ZAREPHATH
Job 1:20, a Phoenician seaport on the Mediterranean between Tyre and Zidon, usually subject to Tyre.During a famine in Israel, the prophet Elijah resided here, with a widow whose cruse of oil and barrel of flour were supplied and whose child was restored to life by miracle. Her noble faith in God is worthy of everlasting remembrance; universal imitation, 1Ki 17:9-24 . The place was afterwards called by the Greeks Sarepta, Luk 4:26, and is now known as Sarafend, a large village on the hills adjoining the seacoast.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Zarephath
(Heb. Tsarephath’, , smelting place; Sept and New Test. [in Obad. ; v.r. in 1 Kings, ]; Josephus, ; Sarepta, Luk 4:26), a town which derives its claim to notice from having been the residence of the prophet Elijah during the latter part of the drought, and where he performed the miracle of multiplying the barrel of meal and cruse of oil, and where he raised the widow’s son to life (1Ki 17:9-10). Beyond stating that it was near to, or dependent on, Zidon (), the Bible gives no clew to its position. It is mentioned by Obadiah (1Ki 17:20), but merely as a Canaanitish (that is, Phoenician) city. Josephus (Ant. 8:13, 2), however, states that it was not far from Sidon and Tyre, for it lies between them. To this Jerome adds (Onomast. s.v. Sarefta) that it lay on the public road, that is, the coast-road. Both these conditions. are implied in the mention of it in the itinerary of Paula by Jerome (Epit. Paulae, 8), and both are fulfilled in the situation of the modern village of Surafend, a name which, except in its termination, is almost identical with the ancient Phoenician (comp. Pliny, 5, 17; Jerome, Ep. 108, ad Eustoch.).
There were many vineyards there (Sidon. Apoll. Carm. 17:16; Fulgent. Mythol. 2, 15). The Crusaders made Sarepta a Latin bishopric in the archiepiscopate of Sidon, and erected near the port a small chapel over the reputed site of Elijah’s miracle (William ch of Tyre, 19:14; Jacob of Vitry, ch. 44). In the Middle Ages it .was a strongly fortified place (Wilken, Kreuzzige, 2, 208). The locality has been visited and described in recent times by Robinson (Bibl. Res. 2, 475), Thomson (Land and Book, ch. 12), and others. It appears to have changed its place, at least since the 11th century, for it is now more than a mile from the coast, high up on the slope of a hill (Robinson, p. 474), whereas at the time of the Crusades it was on the shore. Of the old town considerable indications remain. One group of foundations is on a headland called Ain elKentarah; but the chief remains are south of this, and extend for a mile or more, with many fragments of columns, slabs, and other architectural features. The Roman road is said to be up usually perfect there (Beamont, Diary, etc., 2, 186). The site of the chapel erected by the Crusaders on the spot then reputed to be the site of the widow’s house is probably still preserved (see the citations of Robinson). It is near the water’s edge, and is now marked by a wely and small khan dedicated to el-Khud, the well-known personage who unites, in the popular Moslem faith, Elijah and St. George. A grotto at the foot of the hill on which the modern village -stands is’ now shown as the residence of Elijah (Yan de Velde, Syr. and Palest. 1, 102). See Maundrell, Travels, p. 63; Korte, Reis. p. 307; Nau, Voyage Nouv. p. 544; Pococke, East, 2, 85; Raumer, Palastina, p. 140; Richter, Walf. p. 72; Russegger, 3, 145; Cobius, De Sarepta (Viteb. 1728), SEE PHOENICIA.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Zarephath
smelting-shop, “a workshop for the refining and smelting of metals”, a small Phoenician town, now Surafend, about a mile from the coast, almost midway on the road between Tyre and Sidon. Here Elijah sojourned with a poor widow during the “great famine,” when the “heaven was shut up three years and six months” (Luke 4:26; 1 Kings 17:10). It is called Sarepta in the New Testament (Luke 4:26).
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Zarephath
(“tsarfa'”.) Elijah’s residence during the drought (1Ki 17:9-10); belonging to Sidon. A Canaanite, i.e. Phoenician city (Oba 1:20). Sarepta in Luk 4:26. The name means smelting shop. Now Surafend, a tell or hill, with a small village, seven or eight miles from Sidon, near the Zaharain river. The ancient town however was below on the shore; there, ruins of a flourishing city are found, columns, marble slabs and sarcophagi, and a chapel of the crusaders on the presumed site of the widow’s house.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Zarephath
ZAREPHATH (Authorized Version Sarepta).A town of the narrow rocky Phnician coast, 9 miles S.W. of Sidon, 17 miles N. of Tyre, and 60 miles directly N. of Nazareth, whence NT reference is made to it. Perched 500 feet high on a steep hillside a mile from the coast road, the modern shrunken hamlet looks down upon the traveller riding through a mile of the ruins of the ancient Zarephath, which once as a populous city extended to the sea, was provided with walls, and had a commodious harbour, now filled with sand and ruins.
While, in the theoretical division of the Holy Land among the twelve tribes by Joshua, Zarephath fell into the lot of Asher, going down, as that did, even unto great Sidon, and to the fortified city of Tyre (Jos 19:28 f.), it, together with the most of Ashers territory, remained almost wholly Phnician and Gentile. St. Lukes report of Christs sermon at Nazareth distinctly connects Zarephath with Sidon, as do the LXX Septuagint and Massoretic Text in the account of Elijahs sustenance by the widow there. This Evangelistapparently the only Gentile-Christian NT writerseizes as does no other upon the thought that the boundless grace of God has been extended in certain typical cases to remote Gentiles, even to the superseding and exclusion of those who were of the stock of Abraham and dwelt within the Holy Land. The choice, among all others, of the widow of pagan Phnician Zarephath, and of Naaman the leper of heathen Syrian Damascus, to receive the favours of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, filled the crabbed synagogue hearers of Nazareth with wrath and murder (Luk 4:25 ff.).
Wilbur Fletcher Steele.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Zarephath
ZAREPHATH.The Arab. [Note: Arabic.] village of Sarafend lies on a promontory about eight miles south of Zidon. On the shore in front of it are the scattered remains of what must have been a considerable town, the Zarephath or Sarepta of the Bible. Zarephath originally belonged to Zidon (1Ki 17:9), but passed into the possession of Tyre after the assistance rendered by the fleet of Zidon to Shalmaneser iv in b.c. 722 in his abortive attempt to capture insular Tyre. In Luk 4:26 it is again called a city of Sidon (RV [Note: Revised Version.] in the land of Sidon). Zarephath is included in the list of towns captured by Sennacherib when he invaded Phnicia in b.c. 701. It was the town in which Elijah lodged during the years of famine (1Ki 17:8-24).
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Zarephath
zare-fath (, carephath; , Sarepta): The Sidonian town in which Elijah was entertained by a widow after he left the brook Cherith (1Ki 17:9 ff). Obadiah refers to it as a Canaanite (probably meaning Phoenicia) town (Oba 1:20). It appears in the Greek form Sarepta in Luk 4:26 (the King James Version), and is said to be in the land of Sidon. Josephus (Ant., VIII, xiii, 2) says it was not far from Sidon and Tyre, for it lay between them. Eusebius, Onomasticon (s.v. Sarefta), places it on the public road, i.e. the road along the seashore. It can be no other than the modern Sarafend, about 13 miles North of Tyre, on the spur of the mountain which divides the plain of Tyre from that of Sidon.
The site of the ancient town is marked by the ruins on the shore to the South of the modern village, about 8 miles to the South of Sidon, which extend along the shore for a mile or more. They are in two distinct groups, one on a headland to the West of a fountain called Ain el-Kantara, which is not far from the shore. Here was the ancient harbor which still affords shelter for small craft. The other group of ruins is to the South, and consists of columns, sarcophagi and marble slabs, indicating a city of considerable importance. The modern village of Sarafend was built some time after the 12th century, since at the time of the Crusades the town was still on the shore.
It is conjectured that the Syrophoenician woman mentioned in Luk 4:26 was an inhabitant of Zarephath., and it is possible that our Lord visited the place in His journey to the region as narrated in Mar 7:24-31, for it is said that he came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee.
The place has been identified by some with Misrephoth-maim of Jos 11:8 and Jos 13:6, but the latter passage would indicate that Misrephoth-maim was at the limit of the territory of the Sidonians, which Zarephath was not in the days of Joshua. See MISREPHOTH-MAIM; SIDON.
Originally Sidonian, the town passed to the Tyrians after the invasian of Shalmaneser IV, 722 BC. It fell to Sennacherib 701 BC. The Wely, or shrine bearing the name of el-Khudr, the saint in whom George is blended with Elijah, stands near the shore. Probably here the Crusaders erected a chapel on what they believed to be the site of the widow’s house.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Zarephath
Zarephath [SAREPTA]
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Zarephath
[Zar’ephath]
City belonging to Zidon, where Elijah stayed with a widow during part of a time of drought and famine, being sustained by the miraculous increase of the widow’s meal and oil. 1Ki 17:9-10; Oba 1:20. Called SAREPTA in Luk 4:26. Identified with Sarafend, 33 27′ N, 35 18′ E.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Zarephath
H6886
A city between Tyre and Sidon.
Elijah performs two miracles in
1Ki 17:8-24
Called Sarepta
Luk 4:26
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Zarephath
Zarephath. (zr’e-phth), smelting-house, and Sarepta (sa-rp’tah). Luk 4:26. A town of Phnicia, on the Mediterranean, between Tyre and Sidon. At Zarephath, Elijah found shelter with a widow during the great famine in Israel. 1Ki 17:8-24. The prophet Obadiah mentions it as marking the limits of Israel’s victory. Oba 1:20. Jesus made reference to this incident in Elijah’s life. Luk 4:26. Now in ruins.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
Zarephath
Zar’ephath. (smelting place). The residence of the prophet Elijah, during the latter part of the drought. 1Ki 17:9-10. It was near to, or dependent on, Zidon. It is represented by the modern village of Sura-fend. Of the old town, considerable indications remain. One group of foundations is on a headland called Ain el-Kanatarah; but the chief remains are south of this, and extend for a mile or more, with many fragments of columns, slabs and other architectural features. In the New Testament, Zarephath appears under the Greek form of Sarepta. Luk 4:26.