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17
1 Elijah the Tishbite (from Tishbe in Gilead), told Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, the one I serve, in the years to come there will not be any dew or rain unless I say so!”
2 Then the Lord told Elijah, 3 “Leave here and go east. Hide in the valley of the Cherith brook where it meets the Jordan. 4 You can drink from the brook, and I have ordered ravens to bring you food you there.”
5 So Elijah did what the Lord told him. He went to the valley of the Cherith brook, where it meets the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 Ravens brought him bread and meat both in the morning and in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 7 A while later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
8 Then the Lord told Elijah, 9 “Leave here and go to Zarephath near Sidon and stay there. I have given instructions to a widow there to provide you with food.”
10 So he left for Zarephath. When he arrived at the entrance to the town, he saw a woman, a widow, gathering sticks. He called her over and asked her, “Could you bring me a little water in a cup so I can have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called after her and said, “Oh, and please bring me a piece of bread.”
12 She replied, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no bread, only a handful of flour is left in a jar and a little bit of olive oil in a jug. Right now I am gathering a few sticks so I can go and cook what's left for myself and my son so we can eat it, and then we'll die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Don't be afraid. Go home and do what you said. But first make me a small loaf of bread from what you have and bring it to me. Then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not become empty and the jug of olive oil will not run out until the day the Lord sends rain to water the ground.’ ”
15 She went and did as Elijah had told her, and Elijah, the widow, and her household were able to eat for many days. 16 The jar of flour did not become empty and the jug of olive oil did not run out, just as the Lord had said through Elijah.
17 Later on the woman's son fell sick. (She was the one who owned the house.) He went from bad to worse, and finally he died.
18 “What are you doing to me,*The literal phrase in the Hebrew is “What for me and for you?” It is sometimes translated “What do I have to do you with you?” but here it is clearly being used as a question regarding the death of the widow's son. man of God?” the woman asked Elijah. “Have you come to remind me about my sins and cause my son to die?”
19 “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He picked him up from her arms, carried him upstairs to the room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord, saying, “Lord my God, why have you allowed this to happen to this widow who has opened her home to me, this terrible tragedy of causing her son to die?”
21 He stretched himself out on the boy three times, and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, please let this boy's life return to him!” 22 The Lord responded to Elijah's cry. The boy's life returned to him, and he lived!
23 Elijah took the boy and brought him down from the room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “See, your son is alive,” Elijah told her.
24 “Now I'm convinced that you are a man of God, and that what the Lord speaks through you is the truth,” the woman replied.

- 1 Kings
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*17:18 The literal phrase in the Hebrew is “What for me and for you?” It is sometimes translated “What do I have to do you with you?” but here it is clearly being used as a question regarding the death of the widow's son.

© 2018 Dr. Jonathan Gallagher