Scripture · 2 Samuel 23:1-7
1 Kings 17:8-16
The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: “Get up and go to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Elijah called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink.” And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread.” But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.” “Do not be afraid,” Elijah said to her. “Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake of bread from what you have, and bring it out to me. Afterward, make some for yourself and your son, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’” So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and there was food every day for Elijah and the woman and her household. The jar of flour was not exhausted and the jug of oil did not run dry, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Elijah.
A widow reaches down for sticks in the upper scene and reaches up for her living child in the lower one. Ivanov makes the change in her hands carry a household’s story.
About the artwork
Above, Elijah stands beside the woman and her son as she gathers fuel for what she expects to be their last meal. Below, the prophet holds the boy out toward her waiting arms. The child is being returned alive: the lower scene is the answer to the mother’s grief, rather than an image of his death.
The two episodes share one sheet but reverse who has something to give. First, Elijah asks the widow to feed him from her nearly exhausted supply. Later, after his prayer, he gives her son back. The spare watercolor and drawing keep those exchanges legible, letting the repeated figures join two kinds of need without treating the whole chapter as one instant.
Featured in: Luke 4 in Art: The Temptation, the Hometown Sermon, and the Verses Worth Remembering
What does 1 Kings 17:8-16 mean?
In 1 Kings 17:8–16, Elijah asks a widow in Zarephath for water and bread. She has only enough flour and oil for a final meal with her son. After she acts on the prophet’s request, her supplies last through the famine, fulfilling the promise Elijah has spoken.
The chapter continues with the son’s illness and death. Elijah prays for him, and the boy is restored to his mother. The lower scene therefore carries the reading beyond the paired verses. Jesus later recalls Elijah’s mission to this widow in Luke 4, emphasizing that she lived outside Israel.
Ivanov’s paired scenes follow the widow’s household from food sustained in famine to the later restoration of her son.
Sources
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Exact two-scene sheet: Elijah meets the widow at the city gate above and returns her revived son below; collection identified as the Tretyakov Gallery.
Luke 4 in Art: The Temptation, the Hometown Sermon, and the Verses Worth Remembering. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
1 Kings 17 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for 1 Kings 17:8-16.
Luke 4 — Berean Standard Bible. Jesus recalls the widow of Zarephath in verses 25–26.