(26) Save unto Sarepta.--Better, but unto Sarepta, the Greek conjunction here marking a contrast rather than an exception. Sarepta, the Zarephath of 1Kings 17:9, was a Phoenician city lying between Tyre and Sidon. The reference to this incident at the commencement of our Lord's 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 Matthew 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-Ph?nician woman, He was doing as Elijah had done.

4:14-30 Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Saviour's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. Some prejudice often furnishes an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross; and while it is the word of God that stirs up men's enmity, they will blame the conduct or manner of the speaker. The doctrine of God's sovereignty, his right to do his will, provokes proud men. They will not seek his favour in his own way; and are angry when others have the favours they neglect. Still is Jesus rejected by multitudes who hear the same message from his words. While they crucify him afresh by their sins, may we honour him as the Son of God, the Saviour of men, and seek to show we do so by our obedience.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 1 Kings 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.