empty, but also seeing God daily provide flour to that small bowl and oil to that jar?

If you have read many of my articles, you have heard me mention one of my favorite biblical teachers, Ray Vander Laan.  He addresses this in one of his video lessons from his ministry series That The World May Know produced by Focus on the Family.

In a section of one of his lesson videos, Ray speaks about an encounter he had while in the wilderness of Israel seeing a flock of sheep and how it relates to Psalm 23 and Green Pastures.  It is about a 5-minute video that I highly recommend watching.

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The video in essence presents that when we westerners read the 23rd Psalm and encounter the line "He makes me lie in green pastures", we envision a very lush green field in which we are placed and that God provides us with everything we'd ever need for the rest of our lives.  We'd never have to move another inch. Whatever we need, just reach out and take it.

That way of thinking is dangerous.  It moves us away from our dependency on God which in turn moves us away from our relationship with Him.  

As Ray challenges in the video, "Tell me your walk with God has ever been like that?"  

Mine hasn't.  Absolutely, He meets my needs.  But He meets them daily.  As the Lord taught us to pray:  "Give us this day our daily bread."

In the video, Ray shows a couple of young shepherd girls leading their flock of sheep through the rocky hillsides that are seemingly barren.  Because farmland is scarce and precious in Israel, flocks and cattle were (and are) kept out of those areas.  In that rocky terrain, the little bit of rain that falls there or the moisture in the air blown in from across the Mediterranean Sea condenses around the rocks and dampens the ground around them.  There's just enough water for small tufts of grass to grow up around each rock.  The shepherds look for those signs and lead their flocks there.  At each rock there would be just enough grass for a mouthful, and the shepherd would lead the flock to the next mouthful, and then the next mouthful.

Foreign to our western mindset, this is what a shepherd's green pasture is.  Green pastures is not what you need for the rest of your life.  It is trust knowing that your shepherd will provide for what you need right now.  What about tomorrow?  Trust the shepherd.  What about in an hour?  Trust the shepherd.

Ray quotes a Jewish rabbi who said "Worry is dealing with tomorrow's problems on today's pasture."

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This is a lesson the widow, her son, and Elijah were being taught or having reinforced.  

Elijah was first.  Hidden away in the wilderness near a brook, ravens were sent with meat and bread every morning, and again every evening.  He wasn't sent to a vineyard or an orchard where he had a constant access to food.  He was having to be reliant on God's daily provision.

The widow and her son were next.  God didn't send large amounts of food to be stored and accessed like a well stocked cupboard.  They were having to be reliant on God's daily provision as that small bowl and jar were just enough for their need and never ran empty.

I wonder at if God was preparing her for this lesson as her stored and obtainable provisions dwindled to nothing while Elijah spent that same period experiencing the lesson beside the brook.  

It wasn't the first time this lesson had been given to people.  One of the more well known instances was with the Israelites when they were being led in the wilderness by Moses.  When they cried out for food and lamented what they had left behind in Egypt to enter the barren wilderness, God provided them manna each morning.  

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.

Exodus 16:4

When they measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack; every man gathered as much as he should eat.

Exodus 16:18

In regard to the manna, God put a stipulation on the Israelites.  They were instructed to not hold over any manna to the following day because it would go bad; the exception was on the six day when they were to gather enough for two days because there would be no provision of manna on the sabbath.  

On the first through fifth days of each week, any manna left until the next day would "grow worms and become foul".  But manna held over from the sixth day to the seventh day was perfectly fine.  If you left that seventh day's manna over to the first day of the following week: worms and foulness!  This happened every day, week after week, year after year, and decade after decade until the day after the Israelites ate food produced of the promised land  (Joshua 5:12).

Same lesson: trust God daily.

In our world of near instant-gratification and of surrounding ourselves with all manner of securities, it is a difficult lesson.  But it is a lesson that will lead us to a fuller trust and reliance on our heavenly Father, and one that will give us confidence to be able to fully trust Him in more trying times.

Praise God in the days of plenty, but also trust Him in the days of lack for He's no less worthy of praise then.  He has repeatedly displayed His goodness and faithfulness.  We can fully trust the leading and provisions of the Good Shepherd.

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Recommendation

Interested in more from RVL?  Check out his videos and study guides available at his ministry's website: That The World May Know

Bonus Education: The Science Behind The Book
Above I mentioned how the region's small amount of rain and condensed humidity from the winds blown inland from the Mediterranean Sea lead to the growth of tufts of grass in the rocky and hilly wilderness of Israel.  This weather pattern effect results in an environmental phenomenon called a "rain shadow".

A rain shadow is a patch of land that has been forced to become a desert because mountain ranges blocked all plant-growing, rainy weather. On one side of the mountain, wet weather systems drop rain and snow. On the other side of the mountain—the rain shadow side—all that precipitation is blocked.

In a rain shadow, it’s warm and dry. On the other side of the mountain, it’s wet and cool. Why is there a difference? When an air mass moves from a low elevation to a high elevation, it expands and cools. This cool air cannot hold moisture as well as warm air. Cool air forms clouds, which drop rain and snow, as it rises up a mountain. After the air mass crosses over the peak of the mountain and starts down the other side, the air warms up and the clouds dissipate. That means there is less rainfall.

 Credit:  NationalGeographic.org article on Rain Shadows

You can see in this satellite image of Israel the very obvious rain shadow created by the Judean Mountains just west of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.  There is a definitive line along the spine of the mountain ridge.  There is growth and greenery to the west, and to the east between the mountain ridge and the Dead Sea is the rain shadow known as the Judean Desert.

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