1 Kings 17:12

12 But she said, “I swear by the LORD your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”

1 Kings 17:12 Meaning and Commentary

1 Kings 17:12

And she said, as the Lord thy God liveth
Which shows her to be a good woman, swearing by the living God, and him only, and that she took Elijah to be a good man, and a prophet of the Lord:

I have not a cake;
greater or less, not a morsel of bread in the house:

but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse;
these separate and unmixed, and not made into a cake, and dressed as she intended to do with them:

and, behold, I am gathering two sticks;
or a few, which would be sufficient to bake such a quantity as her meal and oil would make; she speaks by the figure "meiosis", which expresses less than what is meant, as Ben Melech observes:

that I may go in and dress it for me, and my son, that we may eat it,
and die;
having nothing more left, and no expectation of any elsewhere, and the famine strong in the land; so that she could look for nothing but death after this was eaten.

1 Kings 17:12 In-Context

10 So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me a little water in a cup?”

11 As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring me a bite of bread, too.”

12 But she said, “I swear by the LORD your God that I don’t have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”

13 But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son.

14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the LORD sends rain and the crops grow again!”