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Zarephath

City / town · Phoenicia

A Phoenician town between Tyre and Sidon. Elijah lodged here through the drought with a widow whose jar of flour and jug of oil did not run out, and he raised her son from death — an episode Jesus recalled at Nazareth (1 Kings 17:8-24; Luke 4:25-26).

Where in scripture

[8] Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, [9] “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.” [10] So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her, and said, “Please get me a little water in a jar, that I may drink.” [11] As she was going to get it, he called to her, and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” [12] She said, “As Yahweh your God lives, I don’t have a cake, but a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

1 Kings 17:8–24 — opening verses — cited in the description of Zarephath

[25] But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. [26] Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.

Luke 4:25–26 — cited in the description of Zarephath

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation.

1 Kings 17:8–24Luke 4:25–26

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