Commentaria in III Regum
“It was in that time a spectacle most pleasing to angels and men, that among the Gentiles, in a profane land, a widow woman was already then a daughter of Abraham, far more hospitable than the father himself, far more kindly than the begetter of faith. Abraham indeed was hospitable, and moved by great affection toward strangers; but he was truly wealthy, he was rich.” And a little after: “In her zeal for kindness she despised all the force of natural affection, anxious neither for herself nor for her little ones: nothing recalled her from the purpose of her mind, neither the weakness of her own sex, nor the maternal bowels of tenderness toward her little ones: she slew in herself the offices of nature in view of hospitality, and the mother’s mind, devoted toward her guest, became the cruel tomb of her children.”
16. AND FROM THAT DAY THE POT OF MEAL WASTED NOT, AND THE CRUSE OF OIL WAS NOT DIMINISHED,—not by rarefaction, but by a continual addition of new meal and oil, says Abulensis. Whence from it afterwards the widow with her son was sustained, nay Elias himself, as is plain from verse 20. The faith and holiness of Elias deserved this, as also the obedience and alms of the widow, by which she had given to Elias the little meal she had. So St. Prosper, book 2 On Predictions and Promises, chapter 29, whom hear: “So the soul lends to God, so while it gives in need it takes counsel for its own salvation. So is that soul filled which, the Lord withdrawing in body, loving Him who chastens, keeps with chaste love the faith of one marriage-bed, fortified by the sacrament of meal and the anointing of oil, securely awaiting the welcome rain, when the Lord shall say to it: Well done, good servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Hear also Eucherius, admiring the liberality and virtue of this widow, and rewarding her with this praise: “The hand of the widow became an ever-flowing wine-press, and a mill pouring continually. What do I say of the woman’s hand? At the word of the prophet the whole house of the widow became a storehouse of the pious. There was no dew there, no rain, no breath of spring, no warm suns, no needful shower, no plough, no husbandman, no farmer, but the word of the prophet supplied all things and in all things abundantly to the widow.” Elias fed the widow who fed him.
“Let us remember the widow of Sarephta, who preferred hunger to the safety of herself and her children for the sake of Elias, so that on that very night, about to die with her son, she would leave her guest surviving, choosing rather to lose life than alms; and in a handful of meal she prepared for herself the seed-bed of the Lord’s harvest. Meal is sown, and a fountain of oil is born: in Judea there is scarcity of grain: for the grain of wheat had died there, and in the widow of the Gentiles streams of oil flowed.” In like manner St. Euthymius (whose holiness became famous to the whole world under the Emperor Justinian), when meal failed in the monastery, multiplied it, saying: “Be of good heart: for as much as you give to the needy, the Lord will bestow double on us. For I hope that as once the pot of meal did not fail, so now it will by no means fail.” So Eustachius in his Life, and from him Baronius, in the year of Christ 504. In the same way Magymas the Anchorite, like Elias, multiplied grain and oil in two jars for the poor, as Theodoret relates in the Religious History, chapter 14, whom hear: “He took care of guests and the poor with such ready mind that he opened the gates to all who came. For he is said to have had two jars: one of grain, the other of oil. From these he always supplied all the needy: and he had them always full of the blessing which was given to the widow of Sarephta and poured into these jars. For the Lord Himself pours out all riches upon all who call upon Him: and as He commanded her pot and her drop to spring forth, giving handfuls of the seeds of hospitality, so also to this admirable man He gave a supply which answered equally to the readiness of his mind.”
Similar things were often done by St. John the Almsgiver, Archbishop of Alexandria, as Leontius testifies in his Life. Whence his maxim was: “The more I give to the poor, the more and greater things I always receive from God.” Whence St. Basil, homily On Almsgiving, compares him to a well or fountain which, the more water it pours out, the more bubbling water it takes in and receives. See St. Chrysostom, homily entitled: That almsgiving is the most gainful art of all.
Allegorically, the pot of meal signified the bread of the Eucharist, which is eaten daily by the faithful, and yet is never consumed or fails. So Lanfranc, Alger and others writing against Berengarius.
WHICH HE SPOKE IN THE HAND OF ELIAS,—that is, by Elias: for the hand is the instrument of instruments; whence it denotes an instrumental cause; for such with respect to God was Elias.
17. THE SON OF THE WOMAN, THE MISTRESS OF THE HOUSE, FELL SICK,—namely of the widow just mentioned: for she, her husband being dead, was the sole mistress of the house. God permitted or sent this sickness upon the boy to this end, that being dead he might be raised by Elias; and so the faith and virtue of Elias might shine before Achab and the Baalites. So Eucherius and others. Hear St. Augustine to Simplician, Question 5: “Not for the sake of doing evil did He put her son to death, but for the sake of showing a miracle to His glory, the boy himself also being so called. For Amathi in our language sounds truth, and because Elias spoke the truth, he who was raised is said to be the son of truth.” So he himself, certainly reciting, not approving. For Jonas was a Hebrew, but this son was a Sidonian. See what was said in the preface to Jonas.
ART THOU COME THAT MY INIQUITIES SHOULD BE REMEMBERED, AND THAT THOU SHOULDST KILL MY SON,—as if to say: Hast thou come to me, O Elias, as a minister of Elohim, that is, of God the supreme judge and avenger, that at thy entrance I should be punished by the death of my son? For she saw Elias as a minister of God punishing crimes and criminals, as when he brought barrenness and famine on all Israel for the worship of Baal. For there is a natural antipathy, as it were, between holiness and iniquity, and between the holy and the wicked, so that the one prevailing excludes and as it were destroys the other. So the severe holiness of Elias and his holy severity seemed here to crush all the iniquity of the widow’s family, and in punishment of it to kill the widow’s son. Theodoret notes the humility and penitent spirit in this widow, that she ascribes the death of her son to her own sins; and therefore she deserved to have him raised. Hear Theodoret here, Question 52: “The words of the widow,” he says, “are worthy of admiration: by thy light, she says, my sins, which were hidden, have been laid open. She did not say, thou wast to me an ill omen; thy coming has brought me evils; but rather she attributed what had happened to her own sins. So much did the teaching of the prophet profit her:” as though out of humility she grieved that she had unworthily received the prophet into her house.
21. AND HE STRETCHED, AND MEASURED HIMSELF UPON THE CHILD.—In Hebrew ethmoded, that is he measured himself (for it is of the conjugation Hithpael, which denotes a reflexive action of the agent on himself), he measured himself over the boy, and made himself equal to the boy, namely applying his mouth to the child’s mouth, his hands to the hands, his breast to the breast, his shins to the shins, his feet to the feet, and, as far as could be, making himself equal by contraction. Whence the Chaldee translates, he contracted himself over the child; the Septuagint, he breathed on the child three times; Vatablus, he lay upon the child.
You will ask, why did Elias do this? I answer: there were several causes. The first, ethical and pathetic, to show his extraordinary love for the widow and her son, and hence his grief at his death. For …of his name, by which he might commend so great a prophet both to those then living and to posterity. As the Lord says that Lazarus was not dead unto death, but that God might be glorified in the Son, and therefore the consequences prove it, and also the very confidence by which Elias believed that this did not happen in order that his hostess should be afflicted with bitter grief, but rather that God might show more magnificently to the widow what kind of servant of God she had received.” Some think that this son of the widow raised by Elias was the prophet Jonas. “The Hebrews relate,” says St. Jerome in the preface to Jonas, “that this is the son of the widow of Sarephta, whom Elias the prophet raised from the dead, his mother afterwards saying to him: Now I know that thou art a man of God, and the word of God in thy mouth is truth;” and for this reason we most dearly love those, we embrace them and hold them close, and do not suffer ourselves to be torn from them, as though we wished to breathe into them our strength, spirit and life. So St. Ambrose, in the funeral oration on the death of his brother Satyrus, recalls that he did the same for him: “It profited me nothing,” he says, “to have drawn his last breaths, nothing to have breathed my breath into him as he died.”