A warning against idolatry: the story of Jezebel

Study passages: 1 Kings 16:31–33; 1 Kings 18:4–6; 1 Kings 19:1–2 ; 1 Kings 21:7–16,23; 2 Kings 9:30–37

Of all the women named in the Old Testament, Jezebel is the one whose reputation has travelled most vehemently down the centuries. Her name is synonymous with scheming, brutality and evil. Her callous inhumanity shocks us. Her own violent end makes gruesome reading. So what should we make of the biblical account of this woman today? 

Some of my sceptical friends just dismiss this story. As far as they’re concerned, the Old Testament writers have a very patriarchal outlook – they see most women either in a patronising, dismissive way or with exaggerated faults. For them, the problem with Jezebel is simply that she’s a woman! However, this misrepresents the Hebrew scriptures. Its authors tell the stories of many women and exhibit big differences in the way they assess them. Many of them are described in detail and with a very positive approach. A list of those would include Rebecca, Rachel, Shiphrah, Puah, Miriam, Jochebed, Rahab, Hannah, Sheerah, Naomi, Ruth, Huldah, Deborah, Abigail, Esther – and more besides.

Others argue that biblical authors didn’t like strong women who expressed opinions and assumed authority – and Jezebel is certainly one of those. But many others of the women I’ve just named would come precisely into that category and be seen very differently. Women with prophetic gifts, like Miriam, Huldah or Deborah, or strategic insight, like Abigail or Rahab, are acknowledged and positively applauded. They’re presented as women who made careful decisions that had far-reaching consequences. 

Yet others suggest there may be an element of racism in the way Jezebel is portrayed. The Hebrew authors may have approved of Jewish women, but they expressed considerable animosity towards women of other ethnicities, especially those from overt pagan backgrounds – and Jezebel was Phoenician. However, non-Jewish women in the text are rarely judged simply on ethnicity. Rahab was a Canaanite, Ruth a Moabite and Jael a Kenite, but their stories have been told sympathetically and with compassion. 

We’re not likely to be erecting altars to Baal, or poles to Asherah, for our idols are much more subtle 

Finally, it’s often suggested that some Old Testament writers present women stereotypically as manipulative, hypocritical, operating ruthlessly from their own interests and ready to expose innocent men to danger. Alongside Jezebel, we have women like Delilah, who betrayed Samson to the Philistines (Judges 16), Queen Athaliah, who murdered her own grandchildren (2 Kings 11), and even Potiphar’s wife, who lied about Joseph seducing her (Genesis 39). But though such dangerous women certainly exist in the pages of the biblical text, it’s evident again that they are in a minority. 

Fuelled by idolatry

None of the above suggestions really accounts for the bad connotations that have been attached to Jezebel’s name for centuries. She is in many ways a uniquely brutal character in the Bible, capable of acts of devastating cruelty. So let’s look at her disturbing story, and see what we make of it. You’ll find it dotted about in several chapters of 1 and 2 Kings. 

Jezebel entered the story of Israel in the 9th century BC. Historically, the Israelites had settled into the Promised Land and established a monarchy. After the reigns of David and Solomon, the northern and southern kingdoms had become separate, with a plethora of kings who led people astray. Jezebel married one of them. She was the daughter of the king of Sidon (Phoenicia) who was both a monarch and a high priest of Astarte, a pagan deity. From a religious point of view, her marriage to Ahab the king of Israel (who reigned around 874-853 BC) seems absurd, but it is indicative of the spiritual condition of both king and kingdom. It was a political alliance that brought cultural and religious influence into Israel and deepened the growing apostasy. Jezebel’s influence over her husband, King Ahab, exposed his own spiritual blindness and appalling abnegation of any godly leadership.

Jezebel was an unashamed and fervent worshipper of Baal, a Canaanite deity. This was the idol of her childhood and it never relinquished its hold on her. She was driven to replace the worship of God in Israel by the worship of Baal and Asherah. We’ve no idea what these idols offered her, or why King Ahab fell into line to erect altars and temples to her idols (1 Kings 16:31-33). But it also led her to persecute God’s prophets. Jezebel knew that as long as prophets spoke the word of God, Baal worship would never take over their hearts and minds.  

One hundred prophets fled for their lives into caves to hide, facing the famine in Israel with the help of supporters (1 Kings 18:4). However, the prophet Elijah remained in the open, and became outspoken in his denouncement of evil and idolatry – even to the king’s face (1 Kings 18:18). He challenged the king to send 850 of Jezebel’s prophets of Baal and Asherah to Mount Carmel to call upon their gods to send fire to burn their offering. The king agreed and the prophets prayed to their idols all day, but in vain. Then Elijah drenched his offering in water and prayed to God. God responded and sent a miracle of consuming fire. The conclusive dramatic victory (18:18–40) resulted in the killing of the idolatrous prophets. But Jezebel’s anger and wrath were further fuelled, and her reign of terror and retaliation through King Ahab continued (1 Kings 19:1–2). 

Defiant to the end

We need to note that Jezebel’s wrongdoing was not just in relation to religious practices but also to financial ones. She flouted basic economic rules. Naboth, a righteous man, owned a vineyard from his ancestral line. Ahab coveted it but it was precious to Naboth and he refused to sell. So, with jeers at her husband for his weakness, Jezebel devised a sinister plan accusing Naboth of both blasphemy and treason. She wrote letters in Ahab’s name, instructing the elders and nobles of his city to proclaim a fast and falsely accuse him. They did and the poor man was stoned to death. Jezebel triumphantly told her husband to go possess the vineyard and he again accepted her wrongdoing (1 Kings 21:7–16). Once more, God sent the prophet Elijah to confront the king over the wickedness and murder. He prophesied that the couple’s evil deeds would not go unpunished: Ahab’s descendants would be cut off from Israel and dogs would devour Jezebel (vv22–23).

King Ahab was killed not much later (1 Kings 22:29–39) but the final judgement on his reign came during the reign of their son, King Joram (2 Kings 9). The prophet Elisha anointed another man, Jehu, as king instead, who confronted Jezebel’s son, Joram, and told him there could be no peace as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of his mother abounded. Then Joram was killed and his body symbolically thrown into the vineyard that once belonged to Naboth. Jezebel, defiant to the end, arranged her hairstyle, put on her eye makeup and scorned Jehu from a window. But the day of prophesy fulfilment came. She was thrown from the window, and horses trampled her body across the ground. When men went to bury her, there was nothing left, for her corpse had been eaten by dogs (2 Kings 9:34–37).

What can Jezebel’s story teach us today?

Jezebel’s story is very dramatic, and her striking ‘bad woman’ portrait is painted graphically. But I hope we can see why this story cannot be dismissed simply as Old Testament authors being anti-women, racist or obsessed with gender stereotypes. Something much deeper is going on. Although it is written by writers who were chronicling accounts of kings and their rule, it’s also a powerful exposition of what happens morally and spiritually when people turn from God to idolatry. It’s an early example similar to Paul’s warning to the Ephesian church, that, in our lives before God, we contend not just with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers, with spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). Jezebel was fighting hard, but she was on the wrong side. Her eyes had been blinded, her mind captured, her will taken over and her heart enslaved to idols. The fact that she was a woman is incidental. It’s important only in that the powers of evil could annex her roles as both a woman and a queen.   

As a story of idolatry, this is a warning to all of us. We’re not likely to be erecting altars to Baal, or poles to Asherah, for our idols are much more subtle. But we can be consumed by things we don’t even realise hold us in their grip: our own ego, envy, our need for control, our own desires, our longing to acquire more ‘stuff’. We can become enslaved by certain ways of doing things, can follow the wrong people – and even deny truth. Yet, when the Holy Spirit shows us the idols of our time, Jesus also gives us power to stand against them. Their rule has already been defeated by Him. And when we worship God through Jesus’ liberating love, we find the true freedom we need.