The rise of the son of Zarephath is a remarkable event of the Jewish prophet Elijah recorded in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures1 Kings 16. The sons of Ahab did not love their father but they were jealous because they had the best of the land. Ahab being the leader of the Judahites made peace with the Ammonites and gave them permission to enter into a treaty with him. In return for this Ahab promised to send two of his sons to their father who would surely take the throne after Ahab. However a few months later Ahab died and the daughters of Ahab became the rulers of the land. The sons of Ahab continued to fight with the sons of Jezebel for the throne but when the latter gained power he turned away from Ahab and married the daughter of Jeconiah and took her as his queen. She was named Ashtoreth.
When Ashtoreth became pregnant Jeconiah sent two prophets to Zarephath to inform her that Jechoniah was her husband and that he was ready to give up his kingdom to her. Zarephath was not pleased to hear this because it was against the law for a man to give up his kingdom to another woman who was already his wife. But when the prophets returned she forgave Jechoniah for all his wickedness and accepted him as her husband. She gave birth to a son whom she named Obed. But when Jechoniah heard that Obed was the child of Ashtoreth and that she gave birth to him not for love of Jeconiah but for the sake of her son he became angry and demanded that Zarephath return the kingdom to him. Zarephath did return the kingdom to her father; however Obed lived to be a very old man.
In one version of this story it is said that Obed did not die before his father died. Therefore he went to Jeconiah to ask forgiveness but Jechoniah refused to return the kingdom to him. Jechoniah then said to Obed “I have seen a vision and I know that you will not come back to me unless I find out the truth of your mind concerning this matter.” Obed left Jechoniah but was born again as a Jew.
