- 122-
childlike trustfulness in the God of Israel. What a lesson this, and how full of comfort,
to Elijah! There was faith not only in Israel, but wherever He had planted its seed.
Elijah had spread the wings of the God of Israel's promise (1 Kings 17:14), and this
poor heathen had sought shelter under them.
There, almost hourly these many "days,"^303 the promise proved true, and, day by day,
as when Israel gathered the manna in the wilderness, did an unseen Hand provide - and
that not only for herself and her son, but for all "her household."
It was a constant miracle; but then we need, and we have a God Who doeth wonders -
not one of the idols of the heathen, nor yet a mere abstraction, but the Living and the
True God. And we need in our Bible such a history as this, to give us the pledge of
personal assurance, when our hearts well-nigh sink within us in the bitter trials of life -
something which to all time may serve as evidence that Jehovah reigneth, and that we
can venture our all upon it. And yet as great as this miracle of daily providing seems
that other of the faith of the widow of Sarepta!
It was soon to be put to even greater trial - and, as before, not only she, but Elijah also,
would learn precious lessons by it. "Days" (time)had passed in happy quiet since God
had daily spread the table in the widow's home, when her son became ill. The sickness
increased, until, in the language of the sacred text, "there was not left in him breath."^304
There is something in the immediate contact with the Divine, which, from its contrast,
brings sin to our remembrance, and in consequence makes us feel as if it were
impossible to stand unpunished before Him - until our thoughts of the Divine Holiness,
which in this view seems as consuming fire, pass into the higher realization of the
infinite love of God, which seeks and saves that which is lost (comp. Luke 5:8; also
Isaiah 6:5). It was certainly not the wish that the prophet should be gone from her
home, nor yet regret that he had ever come to it, which wrung from the agonized
woman, as she carried to him her dead child in her bosom, these wild words, in which
despair mingled with the consciousness of sin and the searching after the higher and
better: "What have I to do with thee (what to [between] me and thee),^305 man of the
Elohim? Come art thou to me to bring to remembrance my sin, and (thus) to cause the
death of my son?" The Divine, as represented by Elijah, having no commonality with
her; its fierce light bringing out her sin, and her sin bringing down condign punishment
- such were the only clearly conscious thoughts of this incipient believer - though with
much of the higher and better, as yet unconsciously, in the background.
Elijah made no other answer than to ask for her son. He took him from her bosom,
carried him to the Alijah (upper chamber) where he dwelt, and there laid him on his
own bed. In truth, it was not a time for teaching by words, but by deeds. And Elijah
himself was deeply moved. These "many days" had been a happy, quiet, resting time to
(^)