Dromo's Den

[Up] [Dromo's Den]

Jezebel Biography

Jezebel Image

JEZEBEL (Heb. 'Izebel). The daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre, and wife of Ahab, King of Israel. Ahab's marriage with a Tyrian princess (1 Kings xvi. 31) was a political device to insure the alliance with Tyre. As a symbol of the alliance, a temple to Baal Melkart, the god of Tyre, seems to have been built. The worship of this god was probably very similar to the Baal cult that already flourished in Israel and not very different from the Yahwe cult as it was then practiced. To a later age the act of Ahab in marrying a "Canaanitish" woman appeared as a heinous offense, and accordingly both Ahab and Jezebel are represented in Kings and Chronicles in the most unfavorable light. In Ahab's reign a strong movement led by Elijah (q.v.) against the Baal cult set in, and Jezebel is represented as having been one of the strongest and bitterest opponents of Elijah. Hence the later biblical writers cannot find enough to say against her. She is represented as cruel, intent upon exterminating the prophets of Yahwe, and is made responsible for the murder of Naboth (q.v.). These charges can scarcely be regarded as borne out by the evidence when a careful textual and historical criticism has been applied. She survived her husband for 14 years and was murdered (2 Kings ix. 30–37) by Jehu (q.v.) at the time that he seized the throne of the northern kingdom (c.843 b.c.). Consult the histories of Israel, and Schmidt, "The Sins of Jezebel," in Journal of Biblical Literature (Boston, 1915). See Ahab.