Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 4:26
But unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, [a city] of Sidon, unto a woman [that was] a widow.
26. save unto Sarepta ] i. e. “but he was sent to Sarepta.” Zarephath (1Ki 17:9) was a Phoenician town near the coast between Tyre and Sidon, now called Surafend.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Save unto Sarepta – Sarepta was a town between Tyre and Sidon, near the Mediterranean Sea. It was not a Jewish city, but a Sidonian, and therefore a Gentile town. The word save in this verse does not express the meaning of the original. It would seem to imply that the city was Jewish. The meaning of the verse is this: He was sent to none of the widows in Israel. He was not sent except to Sarepta, to a woman that was a Sidonian. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book, vol. i. p. 232-236) regards Sarepta as the modern Sarafend. He says that the ruins have been frequently dug over for stone to build the barracks at Beirut, and that the broken columns, marble slabs, sarcophagi, and other ruins indicate that it was once a flourishing city. A large town was built there in the time of the Crusades.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Luk 4:26
Save unto Sarepta
Description of Sarepta
The ruins of Sarepta are scattered over the plain, at intervals, for more than a mile: one group is on the coast, and may be the remains of the ancient harbour.
These lie on a tongue of land which forms a small bay, and pleasantly varies the monotony of the otherwise unbroken coast line. Fine crops brighten part of the plain around, though only the small village of Surafend, the modern representative of the ancient town, is actually surrounded by green. Sarepta was famous for its wine in the early Christian centuries, but it got its name in the Hebrew Bible–Zarpath–from its being in still older days a chief centre of the glass works of Phoenicia–the word meaning melting-houses. It belonged to the territory of Sidon, and must have been a large place, if we may judge from the number of rock-tombs at the foot of the hills. Its supreme interest, however, to all Bible readers lies in its connection with the great Prophet Elijah. A place is still shown at the old harbour where a Christian Church once stood, on the alleged site of the widows house in which the prophet lived. But no value is to be attached to such a localization, though the spot is still called The Grave of Eliiah, in the belief that he finally died there. During the reign of the Crusaders, Sarepta was strongly fortified, and made the seat of a bishop, who was subject to the Archbishop of Sidon; but as early as the end of the thirteenth century it had sunk into utter desolation. Legend has tried to identify it with the home of the Syrophcenician woman whose daughter Christ healed, but there is no ground for this fancy. Its fame must always rest, for Christians, on the noble lesson of faith in God taught by the prophet on the one hand, and by the great-hearted widow on the other. (C. Geikie, D. D.)
All men are thought of by God
There is a place in each mothers heart for every child that is given her, and do you not suppose there is a place in Gods heart for every child that He has created? Do you not suppose that all men stand before Him plain, and individual, and distinct? Yes, you stand before God as if there were not another man in the universe. As men stand before us without mistake of identity, and as all that we think and feel of them we think and feel of them as individuals, so we stand before God, and all that He thinks and feels of us He thinks and feels of us as individuals. He calls every one of us by name, and He does it a great deal more than we know. How much does the child know of the thoughts of the mother who sings and rocks its cradle while it sleeps, and breathes its name? When the child is gone from home for a visit or for school, how much does it know of the thoughts that are beaded and strung, pearl-like, before God, on its account, or of the frequency with which its name is uttered? If the child could follow its fathers and mothers voice, in the closet and elsewhere, how often would it hear its own sweet name sounding all the way up to heaven! And if this is so with earthly parents, may we not suppose, when we remember the boundlessness of Gods love, that there is not a child of His on which He does not bestow special thought and attention? (H. W.Beecher.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 26. Unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta] The sentence is elliptical, and means this: To none of them was Elias sent; he was not sent except to Sarepta; for the widow at Sarepta was a Sidonian, not a widow of Israel. PEARCE. – Sarepta was a pagan city in the country of Sidon, in the vicinity of Galilee.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
26, 27. save . . . saving“butonly.” (Compare Mr 13:32,Greek.)
Sarepta“Zarephath”(1Ki 17:9), a heathen villagebetween Tyre and Sidon. (See Mr7:24.)
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But unto none of them was Elias sent,…. That is, to none of the poor widows in the land of Israel was the prophet sent, to supply them with food, and relieve them in their famishing circumstances, as might most reasonably have been expected:
save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon; which in 1Ki 17:10 is called “Zarephath”; and by the Septuagint there, “Sarepta of Sidon”, as here. Pliny r speaks of it by the same name, and reckons it to Sidon:
unto a woman that was a widow: she is said by the Jews s, to be the mother of Jonah the prophet. Our Lord meant to observe, by this instance, as by the following, that God bestows his favours on persons in a sovereign way, and sometimes upon the most unlikely; as in a time of famine, he overlooked the poor widows in Israel, his peculiar people, and sent his prophet to a Gentile woman in one of the cities of Sidon; and therefore they should cease to wonder if he wrought his miracles in other places, and not in his own country; since this was agreeable to the divine procedure in other cases, especially since they were a cavilling and unbelieving people. The Jews say t, that in all that generation there was not found any one that was worthy, as this woman.
r L. 5. c. 19. s Pirke Eliezer, c. 33. t Zohar in Exod. fol. 89. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Unto Zarephath ( ). The modern village Surafend on the coast road between Tyre and Sidon.
Unto a woman that was a widow ( ). Literally, unto a woman a widow (like our vernacular widow woman). This is an illustration of the proverb from the life of Elijah (1Kgs 17:8; 1Kgs 17:9). This woman was in the land of Sidon or Phoenicia, a heathen, where Jesus himself will go later.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “But unto none of them was Elias sent,” (kai pros oudemian auton epemphthe Elias) “And Elias was not sent to a single one of them,” of all those widows in Israel, among God’s chosen people, or the Gentiles.
2) “Save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,” (ei me eis Sarepta tes Sidonias) “Except into Sarepta (a city) of Sidon,” also known as Zarepath, far beyond the northern border of Palestine to a village half-way between the cities of Tyre and Sidon, 1Ki 17:9; Oba 1:20; Mar 7:24. The term Sarepta means “a smelling house.”
3) “Unto a woman that was a widow.” (pros gunaika cheran) “Directly to a widow woman,” or a woman who was a widow, who had been commanded of the Lord to sustain him or care for his lodging needs, 1Ki 17:8-12. Passing by all the famishing widows in Israel, the prophet was sent to a Gentile, a widow who was not an Israelite at all. Both Naaman and the widow of Sarepta were Gentiles, in differing generations.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(26) Save unto Sarepta.Better, but unto Sarepta, the Greek conjunction here marking a contrast rather than an exception. Sarepta, the Zarephath of 1Ki. 17:9, was a Phoenician city lying between Tyre and Sidon. The reference to this incident at the commencement of our Lords ministry is a striking instance of His method of reading the underlying lessons of the narratives of the Old Testament, such as we see afterwards in His reference to David eating the shewbread. (See Notes on Mat. 12:3-4.) In what seemed a mere episode in the life of Elijah He finds a truth which implies the future calling of the Gentiles. When He complied with the prayer of the Syro-Phnician woman, He was doing as Elijah had done.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
Ver. 26. That was a widow ] A calamitous name, 2Sa 14:5 . The Hebrews call her Almanah, a dumb woman, because either she dare not or may not speak for herself: but God professeth himself the patron of such; and he can speak for them in the hearts of their greatest adversaries. Happy they in such an advocate.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
26. ] Sarepta, now Srafend, see Robinson. iii. 413, a large village, inland, halfway between Tyre and Sidon: the ancient city seems to have been on the coast.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 4:26 . , a village lying between Tyre and Sidon = modern Surafend .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
But = And.
save = but. Used, not in the sense of limitation, but of exclusion, as in Gal 1:2, Gal 1:16. Supply the Ellipsis (App-6) = “[but he was sent] to Sarepta”.
unto. Greek. eis. App-104.
Sarepta. Hebrew. Zarephath (1 Kings Luk 17:9), now Surafend, in ruins.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
26.] Sarepta, now Srafend, see Robinson. iii. 413,-a large village, inland, halfway between Tyre and Sidon:-the ancient city seems to have been on the coast.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 4:26. , Elias) For which reason people like those of Nazareth might have brought the same objection against Elijah and Elisha, which they brought against Christ. But Elijah was not sent to those with whom he was not likely to be accepted. Therefore not even at Nazareth [though His country] shall the glory of the Messiah be needlessly thrown away.- , Sidon) Oftentimes in the temples and schools much labour is bestowed without any fruit resulting among ones hearers that are connected with us: whereas, to some one stranger some one sermon, letter, or little treatise, proves the instrument of salvation.- unto a woman) It was therefore the widow that received the benefit, when she was seeming to have been the giver to the prophet, rather than vice vers.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
save: 1Ki 17:9-24, Zarephath, Oba 1:20
Sarepta: Sarepta, a city of Phoenicia, on the coast of the Mediterranean, is called Zarphand by the Arabian geographer Sherif Ibn Idris, who places it twenty miles n of Tyre, and ten s of Sidon; but its real distance from Tyre is about fifteen miles, the whole distance from that city to Sidon being only twenty-five miles. Maundrell states that the place shown him for this city, called Sarphan, consisted of only a few houses, on the tops of the mountains, within about half a mile of the sea; between which there were ruins of considerable extent.
Reciprocal: 1Ki 17:1 – Elijah Joh 17:12 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
6
Elias is the same as Elijah in 1Ki 17:8-16.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 4:26. Zarephath. The Hebrew form (1Ki 17:9). Now called Surafend a large inland village half-way between Tyre and Sidon. The ancient city was probably on the coast (which has greatly changed), and belonged to the territory of Sidon, hence, in the land of Sidon (or, Sidonia), according to the correct reading.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 26
The meaning is, that he was not sent to any of the widows in Israel, but to a Zidonian widow, a Gentile.