“But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;”
I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land — the two Elijah-Elisha illustrations are the most provocative element of the Nazareth sermon. In Elijah's time, with famine across Israel, God sent the prophet not to an Israelite widow but to Zarephath in Sidon — Gentile territory. The illustration communicates that the divine initiative is not limited to Israel's geographic and ethnic boundaries.
Church Fathers on Luke 4:25
When our Lord came to Nazareth, He refrains from miracles, lest He should provoke the people to greater malice. But He sets before them His teaching no less wonderful than His miracles. For there was a certain ineffable grace in our Savior’s words which softened the hearts of the hearers. Hence it is said, And they all bare him witness.
They bare Him witness that it was truly He, as He had said, of whom the prophet had spoken.
But what prevents Him from filling men with awe, though He were the Son as was supposed of Joseph? Do you not see the divine miracles, Satan already prostrate, men released from their sickness?
Read all 24 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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