Women with a Story to Tell. Jezebel

 That pretty much says it, doesn’t it? Jezebel! That name has become a symbol of evil that begins in the Bible and weaves its way through Jewish and Christian folklore. Jezebel has become a symbol of a woman who is sexually aggressive yet shameless. We will examine that turn at the end of this mini-series about Jezebel. 

 Who was Jezebel? Does she have a story of her own? Does she deserve the meme that she has become? Let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the maze.

 When King Solomon died, YHWH’s punishment for his losing his first love and chasing after women who worshipped other gods was that his son would lose control of the ten northern tribes. This happened immediately after his succession and greatly reduced his son's realm.

Rehoboam had none of the wisdom nor the dedication of his father Solomon, so Isreal seceded and named the rebel Jeroboam as their king. Judah was left as a much smaller kingdom; David’s lineage barely survived there. Judah was weak and vulnerable; for example, she was plundered by Egypt who took all the gold in the temple (I Kings 14: 25-28).  

 In the north, new king Jeroboam set up two golden calves for Israel to worship so that the people would not be tempted to travel to Jerusalem to worship YHWH. For a number of years, there was continual warfare between Israel and Judah; thus, the so-called ‘children of God’ were sadly split. Jezebel did not cause this.

 The usurper king of Israel, Jeroboam, was succeeded by his son Nadab, but his line ended there. Nadab was killed by Baasha, not a relative, who tried to set up another line of succession. He was no better (I Kings 15: 33-34; 16: 1-7). His son Elah ruled only two years before he was killed by an officer (like a colonel) in the army, a man named Zimri who himself reigned for only 7 days. In turn, Zimri was killed by the commander of the army, Omri. Omri did establish a longer lasting dynasty.

Omri was succeeded by his son, Ahab. Ahab reigned from about 874 to 853. However, “Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him” (I Kings 16: 30). Things are not going well for Israel. That's when Jezebel came in.

 “And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians and went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him. In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, ….” (I Kings 16: 31-34a).

 This was not just a marriage, either of love or convenience. It was a marriage that established a political alliance, opened up economic ties, and was sealed with intermingling of religious ideals and practices. As Keener and Walton note: 

“This reestablishment of Phoenician-Israelite ties secured inland markets for Phoenicians and Mediterranean trade for Israel. It effectively cut Aram-Damascus out of the trade routes passing from Arabia and the Red Sea up the King’s Highway of Trans-Jordan and on to the Mediterranean Sea. This alliance is one of the major causes for the century of warfare between Aram-Damascus and Israel in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.” (Craig Keener and John Walton, NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture, 2019. Page 605).

 Ahab was twisted enough already without marrying Jezebel, but she seems to have accelerated his entanglement with evil. The text notes that Ahab’s first act after the marriage was to build a temple for Ba’al, one of the dominant Canaanite gods. Ba’al was thought to be the god of thunder and fertility, traits that would align with the ambitions of such a power couple.

Ba’al’s cult practices spread so that the gods would be impressed by the couple’s spirituality and dedication to power and their expansion at the expense of others. This worldview and these practices are not what YHWH had been trying to teach the children of Israel all these years since Abraham. YHWH God is gracious and forgiving, willing to restore the penitent, but also righteous in securing justice for the oppressed. On the other hand, aggressive acquisitive narcissistic vindictive monarchs are not that way.

Jezebel, as portrayed, aided and abetted Ahab's departure from the way of the Lord and thus hastened Israel's doom. Was she an accomplice or a victim? What did she think? We shall see.