Save unto Sarepta - Sarepta was a town between Tyre and Sidon, near the Mediterranean Sea. It was not a "Jewish" city, but a Sidonian, and therefore a "Gentile" town. The word "save" in this verse does not express the meaning of the original. It would seem to imply that the city was Jewish. The meaning of the verse is this: "He was sent to none of the widows in Israel. He was not sent except to Sarepta, to a woman that was a "Sidonian." Dr. Thomson ("The Land and the Book," vol. i. p. 232-236) regards Sarepta as the modern Sarafend. He says that the ruins have been frequently dug over for stone to build the barracks at Beirut, and that the broken columns, marble slabs, sarcophagi, and other ruins indicate that it was once a flourishing city. A large town was built there in the time of the Crusades.

Unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta - The sentence is elliptical, and means this: To none of them was Elias sent; he was not sent except to Sarepta; for the widow at Sarepta was a Sidonian, not a widow of Israel. Pearce. - Sarepta was a pagan city in the country of Sidon, in the vicinity of Galilee.

But unto none of them was Elias sent,.... That is, to none of the poor widows in the land of Israel was the prophet sent, to supply them with food, and relieve them in their famishing circumstances, as might most reasonably have been expected:
save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon; which in 1-Kings 17:10 is called "Zarephath"; and by the Septuagint there, "Sarepta of Sidon", as here. Pliny (r) speaks of it by the same name, and reckons it to Sidon:
unto a woman that was a widow: she is said by the Jews (s), to be the mother of Jonah the prophet. Our Lord meant to observe, by this instance, as by the following, that God bestows his favours on persons in a sovereign way, and sometimes upon the most unlikely; as in a time of famine, he overlooked the poor widows in Israel, his peculiar people, and sent his prophet to a Gentile woman in one of the cities of Sidon; and therefore they should cease to wonder if he wrought his miracles in other places, and not in his own country; since this was agreeable to the divine procedure in other cases, especially since they were a cavilling and unbelieving people. The Jews say (t), that in all that generation there was not found any one that was worthy, as this woman.
(r) L. 5. c. 19. (s) Pirke Eliezer, c. 33. (t) Zohar in Exod. fol. 89. 2.

save . . . saving--"but only." (Compare Mark 13:32, Greek.)
Sarepta--"Zarephath" (1-Kings 17:9), a heathen village between Tyre and Sidon. (See Mark 7:24.)