And she answered: As the Lord thy God liveth, I have no bread, but only a handful of meal in a pot, and a little oil in a cruse: behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

“Let us further see where blessed Elijah found that widow, dearly beloved. She had gone out to get water and to pick up sticks of wood. Let us now consider what the water and the wood signify. We know that both are very pleasing and necessary for the church, as it is written: "He is like a tree planted near running water." In the wood is shown the mystery of the cross, in the water the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, she had gone out to gather two sticks of wood, for thus she replied to blessed Elijah when he asked her for food: "As the Lord lives, I have nothing but a handful of meal and a little oil in a cruse; and behold, I am going out to gather two sticks that I may make food for me and my son … and we will eat it and die." The widow typified the church, as I said above; the widow's son prefigured the Christian people. Thus, when Elijah came, the widow went out to gather two sticks of wood. Notice, brothers, that she did not say three or four, nor only one stick; but she wanted to gather two sticks. She was gathering two sticks of wood because she received Christ in the type of Elijah; she wanted to pick up those two pieces because she desired to recognize the mystery of the cross. Truly, the cross of our Lord and Savior was prepared from two pieces of wood, and so that widow was gathering two sticks because the church would believe in him who hung on two pieces of wood. For this reason that widow said, "I am gathering two sticks that I may make food for me and my son, and we will eat it and die." It is true, beloved; no one will merit to believe in Christ crucified unless he dies to this world. For if a person wishes to eat the body of Christ worthily, he must die to the past and live for the future.”

“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.”

“A handful of meal in a barrel - The word כד cad is to be understood as implying an earthen jar; not a wooden vessel, or barrel of any kind. In the East they preserve their corn and meal in such vessels; without which precaution the insects would destroy them. Travellers in Asiatic countries abound with observations of this kind. The word cruse, צפחת tsappachath, says Jarchi, signifies what in our tongue is expressed by bouteille, a bottle. Jarchi was a French rabbin.”