ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW'S SON. AFTER Elijah had announced to Ahab the famine with which God was about to visit his people on account of their apostacy from the true religion, the prophet, as soon as the Divine threat was realised, retired to the brook Cherith, where he continued concealed for the space of a whole year, in order to avoid the persecution of Ahab's wicked queen. Here he was miraculously supplied with food every day by ravens, and the brook furnished him with a wholesome and refreshing beverage. At length, from the long continuance of drought, the brook dried up, and Elijah was in danger of perishing for want of water, when the Almighty commanded him to repair to Zarephath, or, as it is called in the New Testament, Sarepta, a city of the Sidonians, situated between Tyre and Sidon, where he had appointed a poor widow to entertain him. The prophet immediately took his journey to Zarephath, where the famine had already reached and spread over the whole neighbouring country. As Elijah approached the city, he met the poor widow without the walls, gathering sticks, and, upon asking her to give him a little water and a morsel of bread, she replied that the famine had reduced her to the last state of destitution, having only a handful of meal, and a little oil in a cruse, which she was going to make into a cake for herself and child, being the last meal she should be able to provide. The prophet, however, desired her to do his bidding; at the same time assuring her that she and her son should be supported during the famine by the merciful interposition of that God who had visited the land with dearth and drought. Relying upon the promise of the holy man, she obeyed his commands, after which she, her son, and Elijah, lived upon the meal and oil for the space of two years. During this period the widow's son fell sick and died, then she upbraided the prophet as the cause of her calamity: then "he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed *." Having offered up a prayer to Heaven, "the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived †." |