The town of Zarephath in the land of Sidon. I am going to guess very few people could point that out on a map.. but judging by the people’s reaction when Jesus mentioned it, we can guess that it was a place which the people of Judah disliked. The town name means smelting furnace… the town currently is in the Country of Lebanon
I will make things a bit easier by referring to the Northern 10 tribes as Samria or the Samaritans, while calling the South Judah. Each area went by various names depending on who was speaking and where their hearts lay.
This was in the far northern area of Samaria (The tribe of Asher) right along the Mediterranean Sea. So very much in the area of the Northern Tribes. The town was along the coast and was about halfway between Type and Sidon. This area still had the Phoenicians living there as like the Philistines to the south, they had never been driven out by Israel as they came into the land. This Phoenician land would produce the woman Jezebel, who would have such an impact upon Samaria and King Ahab.
Story of Elijah
The story of Elijah and the woman which Jesus refers to is found in 1 Kings, Chapter 17. Ahab had become King of the Northern tribes and as bad as previous kings had been offending God… King Ahab was worse. For our introduction to Elijah, he proclaimed a drought that God was going to do with the evil things done by King Ahab.
At First Elijah hid in a wadi area in which God kept Elijah alive with food and drink. Eventually the drought became bad enough that Elijah had to leave.
Onward to Zarephath
God told Elijah to head to a widow who lives in Zarephath, who would take care of him. This was all done to help prepare Elijah for his calling from God. The story is very easy to understand and fairly short About 24 verses. The story is broken into three parts. The drought and how God keeps Elijah alive. The calling back to the true religion and the end of the drought. Finally the third part where Elijah is in despair at his failure as a prophet and continually tries to resign his position.
The important thing to understand here is that the Northern tribes in Israel were following the false God Baal. Almost as soon as the Northern tribes pulled away from the United Kingdom, they quickly fell into Idolotry and their Kings led them there. Ahab erected a temple to Ba’al, and married Jezebel. It says that he did more to anger the God of Israel more than any other king ( And that was saying quite a lot)
All this was seen by Judah and was recognized as an evil dynasty and doing things outside of God’s laws and decrees. But yet at one point the Southern section would form an alliance between Samaria and Judah. This was due to a common enemy of Assyria to the north of Israel.
The Canaanite around 700 BC area had the Assyrian Empire to the North and the Egyptian Empire to the south. They needed God’s protection more than ever, but simply were lured into doing things detested by God.. Idol worship, forgetting about the true God. Forgetting the lessons taught by Passover, and the time in the desert. Each of the Monarchs began more and more ignoring God. The Samaritan areas perhaps quicker than Judah