Everything I Read in the Bible Is About Israel
How Bad Was Jezebel?
Read Janet Howe Gaines'due south total article well-nigh Jezebel in the Bible and later depictions as it appeared in Bible Review
Janet Howe Gaines March 24, 2021 309 Comments 276271 views
Who Was Jezebel?
Israel's nigh accursed queen advisedly fixes a pink rose in her ruby locks in John Byam Liston Shaw'south "Jezebel" from 1896. Jezebel's reputation as the most dangerous seductress in the Bible stems from her last advent: her married man King Ahab is expressionless; her son has been murdered by Jehu. Equally Jehu'south chariot races toward the palace to kill Jezebel, she "painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window" (2 Kings 9:30). Prototype: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.
For more than two k years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad daughter of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. Only just how depraved was Jezebel?
In recent years, scholars accept tried to reclaim the shadowy female figures whose tales are oft just partially told in the Bible. Rehabilitating Jezebel's stained reputation is an arduous task, however, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is non a heroic fighter like Deborah, a devoted sister similar Miriam or a cherished married woman similar Ruth. Jezebel cannot even be compared with the Bible's other bad girls—Potiphar's wife and Delilah—for no good comes from Jezebel's deeds. These other women may be bad, merely Jezebel is the worst.i
Yet there is more to this complex ruler than the standard interpretation would permit. To attain a more than positive assessment of Jezebel'south troubled reign and a deeper agreement of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the Biblical authors who condemn the queen. Furthermore, we must reread the narrative from the queen's vantage signal. Equally we piece together the world in which Jezebel lived, a fuller motion-picture show of this fascinating woman begins to sally. The story is not a pretty one, and some—perhaps virtually—readers volition remain disturbed by Jezebel's actions. But her character might not be as nighttime as nosotros are accepted to thinking. Her evilness is non always equally obvious, undisputed and unrivaled as the Biblical writer wants it to appear.
Ahab and Jezebel in the Bible
The story of Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel, is recounted in several cursory passages scattered throughout the Books of Kings. Scholars generally identify one and 2 Kings every bit function of the Deuteronomistic History, attributed either to a unmarried author or to a group of authors and editors collectively known as the Deuteronomist. 1 of the main purposes of the entire Deuteronomistic History, which includes the 7 books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, is to explicate Israel's fate in terms of its apostasy. Equally the Israelites settle into the Promised Land, establish a monarchy and separate into a northern and a southern kingdom after the reign of Solomon, God'southward called people continually get astray. They sin against Yahweh in many means, the worst of which is by worshiping alien deities. The get-go commandments from Sinai need monotheism, just the people are attracted to foreign gods and goddesses. When Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E., she provides a perfect opportunity for the Bible writer to teach a moral lesson about the evil outcomes of idolatry, for she is a foreign idol worshiper who seems to be the ability behind her husband. From the Deuteronomist's viewpoint, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel and so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will non be further contaminated.
The legacy of Jezebel. "In the last days, the daughters of Jezebel shall dominion over nations," warns the scrawling inscription that surrounds the face of Jezebel in this 1993 painting past American folk creative person Robert Roberg. The apocalyptic message seems to associate the Biblical queen with the "mother of whores and of abominations" who "rules over the kings of the earth" and who has committed fornication with them (Revelation 17:2, five, eighteen).
Jezebel's name appears one time in the New Attestation Book of Revelation, where it is attached to an unrepentant prophetess who has beguiled the people "to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols" (Revelation 2:20).
Yet the Volume of Kings offers no hint of sexual impropriety on Queen Jezebel'southward part, argues author Gaines. She is, if anything, a too-devoted married woman, willing even to commit murder in order to aid her husband maintain his authorization as king. Paradigm: Robert Roberg
Every bit the Books of Kings recount, the princess Jezebel is brought to the northern kingdom of State of israel to midweek the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri (1 Kings sixteen:31). Her begetter is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites. Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of urban center-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer's antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel'south religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for "lord" given to the caput fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. Equally king of Phoenicia, it is likely that Ethbaal was likewise a high priest or had other important religious duties. According to the showtime-century C.Eastward. historian Josephus, who drew on a Greek translation of the at present-lost Register of Tyre, Ethbaal served as a priest of Astarte, the main Phoenician goddess. Jezebel, as the king's daughter, may have served as a priestess every bit she was growing up. In whatsoever example, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.
When Jezebel comes to Israel, she brings her foreign gods and goddesses—especially Baal and his consort Asherah (Canaanite Astarte, often translated in the Bible as "sacred post")—with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new hubby, for just every bit presently as the queen is introduced, nosotros are told that Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital metropolis of Samaria: "He took as wife Jezebel girl of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he congenital in Samaria. Ahab also made a 'sacred mail'"a (1 Kings 16:31–33).two
Jezebel does not accept Ahab's God, Yahweh. Rather, she leads Ahab to tolerate Baal. This is why she is vilified by the Deuteronomist, whose goal is to stamp out polytheism. She represents a view of womanhood that is the opposite of the 1 extolled in characters such as Ruth the Moabite, who is also a foreigner. Ruth surrenders her identity and submerges herself in Israelite ways; she adopts the religious and social norms of the Israelites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her ain beliefs.
Jezebel's union to Ahab was a political alliance. The union provided both peoples with armed forces protection from powerful enemies as well as valuable trade routes: Israel gained access to the Phoenician ports; Phoenicia gained passage through State of israel's cardinal loma state to Transjordan and peculiarly to the King's Highway, the heavily traveled inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south with Damascus in the north. Merely although the marriage is sound strange policy, it is intolerable to the Deuteronomist because of Jezebel's idol worship.
The Bible does non comment on what the young Jezebel thinks about marrying Ahab and moving to Israel. Her feelings are of no interest to the Deuteronomist, nor are they germane to the story's didactic purpose.
To learn more than about Biblical women with slighted traditions, take a await at the Bible History Daily feature Scandalous Women in the Bible, which includes manufactures on Mary Magdalene and Lilith.
We are not told whether Ethbaal consults his daughter, if she departs Phoenicia with trepidation or enthusiasm, or what she expects from her role as ruler. Like other highborn daughters of her time, Jezebel is probably a pawn, packed off to the highest bidder.
Israel's topography, customs and religion would certainly be very different from those of Jezebel's native land. Instead of the lushness of the moist seacoast, she would find Israel to be an arid, desert nation.
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Furthermore, the Torah shows the Israelites to be an ethnocentric, xenophobic people. In Biblical narratives, foreigners are sometimes unwelcome, and prejudice against intermarriage is seen since the day Abraham sought a woman from his own people to marry his son Isaac (Genesis 24:4). In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accepted to petitioning, State of israel is dwelling house to a land religion featuring a lone, masculine deity. Maybe Jezebel optimistically believes that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in State of israel. Perhaps Jezebel sees herself as an ambassador who could assistance unite the two lands and bring almost cultural pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity.
What spurs Jezebel to action is unknown and unknowable, simply the motives of the Deuteronomist come up through plainly in the text. Jezebel is a bold and impious interloper who has to be stopped. From her ain bespeak of view, however, she is no apostate. She remains loyal to her religious upbringing and is determined to maintain her cultural identity.
According to the Deuteronomist, nonetheless, Jezebel's want is not but confined to achieving ethnic or religious parity. She also seems driven to eliminate State of israel's faithful servants of God. Evidence of Jezebel'south savage desire to wipe out Yahweh worship in Israel is reported in 1 Kings 18:iv, at the Bible's second mention of her proper noun: "Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord."
The threat of Jezebel is so great that after in the same affiliate, the mythic prophet Elijah summons the acolytes of Jezebel to a tournament on Mt. Carmel to determine which deity is supreme: God or Baal.
Whichever deity is capable of setting a sacrificial bull on burn down will be the winner, the 1 true God. It is only then that we learn just how many followers of Jezebel's gods and goddesses are near her at courtroom. Elijah challenges them: "Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, together with the four hundred and l prophets of Baal and the iv hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel'south table" (1 Kings 18:xix). Whether the grand total of 850 is a symbolic or literal number, information technology is impressive.
| Glass jewels and glitter adorn the veiled crown of Jezebel and twisted branches speckled with paint form the queen's body in this sculpture by Bessie Harvey. Photo by Ron Lee, The Silverish Factory/The Arnett Collection, Atlanta, GA | Detail of veiled crown of Jezebel (compare with photo of veiled crown of Jezebel). Photo past Ron Lee, The Silver Factory/The Arnett Collection, Atlanta, GA. |
Even so their superior numbers can practice zip to ensure victory; nor can petitions to their god. The prophets of Baal "performed a hopping dance about the altar" and "kept raving" (i Kings 18:26, 29) all day long in a vain endeavor to rouse Baal. They even gash themselves with knives and whoop it up in a heightened emotional state, hoping to incite Baal to unleash a nifty fire. But Baal does non respond to the ecstatic ranting of Jezebel's prophets. At the terminate of the twenty-four hours, it is Elijah'south unmarried plea to God that is answered.
Acquire about the excavations at Jezreel in "Jezreel Expedition 2016: You Don't Have to Exist an Archaeologist to Dig the Bible" and "Jezreel Trek Sheds New Low-cal on Ahab and Jezebel's City."
Standing alone before Jezebel'south host of visionaries, Elijah cries out: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and State of israel! Permit it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God; for You take turned their hearts astern" (1 Kings eighteen:36–37). At once, "burn from the Lord descended and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones and the earth;…When they saw this, all the people flung themselves on their faces and cried out: 'The Lord alone is God, the Lord alone is God!'" (1 Kings 18:38–39). Elijah'due south solitary entreaty to Yahweh serves as a foil to the hours of appeals made past Baal's followers.
Jezebel herself is absent during this all-male consequence. Nevertheless, her presence is felt and the Deuteronomist's message is clear. Jezebel's deities and the huge number of prophets loyal to her are powerless against the omnipotent Yahweh, who is proven by the tournament to be ruler of all the forces of nature.
Ironically, at the decision of the Carmel episode, Elijah proves capable of the same murderous inclinations that accept previously characterized Jezebel, though information technology is but she that the Deuteronomist criticizes. Afterwards winning the Carmel contest, Elijah immediately orders the assembly to capture all of Jezebel'due south prophets. Elijah emphatically declares: "Seize the prophets of Baal, let non a single one of them get away" (ane Kings 18:40). Elijah leads his 450 prisoners to the Wadi Kishon, where he slaughters them (one Kings eighteen:40). Though they will never run into in person, Elijah and Jezebel are engaged in a hard-fought struggle for religious supremacy. Here Elijah reveals that he and Jezebel possess a similar religious fervor, though their loyalties differ greatly. They are also as determined to eliminate i another'due south followers, even if it ways murdering them. The deviation is that the Deuteronomist decries Jezebel'due south killing of God's servants (at ane Kings 18:iv) but at present sanctions Elijah'southward decision to massacre hundreds of Jezebel's prophets. Indeed, once Elijah kills Jezebel's prophets, God rewards him past sending a much-needed rain, ending a 3-yr drought in Israel. There is a definite double standard here. Murder seems to be accustomed, even venerated, as long as information technology is done in the proper noun of the correct deity.
Later on Elijah'due south triumph on Mt. Carmel, King Ahab returns home to give his queen the news that Baal is defeated, Yahweh is the undisputed primary of the universe and Jezebel's prophets are dead. Jezebel sends Elijah a menacing message, threatening to slaughter him but as he has slaughtered her prophets: "Thus and more than may the gods do if by this time tomorrow I accept non made you like i of them" (ane Kings 19:two). The Septuagint, a 3rd- to second-century B.C.Eastward. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, prefaces Jezebel's threat with an additional insult to the prophet. Here Jezebel establishes herself equally Elijah's equal: "If you are Elijah, then I am Jezebel" (ane Kings xix:twob).3 In both versions the queen's meaning is unmistakable: Elijah should fear for his life.
These are the first words the Deuteronomist records from Jezebel, and they are filled with venom. Different the many voiceless Biblical wives and concubines whose muteness reminds the states of the powerlessness of women in ancient Israel, Jezebel has a tongue. While her verbal acuity shows that she is more daring, clever and independent than most women of her time, her withering words too demonstrate her sinfulness. Jezebel transforms the precious musical instrument of linguistic communication into an evil device to blaspheme God and defy the prophet.
So frightened is Elijah by Jezebel's threatening words that he flees to Mt. Horeb (Sinai). Despite what he has witnessed on Carmel, Elijah seems to falter in his faith that the Almighty will protect him. As a literary device, Elijah's sojourn at Horeb gives the Deuteronomist an opportunity to imply parallels between the careers of Moses and Elijah, thus reinforcing Elijah'due south exalted reputation. Nevertheless, the timing of Elijah's flying southward makes him look suspiciously similar he is afraid of a mere adult female.
Jezebel indeed shows herself as a person to be feared in the next episode. The story of Naboth, an Israelite who owns a plot of country side by side to the imperial palace in Jezreel, provides an excellent occasion for the Deuteronomist to advise that Jezebel is not only the foe of Israel's God, merely an enemy of the government.
In i Kings 21:2, Ahab requests that Naboth give him his vineyard: "Give me your vineyard, then that I may have it as a vegetable garden, since information technology is right next to my palace." Ahab promises to pay Naboth for the country or to provide him with an fifty-fifty meliorate vineyard. But at ane Kings 21:3, Naboth refuses to sell or trade: "The Lord preclude that I should give up to you what I take inherited from my fathers!" The king whines and refuses to eat after Naboth's brushoff: "Ahab went home dispirited and sullen because of the respond that Naboth the Jezreelite had given him…He lay down on his bed and turned away his face up, and he would not swallow" (1 Kings 21:4). Apparently perturbed by her husband's political impotence and sulking demeanor, Jezebel steps in, proudly asserting: "At present is the fourth dimension to show yourself male monarch over State of israel. Rise and eat something, and be cheerful; I will go the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you lot" (1 Kings 21:7).
Naboth is fully within his rights to hold onto his family plot. Israelite law and custom dictate that his family should maintain their state (nachalah) in perpetuity (Numbers 27:5–eleven). Every bit a Torah-bound king of Israel, Ahab should understand Naboth'southward legitimate want to go on his inheritance. Jezebel, on the other mitt, hails from Phoenicia, where a monarch's whim is often tantamount to law.4 Having been raised in a land of absolute autocrats, where few dared to question a ruler's wish or decree, Jezebel might naturally experience annoyance and frustration at Naboth'south resistance to his sovereign's proposal. In this context, Jezebel'due south reaction becomes more understandable, though perhaps no more admirable, for she behaves according to her upbringing and expectations regarding royal prerogative.
Elijah's challenge of "the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who consume at Jezebel'southward tabular array" (1 Kings xviii:xix) is depicted in two scenes on the walls of the third-century C.E. synagogue at Dura-Europos in modern Syria. According to 1 Kings 18, Elijah proposed that both he and the prophets of Baal lay a unmarried bull on an altar and then pray to their corresponding deities to ignite the sacrificial fauna. Whichever deity responded would exist deemed the more powerful and the one truthful God. In the painting shown here, the priests of Baal assemble effectually their altar, crying out, "O, Baal, answer united states of america," but their sacrifice remains untouched. The small man continuing inside the altar in this painting does not announced in the Biblical story, but rather in a later midrash. According to this midrash, when the prophets of Baal realized they would fail, a human named Hiel agreed to hibernate inside the altar to ignite the heifer from below. The Israelite God foiled their program by sending a ophidian to bite Hiel, who subsequently died. Epitome: E. Goodenough, Symbolism in the Dura Synogogue (Princeton Univ. Press)
Without Ahab's straight knowledge, Jezebel writes letters to her townsmen, enlisting them in an elaborate ruse to frame the innocent Naboth. To ensure their compliance, she signs Ahab'due south proper noun and stamps the letters with the king's seal. Jezebel encourages the townsmen to publicly (and falsely) accuse Naboth of blaspheming God and king. "Then take him out and stone him to expiry," she commands (1 Kings 21:ten). And so Naboth is murdered, and the vineyard automatically escheats to the throne, as is customary when a person is found guilty of a serious crime. If Naboth has relatives, they are now in no position to protest the passing of their family unit land to Ahab.
Yet the details of Jezebel's underhanded plot against Naboth do not ever ring true. The Bible maintains that "the elders and nobles who lived in [Naboth's] town…did as Jezebel had instructed them" (ane Kings 21:11). If the trickster queen is able to enlist the back up of so many people, none of whom betrays her, to kill a man whom they have probably known all their lives and whom they realize is innocent, and so she has astonishing power.
The fantastical tale of Naboth'south expiry—in which something could go wrong at whatever moment merely somehow does non—stretches the reader's credulity. If Jezebel were every bit mean as the Deuteronomist claims, surely at least one nobleman in Jezreel would take refused to assist in the nefarious scheme. Surely one individual would have had the courage to expose the detestable deed and become the Deuteronomist's hero by spoiling the plan.5
Shown hither, Elijah and his followers have easily conjured up a blazing fire, which engulfs their white balderdash. Seeing the flames, the Israelites call out, "Yahweh lone is God, Yahweh solitary is God" (i Kings 18:39).
Jezebel herself is not present during the effect. And nevertheless Elijah's competition is a straight challenge to the queen who has brought the worship of Baal to the forefront in State of israel by inviting the infidel prophets to the palace (compare with painting of the priests of Baal). Image: The Jewish Mesuem, NY/Art Resources, NY.
Mayhap the Biblical compiler is using Jezebel as a scapegoat for his outrage at her influence over the king, meaning that she herself is being framed in the tale. Traditionally thought to exist a narrative almost how innocent Naboth is falsely accused, the story could instead exist an exaggeration of fact, fabricated to demonstrate the Deuteronomist's connected wrath against Jezebel.
As a result of this incident, Elijah reappears on the scene. First Yahweh tells Elijah how Ahab will die: "The give-and-take of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: 'Go down and face up King Ahab of Israel who [resides] in Samaria. He is now in Naboth'due south vineyard; he has gone down there to accept possession of it. Say to him, "Thus said the Lord: Would you murder and accept possession? Thus said the Lord: In the very identify where the dogs lapped upward Naboth'southward blood, the dogs will lap up your blood too"'" (ane Kings 21:17–19). But when Elijah confronts Ahab, the prophet predicts instead how the queen will dice: "The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the field of Jezreel" (i Kings 21:23).c Poetic justice, as the Deuteronomist sees it, demands that Jezebel end up as dog food. Ashamed of what has happened and fearful of the future, Ahab humbles himself by assuming outward signs of mourning, fasting and donning sackcloth. Prayer accompanies fasting, whether the Bible explicitly says so or not, and so we may assume that Ahab raises his penitential voice to a forgiving Yahweh. For in one case, Jezebel does non speak; her lack of repentance is implicit in her silence.
After the Death of Ahab: The Ill Repute of Jezebel in the Bible
When Jezebel's proper name is mentioned again, the Bible author makes his virtually alarming accusation confronting her. Ahab has died, as has the couple's eldest son, who followed his father to the throne. Their second son, Joram, rules. But even though Israel has a sitting monarch, a servant of the prophet Elisha crowns Jehu, Joram's military commander, male monarch of Israel and commissions Jehu to eradicate the House of Ahab: "I bless you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. You shall strike downwardly the House of Ahab your master; thus will I avenge on Jezebel the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of the other servants of the Lord" (2 Kings 9:6–7).
Four paleo-Hebrew letters—ii just below the winged sun disk at center, 2 at lesser left and right—spell out the proper name YZBL, or Jezebel, on this seal. The Phoenician design, the dating of the seal to the ninth or early on eighth century B.C.East. and, of grade, the name, accept led scholars to speculate that the Biblical queen may in one case have used this gray opal to seal her documents. In the Phoenician language, Jezebel's name may have meant "Where is the Prince?" which was the cry of Baal'due south subjects. But the spelling of the Phoenician name has been altered in the Hebrew Bible, perhaps in order to read as "Where is the excrement (zebel, manure)?"—a reference to Elijah's prediction that "her carcass shall be like dung on the ground" (two Kings 9:36). Collection Israel Museum/Photo Zev Radovan.
King Joram and General Jehu run across on the battlefield. Unaware that he is almost to be usurped by his military commander, Joram calls out: "Is all well, Jehu?" Jehu responds: "How tin can all exist well equally long equally your mother Jezebel carries on her countless harlotries and sorceries?" (2 Kings nine:22). Jehu then shoots an pointer through Joram's center and, in a moment of stinging irony, orders the body to be dumped on Naboth's land.
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From these words alone—uttered by the homo who is about to kill Jezebel'due south son—stems Jezebel's long-continuing reputation every bit a witch and a whore. The Bible occasionally connects harlotry and idol worship, as in Hosea 1:3, where the prophet is told to marry a "wife of whoredom," who symbolically represents the people who "devious from following the Lord" (Hosea one:3). Lusting afterwards false "lords" tin can be seen as either adulterous or idolatrous. Yet throughout the millennia, Jezebel's harlotry has not been identified as mere dolatry. Rather, she has been considered the slut of Samaria, the lecherous wife of a pouting potentate. The 1938 pic Jezebel, starring Bette Davis equally the destructive temptress who leads a man to his death, is evidence that this ancient judgment against Jezebel has been transmitted to this century. Nevertheless, the Bible never offers show that Jezebel is unfaithful to her married man while he is alive or loose in her morals subsequently his expiry. In fact, she is always shown to exist a loyal and helpful spouse, though her brand of assistance is deplored by the Deuteronomist. Jehu's charge of harlotry is unsubstantiated, but it has stuck anyway and her reputation has been egregiously damaged past the allegation.
When Jezebel herself finally appears again in the pages of the Bible, it is for her death scene. Jehu, with the blood of Joram even so on his hands, races his chariot into Jezreel to continue the coup by assassinating Jezebel. Ironically, this is her finest hour, though the Deuteronomist intends the queen to appear haughty and imperious to the end. Realizing that Jehu is on his fashion to impale her, Jezebel does non disguise herself and flee the city, as a more cowardly person might do. Instead, she calmly prepares for his arrival by performing three acts: "She painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window" (2 Kings 9:30). The traditional interpretation is that Jezebel primps and coquettishly looks out the window in an effort to seduce Jehu, that she wishes to win his favor and get part of his harem in order to save her own life, such treachery indicating Jezebel's dastardly betrayal of deceased family members. Co-ordinate to this reading, Jezebel sheds familial loyalty as easily as a ophidian sheds its skin in an endeavour to ensure her continued pleasure and condom at court.
| This ivory comes from Arslan Tash, in northern Syria. The most common motif found on Phoenician ivories, the woman at the window may represent the goddess Astarte (Biblical Asherah) looking out a palace window. Perchance this widespread imagery influenced the Biblical author's clarification of Jezebel, a follower of Astarte, looking out the palace window as Jehu approached (two Kings ix:30). Photograph: Erich Lessing | Ivory fragment discovered in Samaria (compare with photo of ivory from Arslan Tash). Photograph: Israel Antiquities Authorisation. |
Applying eye makeup (kohl) and brushing one's hair are often connected to flirting in Hebraic thinking. Isaiah 3:16, Jeremiah 4:30, Ezekiel 23:40 and Proverbs 6:24–26 provide examples of women who bat their painted eyes to lure innocent men into adulterous beds. Black kohl is widely incorporated in Bible passages as a symbol of feminine deception and trickery, and its use to pigment the expanse higher up and below the eyelids is by and large considered part of a woman's arsenal of artifice. In Jezebel's case, however, the cosmetic is more than just an attempt to accentuate the eyes. Jezebel is donning the female version of armor equally she prepares to do boxing. She is a woman warrior, waging war in the merely way a woman can. Any fright she may take of Jehu is camouflaged past her state of war paint.
Her training continues as she dresses her pilus, symbol of a woman's seductive power. When she dies, she wants to look her queenly best. She is in command hither, choosing the mode in which her attacker volition concluding see and recollect her.
The 3rd action Jezebel takes before Jehu arrives is to sit down at her upper window. The Deuteronomist may be deliberately conjuring up images to associate Jezebel with other disfavored women. For example, contained within Deborah's victory ode is the story of the unfortunate female parent of the enemy general Sisera. Waiting at abode, Sisera's unnamed mother looks out the window for her son to return: "Through the window peered Sisera'due south mother, behind the lattice she whined" (Judges 5:28). Her ladies-in-waiting limited the hope that Sisera is detained considering he is raping Israelite women and collecting booty (Judges 5:29–xxx). In truth, Sisera is already dead, his skull shattered by Jael and her tent peg (Judges 5:24–27). King David's wife Michal also looks through her window, watching her husband dance around the Ark of the Covenant as it is triumphantly brought into Jerusalem, "and she despised him for it" (2 Samuel 6:16). Michal does non understand the people's euphoria over the arrival of the Ark in David'due south new capital; she can simply feel anger that her husband is dancing about like one of the "riffraff" (2 Samuel six:20). Generations later, Jezebel likewise appears at her window, conjuring upwardly images of Sisera'south mother and Michal, two unpopular Biblical women.
The image of the woman at the window also suggests fertility goddesses, abominations to the Deuteronomist and well known to the general public in ancient Israel. Ivory plaques, dating to the Iron Age and depicting a adult female peering through a window, have been discovered in Khorsabad, Nimrud and Samaria, Jezebel's second abode.six The connectedness between idol worship, goddesses and the woman seated at the window would not have been lost on the Deuteronomist's audience.
Sitting at her window, Jezebel is seemingly rendered powerless while the active patriarchal globe functions beyond her reach.vii Merely a more sympathetic reading of the situation suggests that Jezebel has adamant the superior angle from which she will be viewed past Jehu, thus giving the queen mastery of the state of affairs.
Positioned at the balcony window, the queen does not remain silent as the usurper Jehu arrives into town. She taunts him by calling him Zimri, the proper name of the unscrupulous predecessor of Omri, Jezebel'due south begetter-in-law. Zimri ruled Israel for only vii days after murdering the king (Elah) and usurping the throne. "Is all well, Zimri, murderer of your primary?" Jezebel asks Jehu (2 Kings 9:31). Jezebel knows that all is not well, and her sarcastic, sharp-tongued insult of Jehu disproves any estimation that she has dressed in her finest to seduce him. She has contempt for Jehu. Unlike many Biblical wives, who remain silent, Jezebel has a distinct vocalisation, and she is unafraid to clear her view of Jehu equally a renegade and regicide.
To demonstrate his authority, Jehu orders Jezebel's eunuchs to throw her out of the window: "They threw her downwardly; and her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her. So [Jehu] went inside and ate and drank" (2 Kings nine:33–34). In this highly symbolic political action, the once mighty Jezebel is shoved out of her high station to the ground below. Her ejection from the window represents an eternal demotion from her proper place every bit 1 of the Bible's nigh influential women.
Jezebel's body is left in the street equally Jehu celebrates his victory. Later, perhaps because the new monarch does not wish to begin his reign with such a disrespectful deed against a woman, or maybe because he realizes the danger in setting a precedent for ill treatment of a expressionless ruler'south remains, Jehu orders Jezebel's burial: "Nourish to that cursed adult female and coffin her, for she was a rex's girl" (two Kings 9:34). Jezebel is not to be remembered every bit a queen or fifty-fifty as the married woman of a male monarch. She is only the daughter of a foreign despot. This is intended as another accident by the Deuteronomist, an endeavour to marginalize a formidable woman. When the king'south men come to bury Jezebel, it is too late: "All they found of her were the skull, the feet, and the hands" (two Kings ix:35). Jehu'due south men inform the male monarch that Elijah'due south prophecies have been fulfilled: "Information technology is just as the Lord spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: The dogs shall devour the flesh of Jezebel in the field of Jezreel; and the carcass of Jezebel shall be like dung on the ground, in the field of Jezreel, so that none will be able to say: 'This was Jezebel'" (2 Kings 9:36–37).
How Bad Was Jezebel?
With its dark-green hills, fecund grapevines and abundant flowers, the scene depicted in this early-17th-century silk embroidery would appear peaceful—if not for the gruesome detail at left, which shows a woman being pushed out the palace window to a pack of hungry dogs. Co-ordinate to 2 Kings 9, Jehu orders the palace eunuchs to throw Jezebel out a window. When he afterward commands his men to coffin her, petty remains: "All they plant of her were the skull, the feet and the hands" (2 Kings 9:35). Jehu's men inform the new rex that Elijah'south prophecies have been fulfilled: The queen's corpse has been devoured past dogs; her body is mutilated beyond recognition, so that "none will be able to say 'This was Jezebel'" (2 Kings 9:37). Death of Jezebel/Holburne Museum, Bath, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland/Bridgeman Fine art Library
While the Biblical storyteller wants the final images of Jezebel to memorialize her as a brazen hussy, a sympathetic estimation of her beliefs has more than brownie. When all a person has left in life is the way she faces her death, her final actions speak volumes about her character. Jezebel departs this earth every inch a queen. Now an aging grandmother, it is highly unlikely that she has libidinous designs on Jehu or even entertains the notion of becoming the immature male monarch's paramour. As the daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother of kings, Jezebel would understand court politics well enough to realize that Jehu has far more than to gain by killing her than by keeping her live. Alive, the dowager queen could e'er serve equally a rallying indicate for anyone unhappy with Jehu'due south reign. The queen harbors no illusions about her chances of surviving Jehu'due south bloody coup d'état.
How bad was Jezebel? The Deuteronomist uses every possible argument to make the instance against her. When Ahab dies, the Deuteronomist is determined to show that "there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord, at the instigation of his wife Jezebel" (ane Kings 21:25). It is interesting that Ahab is non held responsible for his own deportment.8 He goes off-target because of a wicked woman. Someone has to bear the author's vituperation apropos Israel's betrayment, and Jezebel is chosen for the job.
Every Biblical give-and-take condemns her: Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have niggling status and few rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land; an idol worshiper in a identify with a Yahweh-based, state-sponsored religion; a murderer and meddler in political affairs in a nation of strong patriarchs; a traitor in a country where no ruler is higher up the police force; and a whore in the territory where the Ten Commandments originate.
Yet there is much to adore in this ancient queen. In a kinder analysis, Jezebel emerges as a fiery and determined person, with an intensity matched only by Elijah's. She is true to her native religion and customs. She is fifty-fifty more than loyal to her husband. Throughout her reign, she boldly exercises what power she has. And in the terminate, having lived her life on her own terms, Jezebel faces certain death with nobility.
"How Bad Was Jezebel?" by Janet Howe Gaines originally appeared in Bible Review, Oct 2000. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in June 2010.
Janet Howe Gaines is a specialist in the Bible equally literature in the Section of English at the University of New Mexico. She recently published Music in the Onetime Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Southern Illinois Univ. Press).
Notes:
a. Asherah is the Biblical name for Astarte, a Canaanite fertility goddess and espoused of Baal. The term asherah, which appears at least 50 times in the Hebrew Bible (it is often translated every bit "sacred post"), is used to refer to three manifestations of this goddess: an image (probably a figurine) of the goddess (eg., 2 Kings 21:7); a tree (Deuteronomy 16:21); and a tree trunk, or sacred post (Deuteronomy vii:five, 12:iii). Come across Ruth Hestrin, "Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography," BAR, September/October 1991.
b. In the Septuagint, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings are all included in Kings, which therefore has four books, 1–iv Kings.
c. A similar argument is fabricated by the unnamed prophet who anoints Jehu king of Israel in 2 Kings 9:10.
1. For a fuller treatment of Jezebel, see Janet Howe Gaines, Music in the Onetime Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Printing, 1999).
2. All references to the Bible, unless otherwise noted, are to Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
3. The translation of the Greek text is my own. Co-ordinate to Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English, 3rd ed. [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990], p. 478), the translation of the unabridged line is "And Jezabel sent to Eliu, and said, If thou art Eliu and I am Jezabel, God do so to me, and more also, if I do not make thy life by this fourth dimension tomorrow as the life of ane of them."
iv. For a discussion of Phoenician customs, encounter George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia (London: Longmans, 1889).
five. As corroborating evidence, run into the story of David'due south plot to kill Uriah the Hittite in two Samuel 11:14–17. Like Jezebel, David writes letters that comprise details of his scheme. David intends to enlist assistance from the entire regiment as confederates who are to "draw back from" Uriah, but Joab makes a shrewd and subtle change in the plan so that it is less likely to be discovered.
half dozen. Eleanor Ferris Beach, "The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Biblical Text," Biblical Archeologist 56:2 (1993), pp. 94–104.
seven. For an excellent, detailed word of Biblical imagery apropos women seated at windows, see Nehama Aschkenasy, Woman at the Window (Detroit: Wayne Country Univ. Printing, 1998).
8. For a reassessment of Ahab's grapheme based on the archaeological remains of his building projects and extrabiblical texts, see Ephraim Stern, "The Many Masters of Dor, Part two: How Bad Was Ahab?" BAR, March/April 1993.
Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/how-bad-was-jezebel/
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