Leon Mauldin has worked with the Hanceville church of Christ, Hanceville, AL for twenty-five years.
The name Jezebel instantly signifies evil. The wife of Israel’s King Ahab, she imported her Baal worship to Israel from her home up the coast, Phoenicia. We read of Ahab, “It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kings 16:31). Further, “Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife incited him” (1 Kings 21:25). Though Ahab was held responsible for his own choices, there is no doubt that Jezebel urged him on at full throttle.
The atrocities for which she is known include her persecution of God’s servants the prophets; “Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the LORD” (1 Kings 18:4). After the contest at Mt. Carmel where YHWH so dramatically showed Himself to be the true God, Elijah had the prophets of Baal seized and executed them at the Brook Kishon (1 Kings 18:40); Jezebel responded by swearing to kill Elijah (1 Kings 19:2). How do you measure that kind of stubbornness and rebellion, and unrepentant heart?
One of her most unconscionable deeds was her orchestration of Naboth’s murder in order to acquire his vineyard at Jezreel for Ahab (1 Kings 21:1-16). She ruthlessly had false witnesses testify against Naboth with the result that “they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones” (v.13). Then that callous and pitiless Jezebel said, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead” (v.15). As punishment for all this wickedness Elijah said that God would bring an end to the house of Ahab (1 Kings 21:1-24). Included in the prophecy was specificity for Jezebel’s end: “Of Jezebel also has the LORD spoken, saying, ‘The dogs will eat Jezebel in the district of Jezreel’” (v.23).
Fulfillment would come to pass several years later. Ahab died (ca. 853 B.C.) and was succeeded by his son Ahaziah (853-852 B.C.) who died childless and was succeeded by Jehoram (852-841 B.C.), another son of Ahab. That brings us to Jehu’s being anointed as the next king of Israel, fulfilling earlier instructions God had given to Elijah (1 Kings 19:16). Elijah’s successor, Elisha, sent a young prophet to anoint Jehu at Ramoth-gilead with the LORD’S directives: “You shall strike the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel” (2 Kings 9:7). The year was 841 B.C.
Following the narration (2 Kings 9:21-28) of the deaths of Jehoram of Israel and Judah’s king Ahaziah (Ahab’s son-in-law), the text moves on to describe the gruesome death of Jezebel:
When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window. As Jehu entered the gate, she said, “Is it well, Zimri, your master’s murderer?” Then he lifted up his face to the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” And two or three officials looked down at him. He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her under foot. When he came in, he ate and drank; and he said, “See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.” They went to bury her, but they found nothing more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. Therefore they returned and told him. And he said, “This is the word of the LORD, which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘In the property of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; and the corpse of Jezebel will be as dung on the face of the field in the property of Jezreel, so they cannot say, This is Jezebel’” (2 Kings 9:30-37).
Small wonder that “After her passing, Jews avoided naming their daughters Jezebel.”1In the first century, the church at Thyatira was rebuked because they were tolerating within their fellowship a modern counterpart of Jezebel: “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols” (Rev. 2:20). She was wrong to do these things, but the church was at fault for putting up with it!
Our photo was taken at the Hecht Museum, University of Haifa in Israel, among exhibits focusing on Phoenicians on the northern coast of Israel in the biblical period. This ivory plaque depicts a woman looking out a window (8th century B.C.) and reminds us of Jezebel’s looking out the window before she was thrown down to her death below.