The Widow's Oil

In a small house, behind a closed door, a mother tips a little jar of oil into a big empty pot. Then another. And another. Her sons keep bringing jars, and the oil just keeps on flowing.

This woman's husband had been one of the company of prophets, a man who honoured the Lord. Now he has died, and she is left with two sons and a debt she cannot pay. The man she owes has run out of patience. He is coming to take her two boys as his slaves, to work off what the family owes. In desperation, she goes to the prophet Elisha and cries out to him. “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he feared the Lord. And now the creditor is coming to take my two children as slaves.”

Elisha answers with a question. “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She almost can't bring herself to say it. “Your servant has nothing in the house at all, except a small jar of oil.” Just a little olive oil, the kind used for cooking and for lamps. Hardly enough to matter. But Elisha takes that little jar seriously. “Go around to all your neighbours,” he says, “and borrow empty jars. And don't ask for just a few.”

Can you picture it? The widow and her boys knocking on doors up and down the street. “Can we borrow your jar? And yours? Any empty pot you've got?” Big jars, small jars, cooking pots and water jugs, all carried home and lined up across the floor. The neighbours must have wondered what on earth she was doing. Then come Elisha's next instructions. “Go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all those jars, and as each one is filled, set it aside.” So she shuts the door. Just her, her two sons, and one small jar of oil.

She tips the jar. The oil pours out into the first pot and fills it to the brim. She sets it aside. Her son brings another. It fills too. And another. And another. The boys are hurrying back and forth now, and still the oil flows. At last she says, “Bring me another jar.” And her son says, “There isn't a jar left.” And at that very moment, the oil stops. Not a moment before. The oil kept flowing for as long as there were empty jars to hold it.

She goes and tells Elisha, the man of God. And he says, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt. You and your sons can live on what is left.” Imagine her walking home that day. Her boys are safe. Her debt can be paid in full. And there is enough left over to live on. She had come to Elisha with nothing but a little jar and a great fear. God took the little she had, and through her trust, her obedience, and her neighbours' borrowed jars, he made it more than enough.

The threat in this story was very real. In the ancient world, a family that couldn't pay its debts could lose its children into servitude to the person they owed. The law of Moses tried to limit this. It said a poor Israelite must not be worked like a slave, but treated as a hired worker and set free in time. The prophet Amos condemned those who sold the poor for silver. And centuries after Elisha, in Nehemiah's day, families were still crying out that their sons and daughters were being taken this way. So this widow wasn't facing a bad month. She was facing the loss of her children.

The widow's oil. You'll find it in Second Kings, chapter 4, verses 1 to 7. She thought she had nothing. Elisha asked what she had, and God started there. So here's the question to carry with you. What small thing do you have that you could offer to God, and to the people around you?