1-kings 17:9

Get thee to Zarephath - This was a town between Tyre and Sidon, but nearer to the latter, and is therefore called in the text Zarephath which belongeth to Sidon; or, as the Vulgate and other versions express it, Sarepta of the Sidonians. Sarepta is the name by which it goes in the New Testament; but its present name is Sarphan. Mr. Maundrell, who visited it, describes it as consisting of a few houses only on the tops of the mountains; but supposes that it anciently stood in the plain below, where there are still ruins of a considerable extent.

The dependence of Zarephath (Sarepta) on Sidon is indicated in the inscriptions of Sennacherib, where it is mentioned as belonging to Luliya (Elulaeus), king of Sidon, and as submitting to the Assyrian monarch on Luliya's flight from his capital. Elijah may have been sent to this place, so near the city of Jezebel's father, as one which it was most unlikely that he would visit.

17:9 Zarephath - A city between Tyre and Sidon, called Sarepta by St. 4:26 , and others.Zidon - To the jurisdiction of that city, which was inhabited byGentiles. And God's providing for his prophet, first, by an uncleanbird, and then by a Gentile, whom the Jews esteemed unclean, was apresage of the calling of the Gentiles, and rejection of the Jews.So Elijah was the first prophet of the Gentiles.Commanded - Appointed or provided, for that she had as yet no revelationor command of God about it, appears from ver. 12 .