1 Kings — Chapter 17

Elijah the Tishbite announces the drought: Lapide (quoting S. Bernard's letter): Elijah was \"the form of justice, the mirror of holiness, the example of piety, the asserter of truth, the defender of faith, the teacher of Israel, the master of the ignorant, the refuge of the oppressed, the advocate of the poor, the judge of widows, the rod of the powerful, the hammer of tyrants, the father of kings, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the prophet of the Most High, the forerunner of Christ.\"

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, likewise bread and flesh in the evening: Lapide: God used a voracious and inhuman bird to feed Elijah, to show that He commands all animals and can change their nature. The Angels prepared these loaves and meats — hence they were better and more nourishing than ordinary food. S. Basil: \"The ravens, forgetful of their own nature, in bringing bread and meat to the holy man were ministers of the Lord's command.\"

Arise, and go to Sarepta of the Sidonians: Lapide: God commands Elijah to leave the borders of Israel and go into the territory of the Sidonians, to dwell there safely and quietly under a Gentile king. Allegorically (S. Augustine), Elijah signifies Christ who, persecuted by the Jews, transferred His Gospel to the Gentiles — as Christ himself explained (Luke iv:25-26).

The widow of Sarepta: \"I have not bread, but a handful of meal in a pot and a little oil in a cruse\": Lapide: She was a Gentile woman, but religious and devout. Her faith, obedience, and generosity in giving her last handful of meal to the prophet who had brought the famine were heroic. Eucherius: \"Great was the soul of the woman, great her unchanged purpose of mind, great and truly venerable her deed through the ages!\"

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: The pot of meal shall not waste, nor the cruse of oil be diminished, until the day wherein the Lord will give rain upon the face of the earth: Lapide: The flour was multiplied not by rarefaction but by continual addition of new flour and oil from divine power. This is the reward of the widow's faith, obedience, and almsgiving — she gave her last means of subsistence to Elijah.

The pot of meal wasted not, and the cruse of oil was not diminished, according to the word of the Lord: S. Prosper: \"Thus the soul lends to God; thus while she gives in necessity she provides for herself unto salvation.\" S. Eucherius: \"The hand of the widow became a perpetual winepress and a mill ever pouring forth. In the word of the prophet, the whole house of the widow became the storehouse of the pious.\"

The son of the widow dies and is raised by Elijah: Lapide: \"God permitted or sent this illness so that, the boy being raised by Elijah, the faith and virtue of Elijah might shine forth before Ahab and the Baalites.\" The first resurrection from death since the creation of the world. Traditional opinion holds this boy to have been the prophet Jonah — a tradition Lapide notes but disputes.

Elijah stretches himself upon the child three times: Lapide gives five reasons — ethical (showing his great love), physical (warming the dead body to dispose it for the soul), symbolic (showing how arduous it is to raise the dead), theological (commending the body through the contact of his holy flesh), and tropological (showing the apostolic man must conform himself to sinners he would convert, as Paul: \"I became all things to all men\").