1 Kings 17:8

ELIJAH FLEED TO SAREPTA; WHERE A WIDOW FED HIM

"And the word of Jehovah came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Sidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain thee. And he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow there was gathering sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thy hand. And she said, as Jehovah thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in the jar, and a little oil in the cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks that I might go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said; but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it forth unto me, and afterward make for thee and thy son. For thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, The jar of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that Jehovah sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. The jar of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spake by Elijah."

"Get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Sidon" (1 Kings 17:8). This was a long journey, from Gilead to the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon; but it was another area beyond the jurisdiction of Ahab. "This place is the Sarepta of Luke 4:26, the modern Sarafend. It lay between Tyre and Sidon, and its nearness to the headquarters of Jezebel's father made it a safe, because unsuspected, hiding-place."[17] The lesson that Jesus Christ drew from this episode is that, "A prophet unacceptable to his own people, may of necessity exercise his ministry among foreigners."[18] Thus, Elijah's actions here were a kind of prophecy of Jesus' ministry to certain Gentiles, such as the centurions and the Syro-Phoenician woman.