Jezebel
Summary
The Phoenician princess who became queen of Israel through her marriage to King Ahab, notorious for her zealous promotion of Baal worship, persecution of God's prophets, and judicial murder of Naboth.
☩Background and Influence
Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre and Sidon, who was also a priest of Astarte. Her marriage to Ahab, king of Israel, represented a political alliance but proved spiritually disastrous for the nation. In her husband's hands, Jezebel exercised almost absolute power, manipulating the weak Ahab to serve her religious and political agenda. She established the worship of the Phoenician Baal on a grand scale, maintaining at her table 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. Her determined efforts to eradicate Yahweh worship represented not mere tolerance of foreign religion but an aggressive campaign to replace Israel's God with her ancestral deities.
☩Persecution and Confrontation
Jezebel systematically 'cut off' the prophets of Jehovah, forcing faithful worshipers like Obadiah to hide a hundred prophets in caves to preserve their lives. After Elijah's victory on Mount Carmel, where the prophets of Baal were slain, Jezebel swore by her gods to kill Elijah, driving the prophet into desperate flight. Even this powerful prophet was constrained to flee for his life to Beersheba and beyond. At the height of her persecution, only seven thousand in Israel had not bowed the knee to Baal—a remnant preserved by God's grace.
☩The Murder of Naboth
The incident with Naboth's vineyard most clearly reveals Jezebel's ruthless character. When Ahab sulked like a spoiled child because Naboth refused to sell his ancestral inheritance, Jezebel taunted him with lacking kingly spirit and promised to obtain the vineyard herself. She wrote letters in Ahab's name, sealed with his seal, commanding the elders of Jezreel to arrange a false trial where two witnesses would accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God and king. Naboth was convicted and stoned to death, and Jezebel coldly informed Ahab to take possession. This judicial murder brought Elijah's devastating pronouncement: 'In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood,' and concerning Jezebel, 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.'
☩Death and Legacy
Jezebel survived her husband Ahab by fourteen years, maintaining influence through her sons Ahaziah and Jehoram, and through her daughter Athaliah who married into Judah's royal house. When Jehu came to execute divine judgment on Ahab's house, Jezebel characteristically 'painted her eyes and adorned her head' before appearing at the window—defiant even in her final moments. At Jehu's command, eunuchs threw her down; she was trampled by horses, and when they came to bury 'the king's daughter,' dogs had eaten her flesh, leaving only skull, feet, and palms of hands, precisely fulfilling Elijah's prophecy. In Revelation 2:20, her name symbolizes a corrupt prophetess or teaching that seduces God's servants into spiritual fornication and idolatry.
Related Verses21 mentions
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Jezebel," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. IV (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.James Orr (ed.), "Jezebel," in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. III (Howard-Severance Company, 1915).
- 3.George Morrish, "Jezebel," in Morrish's Concise Bible Dictionary (George Morrish, 1898).