Who Durst Defy the

Omnipotent to Arms:
Jezebel in the Eye of the Beholder

Tyler Vela

0OT510: Judges through Esther

April 1, 2015
Reformed Theological Seminary

Introduction
Milton once wrote of the soul that rejects God, saying, Him the Almighty Father hurled
headlong flaming with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell
in adamantive chains and penal fires, who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. For centuries the
shadowy character of Jezebel, opponent of the prophet Elijah and adversary of Yahweh, has been
the object of scorn in the West. Her name has conjured up images of harlotry and wicked
rebellion against God and his people. For a woman to be branded as a Jezebel, was to impugn
her as a whore who is proud of it. However, that, as they say, was then. A new generation of
post-colonial and feminist scholars is striving to salvage a strong and laudable woman from what
they perceive to be the misogynistic rubble. Recast as a devoted wife, a faithful patroness, and a
woman who dared have her voice heard in a foreign, patriarchal and chauvinistic society, Jezebel
is getting a makeover.
This paper will survey the important narratives that depict Jezebel and her role in the
narrative of the book of Kings, engaging with various critical scholars who have endeavored to
resurrect Jezebel as one of the greatest unsung female heroines of antiquity. 1 It will then present
possible applications of the Jezebel passages for the modern church.

Narrative Summary
When we are first introduced to Jezebel it is only indirectly.2 Rather than being introduced as
a dynamic character in her own right, she is introduced as a piece of evidence used to support the
claim that Ahab did more evil in the sight of the LORD than any of those before him, (16:30)
and that he did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of
Israel before him, (16:33). Sandwiched between this twin condemnation, we find that Ahab
married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and
worship him, (16:31). Often the manner in which a character is introduced to us in a narrative
tells us much about the moral character or at least the role that the person will play in the story
line. Jezebel is here depicted as a foreign woman who is married to the king of Israel, and who
1

As Trible writes, She belongs to her husband and to the vicissitudes of a hostile press. She also belongs to a genealogy of
schemers, connivers, and murderers who populate the story of Israel... their machinations, especially when approved, allow to her
values and perspectives that run counter to the harsh indictment heaped upon her. Phyllis Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers and
Other Strangers, Journal of Biblical Literature, 114, no. 1 (1995): 10.
2
It is argued that due to the misogynistic society in which she finds herself, Jezebel is introduced indirectly in order for the
Deuteronomistic author condemn her. This view will be discussed as paper progresses.

leads his heart to the worship of false gods. It will become apparent as the narrative progresses
that this kind of lawlessness on the part of Ahab, as he is spurred on by his wife, (1 Kgs. 21:25)
is not merely viewed as some sin in abstracto but rather as a direct violation of the law of God. It
is not hard to see the idolatry that is apparent in the passage as a violation of the first
commandment, but the Detueronomistic redactor is also drawing our attention to the commands
concerning not marrying foreign wives who would turn the hearts of their husbands toward
worshipping false gods, (Ex. 34:12-16; Deut. 7:1-4).3 Sexual relations between Israelite men
and foreign women become a metaphorical formula to describe Israels acceptance of foreign
deities.4 This would have been doubly so for a priestess within any such false religion, as
Jezebel was.
For the feminist scholar Phyllis Trible, this introduction of Jezebel is systemic of the kind of
misogyny that she would have had to face in her new role as queen of Israel. Surrounded by the
nouns wife and daughter, Jezebel enters Israel in and arrangement between males. Husband
and father define her.5 For Trible, the location of Jezebel as daughter and wife is itself a
scathing indictment on her sex. That countless men within the pages of Scripture are introduced
and thus identified as the son of... some patriarch seems to miss her scornful gaze.6 Trible then
sets the stage for her interpretation of the passage in terms of gender and social equality, whereas
it appears that the Deuteronomical author is more concerned with the fidelity of their characters
to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and their obedience to his lawfor it is these features that will
make or break the continuance of the nation. The real issues are fidelity and devotion, not
gender.
The next time that we cross paths with Jezebel it is also through an indirect mention of her
name. Ahab had been looking for the prophet Obadiah, the manager of the royal household. We
are told that Obadiah feared the Lord, and this is supported by the fact that Obadiah had hidden
one hundred prophets in the caves of Israel in response to the persecution instigated by Jezebel,

This may also implicitly portray the kind of wickedness that resulted from marrying foreign women in Num. 25:1-3, 1 Kgs.
11:7-9 and Ezra 9:12-14. This is, however, somewhat problematic in that we see foreign women (Bathsheeba and Ruth) being
included in the lineage of Jesus. Thus it is not that marrying a foreign woman as such is wrong, but rather marrying one that does
not come under the proper legislation and worship of YHWH.
4
Stephanie Wyatt, Jezebel, Elijah, and the Widow of Zarephath: A Menage a Trois That Estranges the Holy and Makes the
Holy Estranged, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 36, no. 4 (2012): 443.
5
Phyllis Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers and Other Strangers, 4.
6
Though, here she contrasts the introduction of Jezebel with the introduction of Elijah on to the scene as merely, Elijah the
Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead.

(18:3-4).7 Apparently there had been a period when Jezebel had commissioned acts of brutality
against the prophets of God to purge them from the land.8 It will become apparent as the text
progresses that Jezebel had attained unprecedented authority over the affairs of the state, which
is observed by the fact that it was she, and not king Ahab, who commissioned the eradication of
the prophets it was by her royal decree.
The fury of Jezebel against the prophets of Yahweh would be further exacerbated by the act
of Elijah in putting to death four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred
prophets of Asherah, all who ate at Jezebels table, (1 Kgs. 15:19). This event reveals to us
several features about Jezebel that may not be explicitly stated by the narrator. Firstly, even
during the drought and a famine in Israel when King Ahab himself was actively pursuing water
(1 Kgs. 18:6), Jezebel would frequently wine and dine nearly a thousand guests in the palace.
This surely was meant by the Deuteronomist to be a picture of the royal excesses that existed
under Ahabs rule.9 The author is undoubtedly drawing the attention of their reader to the
problems that arose in Israel as a result of her abandonment of Yahweh as her one and only
sovereign. It is also important to note that these feasts were held at what the text calls, Jezebels
table, (1 Kgs. 18:19). It was not Ahabs table, it was her table.10 This seems to have been not
only her continual practice in the palace and she is clearly portrayed as the actual royal
benefactor. If it would not have been viewed as blasphemous, we can almost imagine the
Deuteronomist mocking her with the title Jezebel-Jirah, for she is viewed as one who sets herself
against Yahweh to provide for her people, even in times of famine and drought.11 This tendency
to view Jezebel as a kind of idolatrous power behind the king will appear again later in the

Janet Howe Gaines has a rather problematic take on Jezebels purges of the prophets of Yahweh where she says that she was
trying to encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in Israel.
Janet Howe Gaines, How Bad Was Jezebel? Bible Review (2000): 4.
8
Here the irony should not be lost that during this same time period, the word of Yahweh summoned Elijah to Sidon of all
places, to meet with the widow in Zarephath who feeds him, (1 Kings 17:9). The prophets of Yahweh are sent to hiding by a
Sidonian princess in Israel, while one of them is fed by a poor widow in Sidon. This positive view by the author concerning the
widow of Sidon, Jezebels own land, should also indicate to the reader that there is more going on than a simple misogynistic
disposition concerning foreign women.
9
This was the exact warning of Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:11, 14, 18: This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his
rights: ... 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants... 18 When that day
comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. It is this kind of
power grabbing consolidation which Samuel warned Israel about that the Deuternomist is now looking back on with scorn as an
abuse of power.
10
Brenner notes that this means Jezebel had not only her own compound within the royal court but also an independent
administrative organization. A. Brenner, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (Biblical
Seminar 2; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 26.
11
For Trible, this too is a point of commendation for Jezebel. Of these feasts she writes, She supports her prophets, feeding them
even in drought and famine. Jezebel is provider and nourisher. Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers, 7.

narrative when she unilaterally acts against Naboth to acquire his vineyard for her despondent
husband.
One final aspect of these feasts would have surely been grasped by the original audience of
Kings. We are told that in Israel, Yahwehs nation, where the king was to be the protector of the
law of God, it is the prophets of Yahweh who are scraping out a meager life in the caves, while
the prophets of the false gods, Baal and Asherah, are dining in luxury in the royal palace. If one
of the themes of Judges was to show that Israel quickly began to act like the surrounding nations
following the conquest, the condemnation at this point in Kings is almost to the degree that Israel
now actually is another nationthe king is guided not by Yahweh but by Baal and his consort.
In addition to this, we see Jezebel enraged by the act of Elijah against the prophets of her
religious order when he has them executed for false worship. Once Ahab tells her about the
events on Mount Carmel, Jezebel sends a message to Elijah saying, So may the gods do to me
and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this
time, (1 Kgs.19:2).12 Jezebels statement mimics the proclamation of judgment which Elijah
decreed against the land, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall
be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word, (1 Kings 17:1). There is a kind of irony
that Jezebel may have intended by mocking his judgment upon the land within her judgment on
him. However, there is an even deeper irony (or rather macro-irony) of the intent of her
statement, which is not fully appreciated until one reads of her death in 2 Kings 9. She was
unable to make good on her prophecy of doom against Elijah, whereas God was able to make
good on his, not only against the land but later against Jezebel herself. It was not the gods who
acted in judgment, but the God who was able. Nevertheless, her threat was enough to frighten the
great prophet Elijah into hiding for a timehe likely recognized that Jezebel was the real threat
behind the crown as mentioned previously.13
The indicators that we have into the character of Jezebel have been brief up to this point but
the next time Jezebel is mentioned, her character comes to the forefront of the action and propels
the narrative along. In 1 Kgs. 21 we are told that Ahab wanted to buy a certain vineyard from
12

Trible again here notes that even these words are not direct speech from Jezebel but rather her words were still second hand by
intermediaries. Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers, 8.
13
Ahab stood by as Elijah commanded the death of the 950 foreign prophets and yet one threat from Jezebel sends him into
hiding. In fact, Elijah reduces Ahab to a messenger to send a message from him to Jezebel. He has no fear of the king, but the
wickedness of this woman is such that even a figure as forceful as Elijah dares not show his face in her presence. David M
Hoffeditz and Gary E. Yates, Femme Fatale Redux: Intertextual Connections to the Elijah/Jezebel Narratives in Mark 6:14-29,
Bulletin for Biblical Research 15, vol 2 (2005) 203.

Naboth in order to plant a vegetable garden for himself.14 He even offered to give Naboth what
he considered to be a better vineyard in exchange for it. In modern America such an exchange
would seem fair, if not even beneficial for Naboth. The problem is that it would have been a
violation of the land rights granted to each tribe by Yahweh himself.15 Ahab, who had grown up
in the customs of Israel understood that he had no prerogative, even as king over Israel, to take
the vineyard from Naboth and so he went home despondent and laid on his bed, refusing to eat.16
Then Jezebel enters the scene as what Trible calls, the devoted wife.17 Once she discovers the
reason for Ahabs despair, she responds by saying, Do you now reign over Israel? Arise, eat
bread, and let your heart be joyful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, (1 Kgs.
21:7). Jezebel, being a product, not of Israelite governance, but Sidonian, could not understand
why Ahab did not simply exercise his kingly prerogative and take possession of what he
wanted.18 Her question, Do you now reign over Israel? was a challenge to him and the view of
the right of kings under Israelite law. The statement seems to view Ahab not with sympathy, but
with pity.19
Rather than have Ahab sully his hands in what would have been a violation of what was state
policy of the time, he stands aside and remains passive as she takes the reigns.20 As king, his

14

This is a strange request for the king to make at this point. A vegetable garden would take an excessive amount of water,
something Israel did not have during the current drought. See D. Appler, From Queen to Cuisine: Food Imagery in the Jezebel
Narrative, Semia 86 (1999): 61. This may also reflect back to Deut. 11:10 where Israel, the land of promise which flows with
milk and honey, is compared to the land of bondage, Egypt, where they had to work and water the land to grow vegetable
gardens. Israel is commonly depicted as the vineyard of Gods covenant love, (Is. 3:14; 5:1-7; Jer. 12:10). See Richard Nelson,
First and Second Kings (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1987) 141.
15
Leviticus 25:33; Numbers 27:5-11.
16
The issue of land rights would be a sticky issue once the children of Israel began to return from exile. Whose land was it?
Many returning from exile expecting to repossess the land of their fathers may have been surprised to find people inhabiting it.
Although it seemed a common belief among the exiles that the land remained empty (Ezekiel 11:17; 12:20; 33:23-9), the Naboth
narrative would serve as a strong apologetic against those who took over land that was not theirs by the inheritance of divine
right.
17
Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers, 10.
18
Ethbaal, Jezebels father, was not only king of the Sidonians but, according to Josephus (Contra Apion, I, 123[18]), was also a
priest of Astarte who gained the throne by murdering the last of the descendents of Hiram I of Tyre. R.D. Patterson and
Hermann J Austel, 1 & 2 Kings, in The Expositors Bible Commentary, 4 (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, Grand Rapids, Zondervan,
1988):137.
19
Other readings are put forward that vary between viewing her statement as an interrogative (NRSV/ESV), an asseverative
(NAB/CJB) or a hortatory (NET/NJV). There are also interesting parallels between her challenge to Ahab here and Samuels
challenge to Saul in 1 Samuel 17:9. One possible way to view Jezebel may be as an archetypal anti-prophet. We have seen
previously how her threat against Elijah parodied his own statements. Here the Deuteronomist may be parodying the words of
Samuel, which were meant to exhort King Saul to follow the will of God and carry out the law, in order to show how Jezebel
now exhorts King Ahab to distort the word of God and the rule of law.
20
Jezebels actions against Naboth are seen as a kind of reverse conquest of the land or possibly a first fruits of the conquest by
infiltration. Other indications in the narrative point to the theology of the land as ideological background: Naboths use of the
loaded word inheritance (v.3), Jezebels use of take possession (v.15); a Deuteronomistic code verb for conquest; cf. Deut
15:4 for both words together. Richard Nelson, First and Second Kings: 141.

passivity effectively places the fate of the nation in her hands.21 Jezebel unilaterally wrote a letter
to the elders of Jezreel and sealed it with the signet of Ahab,22 commanded that two men
publicly, but falsely, accuse Naboth of blasphemy against God and king in order to bring about
his swift death.23 Trible lists this as evidence for the misogyny of the Deuteronomist. She claims
that the condemnation comes from the author, not because Jezebel was planning the judicial
murder of an innocent man, but because Jezebel, a woman, dared wrote the letter herself.24
According to Trible, she was an educated woman who was merely seeking to scratch out some
power for herself in a society where that was nearly impossible.25 At this point one of the major
flaws with such a revisionist critical approach to the text appears. Zlotnick writes, Yet,
according to 1 Kings 21:9 the letter merely contained a call for a local fast although the redacted
sequence of the events strongly suggest that it also contained instructions regarding the staging
of the whole affair.26 One might ask what textual evidence Zlotnick has for such a strange
fractured reading of the text. The command for the fast and for the plot to frame Naboth, come in
one and the same statement. Why she believes that the latter is a redactional addition is hard to
fathom, if not merely to give her recasting of Jezebel a textual foothold. Howe adds to this
feministic re-telling by stating, These are the first words the Deuteronomist records from
Jezebel, and they are filled with venom. Unlike the many voiceless Biblical wives and
concubines whose muteness reminds us of the powerlessness of women in ancient Israel, Jezebel
has a tongue.27
Nevertheless, Jezebel makes the move from being the persecutor of Yahwehs prophets to the
oppressor of Yahwehs people. She shows that she was willing to shed innocent blood merely to
acquire land that should not have been hers in the first place. Once the deed was done, Jezebel

21

Trible sees this as a possible analogy to the way that Adam passively acquiesces to the actions of Eve in Genesis 3. Trible,
Exegesis for Storytellers, 11.
22
Zlotnick again sees this as a gender issue: She is thus engaged in a pursuit that is not only unacceptable when undertaken by
men without duly conferred authority but is the height of impropriety when practiced by a woman. Zlotnick, From Jezebel to
Esther, 487.
23
Exodus 22:28; Leviticus 24:15-16.
24
Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers, 11.
25
Zlotnick writes, The hostility of biblical narrators to queens who, like Jezebel, usurp the role of kings in a maner that
highlights the limitations of kingly power and the breakdown of male authority within the home is undisguised. Zlotnick, From
Jezebel to Esther, 482. Besides the glaring problem of having a sample set of just Jezebel to make the point, far too small to
extrapolate such an indignant conclusion, the text itself never seems to ascribe any fault to her gender but rather only to
opposition to Yahweh and his people.
26
Zlotnick, From Jezebel to Esther, 487.
27
Gaines, How Bad Was Jezebel? 5.

took possession of the Vineyard and presented it to her husband, the king.28 In this instance we
see Jezebel again violate numerous commands of God while trying to use the Mosaic Law to her
advantage. In order to escape the Levitical law regarding the perpetual inheritance of the land
(Lev. 25:33), she used the Mosaic requirement of two witnesses for any capital charge. However,
she not only incited the elders to bear false witness against an innocent man (Ex. 20:16; 23:1, 7;
Deut. 5:20), but she also violated the law prohibiting murder.29 At this point the Deuteronomist
continues to portray Jezebel as a false goddess, likely drawing parallels between her and the
Canaanite goddess Anat, the female consort of Baal who used violence and bloodshed to help
Baal ascend to kingship.30 This helps remind the reader that the conflict is a divine one
Yahweh against the false gods of the nations.
Near the end of the narrative we find the author giving us another glimpse into the character
of Jezebel and her impact on the king. He writes, 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 Kgs. 21:25).
We are told that it was because Jezebel had incited him that Ahab delved into such deep
depravity. On one level this is a compliment to the force and influence that Jezebel seemed to
have exerted over those around her. She was not a timid woman by any meansa fact that leads
many critical scholars to attempt a scholastic rescue mission based on her courage to stand up
to her patriarch. In fact here Trible attempts to connect Jezebel to the good wife described in
Proverbs 31!31
11

Her husband trusts her from his heart,

and she will prove a great asset to him.
12
She works to bring him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
16
She considers a field, then buys it,
and from her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17
She gathers her strength around her
and throws herself into her work.
(Pr. 31:11-12, 16-17)

28

The legality of the possession of the land by Ahab following the death of Naboth is unclear. See Francis I. Anderson, The
Socio-Juridical Background of the Naboth Incident. Journal of Biblical Literature 85 (1996): 46-57.
29
This scene is reminiscent of Davids scheme to have Uriah killed in battle. Like with Nathan in the David narrative, Elijah is
called in response to proclaim judgment against the king for abusing his power against a commoner.
30
V.P Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 438; S Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel
(ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1998) 56-72.
31
Here Zlotnick agrees, Within this context the queens uncompromising loyalty to her husband, in itself a commendable wifely
trait, is completely obscured. Zlotnick, From Jezebel to Esther, 486.

The problems with this kind of exegesis are manifold;32 however Trible may here have picked up
on what appears to be a common polemical motif in the Deuteronomistic literary style. In
consistently casting Jezebel as an archetypal distortion (of Gods proclamations, Gods law, the
prophetic exhorter of kings, etc), it may be reasonable to view Jezebel not as the Proverbs 31
wife but as the anti-Proverbs 31 wifenot in the sense that she is the polar opposite, but that she
is all the more dangerous for her subtle, yet substantive, deformation of her. Unlike the positive
queen in a foreign land, Esther, Jezebel uses her influence to persecute and destroy the people of
Yahweh, rather than liberate and protect them.33
In Jezebels final scene, we find her grooming herself in preparation for the arrival of Jehu,
the newly anointed king of Israel who had already killed most of the previous royal family. Here
Jezebel is seen fixing her hair and make-up and then calling to Jehu from her window.34 In
response, Jehu called to the eunuchs who attended her and asked, essentially, whose side they
were on. Their action of pushing Jezebel from the window to her death was answer enough. Her
body was then trampled by horses and eaten by wild dogs until hardly anything was left of her
a grotesque end to be sure.
There are several disputes over this passage that must be worked out in order to understand
these events. Firstly, the question must be addressed concerning what Jezebels intentions were
in beautifying herself before the arrival of her executioner. We are told in v30, she painted her
eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window. Feminists have attempted to cast this as
a high point for Jezebel: Ironically, this is her finest hour, though the Deuteronomist intends the
queen to appear haughty and imperious to the end.35 Others have argued that this was an
attempt to beautify herself in order to seduce Jehu when he arrived. They will commonly look to
Jehus statement to Jezebels son, king Joram, What peace, so long as the harlotries of your
mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many? (2 Kgs. 9:22). In addition to this, Proverbs
32

Such as the difference between the wife of good character who invests in land and the one willing to murder to get a piece of
land. We should also see that Jezebel does not in fact bring Ahab good all the days of his life, but is one of the main reasons why
Yahweh judges him 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). See: E.K. Holt, Urged on by His Wife Jezebel: A Literary Reading of 1 Kgs 18 in
Context, SJOT 9 (1995): 96.
33
For parallels between Esther and Jezebel see: Helena Zlotnick, From Jezebel to Esther: Fashioning Images of Queenship in
the Hebrew Bible, Biblica, vol 82 (2001): 477-495.
34
Another interesting contrast can be seen at this point. Whereas her husband tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and fasted,
and he lay in sackcloth and went about despondently, (1 Kgs. 21:27) in the face of judgment, Jezebel dressed up for the event.
There was no repentance; only adornment. This may be the Deuteronomists way of showing that Jezebel was actually worse
than even Ahab despite his reputation as the most evil king of all up to that time. At least Ahab still appeared cognizant of the
respect due the prophetic office in Israel.
35
Gaines, How Bad Was Jezebel? 10.

commonly uses the image of painting the eyes as a sign of a woman of promiscuous character.36
While the narrative never explicitly indicates that Jezebel was unfaithful to Ahab, considering
her connection with the worship of Baal and Asherah, cultic sexual perversions may be what
Jehu had in view.37 Contrary to this however, is the observation that the scene between Jehu and
Joram is situated in Jezreel, on Naboths field. This would appear to be an indication that the
harlotries of Jezebel was likely a reference to Jezebels devotion to Baal and how she plummeted
Israel into all manner of false worship and death, rather than some insinuation of her being the
slut from Samaria.38
Jezebels own statement to Jehu in v31 may add to this interpretation: Is it peace, you Zimri,
murderer of your master? Some have argued that should be translated as a descriptive
statement of power rather than a proper name,39 and even that Jezebel may have found Jehus
killing of his predecessor to gain power attractive due to her Sidonian heritage. Is it realistic to
suppose that Jezebel finally saw in Jehu the assertive king that she wished Ahab would have
been?40 However, what seems more likely, at least for her comment to Jehu, is that she was
intending to mock Jehu as one who would be a flash in the pan king like Zimri had been. After
assassinating his predecessor, Zimri had an abysmally short reign as king for only seven days.
Considering the emphatic couplet that seems to be entailed by calling Jehu Zimri and then
ascribing the action of Zimri to Jehu (murderer of your master) it is hard to imagine that this is
anything but a statement of resolute defiance. Nevertheless, whether or not her intent was to
seduce or taunt Jehu, she would not be spared. Her own eunuchs would respond to Jehus charge
and would throw Jezebel from the window.
At this point a much more subtle literary nuance seems to be hinted at in the text. The literary
motif of the Woman at the Window has been the subject of several scholarly studies which
attempt to show that this is an image not of just a royal woman, but a divine one.41 The image of
36

Proverbs 6:24-26; Isaiah 3:16; Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 23:40.

This would also make the much stronger link that idolatry is not just spiritual whoredom but may also, from time to time, entail
the actual whoring of ones self to the cultic sexual practices of idolatrous worship.
38
Gaines, How Bad Was Jezebel? 10.
39
Simon Parker, Jezebels Reception of Jehu, MAARAV 1, vol 1 (1978):72.
40
Although a much more pedestrian intention may be possible as well. After hearing of Jehus bloody purges of the Omride
dynasty thus far, it may not have been an attraction to power that motivated her, but rather a more fundamental desire for selfpreservation. She knew who was coming to power and may have simply been attempting to ingratiate herself to the new king.
This would add a level of irony to the response of the eunuchs to Jehus questionJezebel may have wanted to be with him, on
his side, but before she could respond, they responded for her by pushing her to her death. Just as she was fueled by selfpreservation, so were they.
41
This may also be another contrast to show the divine conflict between Yahweh and Baal. While Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh,
taunted Ahaziah from high on a hill, Jezebel, the prophetess of Baal, taunted Jehu from high up in her window. Despite her
37

the Woman at the Window representing a goddess would have been well known to the ancient
audience. Ivory plaques depicting goddess at windows have been discovered throughout the
Phoenician region dating back at least to the time of Jezebel.42 One common feature of these
engravings is that the goddesses seems to always have well kept haira fact that would explain
the unusual description that Jezebel arranged her hair, (2 Kgs 9:30). This female representative
of the goddess would appear at her window as a sign that she was finished with her marital
preparations and was finally ready for the consummation of her union with the king.43
Considering that Ahab has already been associated with the cult of Asherah (1 Kgs. 16:33;
18:19), the Deuteronomist may be employing the Woman at the Window motif for a polemical
purpose, showing that while Jezebel set herself up as a divine ruler over Israel, she would come
crashing downher head and hands as the only remnants removed from her body. 44 Ackroyd
suggests, It is almost as if she is being presented, and rejected, as the goddess herself.45
However, he could also have been pointing to other disrespectful women found elsewhere in the
Old Testament. We see in Deborahs song of triumph that the mother of the enemy general
Sisera was waiting by her window for her son who would never return, (Jdgs. 5:28). In addition,
Michal watched David from her window with disdain as he danced before the Ark, (2 Sam.
6:16). Nevertheless, considering the undercurrent of the conflict of deities that undergirds the
entire Jezebel cycle, it seems at least possible that the deific motif be preferred.

Evaluation of Critical Views

While critical scholars do not always endorse the ethics of Jezebels actions, the attitude is
frequently that of a what would you have done in her shoes? evaluation which seeks to honor
her courage to act, even if she did not always act justly.46 Howe writes,

problematic reinterpretation of Jezebel, Trible does have an excellent comparison of the typological ways that Elijah and Jezebel
are described in these accounts: Trible, Exegesis for Storytellers, 14-17.
42
One of the woman-in-the-window ivories has been dated to ninth or eighth-century B.C.E. Samaria, so it is quite likely that
those who chronicled Jezebels reign had access to this iconography. Janet S. Everhart, Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs? The
Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 72 (2010): 690.
43
Parker, Jezebels Reception of Jehu, 69.
44
Here the allusion to the fallen statue of Dagon in 1 Sam. 5, which lost its head and hands in the presence of the Ark, is hard to
miss.
45
Peter Ackroyd, Goddess, Women, and Jezebel, in Images of Women in Antiquity (ed. Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt;
Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1983): 258.
46
Also see: Bradley L. Crowell, Good Girl, Bad Girl: Foreign Women of the Deuteronomistic History in Postcolonial
Perspective, Biblical Interpretation, vol. 21-1 (2013): 1-18; Judith E. McKinlay, Negotiating the Frame For Viewing the Death
of Jezebel Biblical Interpretation, 10 vol. 3 (2002): 305-323; Frederick J. Flo, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel: Evil or
Scapegoats? Verbum, vol 7.2 (Sept, 2014) online; Stanley Frost, Judgement on Jezebel, or a Woman Wronged, Theology

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Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have little status and few
rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land, an idol worshiper in a place 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
above the law; a whore in a territory where the Ten Commandments originate... In
a kinder analysis, Jezebel emerges as a fiery and determined person, with an
intensity matched only by Elijahs. She is true to her native religion and customs.
She is even more loyal to her husband. Throughout her reign, she boldly exercises
what power she has. And in the end, having lived her life on her own terms,
Jezebel faces certain death with dignity.47
We have seen several problems with this kind of rhetoric already,48 but here it can be noted
that a methodological and a theological difficulty can also be levied against this position. The
methodological difficulty is that of an imbalanced selection of facts to engage with. For critical
scholars, such as Trible, the center of attention is placed upon many subtle and unstated features
of the textsuch as Jezebels gender, that she never speaks with Elijah directly but always
through an intermediary, and that she is introduced in reference to her relationships with her
father and her husband. Walsh provides us with a prime example of this kind of over-selection
when he writes, Jezebel would have proven an effective cipher for Otherness because she was a
triple qualifier: she was a Phoenician, a northerner (=Samarian), and a woman. 49 Crowell adds
that the true crime of Jezebel is that she is merely an Uppity foreign queen who was simply
fighting to maintain her cultural identity.50 He continues, For the Deuteronomist, Jezebel lies,
deceives, murders and openly antagonizes the religious establishment of Yahweh.51 What is
glossed over and ignored are the moral and religious aspects of her actions as she set herself as
the violent oppressor of Yahwehs prophets and people.52 Crowell is right. The Deuteronomist
does present her as a lying, scheming, murdering, apostatethat is precisely the problem. Here
Today vol. 20 (Jan 1964): 503-517; Tina Pippen, Jezebel Revamped, in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. by
Athalya Brenner, The Feminist Companion to the Bible, 5; Sheffied: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994): 196-206.
47
Gaines, How Bad Was Jezebel? 14.
48
Concerning foreign women, Crowell describes the Old Testament as containing a sexist ideology in response to its
xenophobic reaction to their foreignness, Crowell, Good Girl, Bad Girl. 5.
49
Carey Walsh, Why Remember Jezebel? in Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods,
(ed. by Diana V. Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi; Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, 2013). 323.
50
Crowell, Good Girl, Bad Girl. 11.
51
Ibid. 13.
52
I do not have the space in this paper to attend to the issues surrounding the questions of inerrancy, authorial intent or objectivist
notions of moral and religious philosophies which surely affect various interpretations of the text. This is only mentioned at this
point to show where the conclusions of critical scholars are determined by a host of liberal theological assumptions. Curtis
Whites statement in his article Hot Air Gods summarizes the sentiment of this kind of pluralism when he wrote, What reigns
in our national spectacle is the pluralistic assumption that you have a right to your cockeyed belief and that it is something I am
compelled to respect and even admire in you, even though what you believe may have very little to do with what I believe.
Yahweh and Baal - my God and yours - stroll arm-in-arm, as if to do so were the model of virtue itself. Curtis Wyatt, Hot Air
Gods, Harpers Magazine, December 2007. Accessed March 10, 2015, http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hot-air-gods/

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the LXX rendering of the text is helpful to illuminate the authors intention for his readers in
casting Jezebel in such a negative light. Just before Jezebels imprecation for Elijah, the LXX
includes her statement, If you are Elijah, I am Jezebel.53 Jezebels name proclaims her
allegiance to Baal (Where is the Prince?)54 whereas Elijahs name declares his allegiance to
Yahweh (Yahweh is my God). For the editors of the LXX, the entire conflict between Jezebel
and Elijah was unmistakably a representation of the conflict between Yahweh and the gods of
nation. They did not emphasize her gender, nor her uppity nature, but rather that she had
persistently set herself up as the violent adversary of Yahweh, his word, his laws, and his people.
Not only that, the text imbues Jezebel with a kind of power unparalleled in any other passage
in the Scripture for a woman, save possibly Deborah. As we have seen before, Elijah did not fear
king Ahab and even challenged him openly. Yet when Jezebel offers one verbal threat, it sends
him into a tail spin where he was ready to abandon his calling as a prophet of Yahweh to declare
the word of the Lord to the kingdom. In fact, what is even more striking is that it is the death of
Jezebel, not Ahab or his sons, that is seen as the moment when the power transfer to Jehu was
completed, (2 Kgs. 9:30-37).55 Here the emphasis of the narratives seem squarely rooted in
issues surrounding law keeping, fidelity to Yahweh, the right use of royal privilege set down by
God and the oppression of Yahwehs people, and not in an evaluation of gender roles.

Application for the Church

It is not only in issues surrounding hermeneutics and exegesis that the feminist and critical
reconstructions of Jezebel fail. In the issue of textual application to the church, the
reconstructions of Jezebel as a heroine for women liberated from the bonds of chauvinistic
society is as much a distortion of the word of God as Jezebels own contorted usage of the law.
For what could the application of such a re-vamped woman be if it ignores the facts that she
violently opposed God and his word; that she perverted the very laws that God had given Israel

53

Wyatt, Jezebel, Elijah, and the Widow of Zarephath, 456.

Although her name, as pointed in the MT is obviously a parody meant as a scatological pun to mean something more along the
lines of dung. John Gray, 1 & 2 Kings, A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963). 332-333.
55
The MT has an interesting variant in 2 Kgs. 9:33 where Jehu commands the eunuchs to Throw her down! It is precisely at
this point where the MT has a masculine form of the imperative cast him down. The text viewed her as a rival to Jehu
himself. In addition, to have eunuchs cast Jezebel to her death dramatizes the transition from one leader to another, since
eunuchs are often involved in the rise and fall of monarchs and shifting boundaries, Everhart, Jezebel: Framed by Eunuchs?
697-98. This means that even after Ahabs death, it was not until the death of the real sovereign, Jezebel, that the Omride dynasty
came to an end. There seems to be a kind of embittered respect for Jezebel as ruler in the way many generals may loathe but
respect the power of their enemies. This was hardly a misogynistic disdain for her gender.
54

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to operate as a just society, into a means to oppress Israel for her own power and gain? What
example can be learned if we ignore the widespread corruption of power that had infiltrated the
throne of Israel, the throne of David, and wed it to an idolatrous woman hell bent on destroying
the people of God and replacing it with devotion to a pagan god? Any application that commends
Jezebel to the church ought to be left on the ground for the horses to run underfoot.
Revelation 2:20 picks up on the theme of Jezebel as the anti-prophet who sets herself up
against the people of God. John writes, 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. Here Jezebel is reimagined by John as a harlotrous who self-professes to be a prophetess and who is engaged in
actively leading the church into rebellion against their God. He continues by stating that these
acts are adulterous (Rev. 2:22) and is later alluded to in 17:6 as being drunk with the blood of
the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. For John, Jezebel is still threat to the
people of God today, or at least Jezebel as a type of those who would lead Gods people into
perversion and idolatrywho would violently bring about the death of Gods faithful witnesses
to a fallen empire. Sadly, the condemnation of the church of Thyatira, who tolerated the
prophetess Jezebel, still hovers over many churches today. We too often tolerate heresy,
immorality and all out idolatry to mingle freely in our churches. This is how major Christian
publishing house can make their fortunes by peddling literature that is often shallow and tepid at
best, to being downright theological whoredom against our Bridegroom at worst. Like Ahab,
many churches have wedded themselves to the spirit of the age in order to be large, relevant,
and influential. Like Ahab, they do not take the field themselves but are more than willing to
reap the spoils that others have gained through blatant violations of the law of God.
Yet in the same way that the woman Jezebel was thrown down and trampled underfoot, so
too will those who lead the church astray. As Revelation 17:14 continues, These will wage war
against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of
kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful. The people of God
are still in a power struggle against the harlot queen Jezebel. The church must not be lured into a
political marriage with the Jezebel spirit of the age for influence, expedience or power. Where
Ahab failed as king and succumbed to Jezebel, his wife, the church must look to the true
kingthe true son of David, Jesus Christ. He is the king who will free us from the bondage to
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our foreign oppressors of sin and death. He is the true Jehu, who will crush the head of the
serpent under the hoofs of his horse.

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