Yahweh’s word came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.” So he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks: and he called to her, and said, “Please get me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” As she was going to get it, he called to her, and said, “Please bring me a morsel of […]
⛓ Read 1 Kings 17 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'Elijah was sent... to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow' directly retells 1 Kings 17:8-16, the widow of Zarephath. Explicit naming of place and figure makes this a high-Volume citation deployed as Gentile-inclusion precedent.
High confidenceEcho4
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
The poor widow who gives 'all that she had to live on' strongly recalls the widow of Zarephath who, at Elijah's word, spends her last handful of meal trusting God for provision. The shared figure of a destitute widow giving her entire remaining sustenance makes this the closest narrative analogue and likely a deliberate typological echo.
Medium confidenceThe pattern of women materially sustaining a prophet (the widow of Zarephath feeding Elijah) is a broad scriptural type Luke may activate, but the link is thematic rather than verbal. Marked contested for low Volume.
Low confidenceElijah lodges in a single household (the widow of Zarephath) and is sustained there, a model of the prophet received into one house. Jesus' instruction to stay in one house until departure resonates faintly with this prophetic hospitality pattern. Contested, thematic coherence only.
Low confidenceElijah's word causes a widow's flour and oil not to fail through a famine. The prophet-makes-meager-food-suffice pattern coheres with the feeding miracle. Contested, faint Elijah/Elisha background to the loaves.
Low confidence◇ Figural1
A typological pattern re-read in a later text — no verbal quotation, high figural coherence.
The widow of Zarephath gives Elijah her last handful of meal and oil, surrendering all she had to live on, and is then sustained. Luke's poor widow likewise gives 'all she had to live on' (bios), and Luke elsewhere pairs Zarephath's widow with the temple critique (4:25-26). The shared figure of the destitute widow whose total self-gift outweighs the abundance of others gives this real coherence, though there is no verbal quotation.
Medium confidence