Zarephath

A small Phoenician seaport on the Mediterranean coast between Tyre and Sidon, outside Israel's borders, where Elijah is sent during the famine to live with a Gentile widow gathering sticks for what she believes will be her last meal (1 Kings 17). The jar of meal and jug of oil do not run dry until rain returns; the widow's son falls ill and dies and Elijah stretches himself out over the boy and prays him back to life. Jesus invokes the story in his Nazareth sermon (Luke 4:25-26) as a sign that God's mercy crosses ethnic lines.