Zarephath was a small Phoenician coastal city between Tyre and Sidon. In the Bible, it appears mainly as the place where God sent the prophet Elijah during a great drought in Israel.
There, a poor foreign widow took the prophet in, and God multiplied the little flour and oil she had left. Later, when her son died, Elijah prayed and the boy came back to life.
Centuries later, Jesus cited this episode in a synagogue in Nazareth, recalling that Elijah was sent to a foreign widow, and not to any widow in Israel. The event became an ancient sign that God’s grace also reaches those outside the covenant people.
