Who was Jezebel in the Bible?
Jezebel was a foreign princess who married into Israel's royal house and turned the nation toward the worship of Baal, a Canaanite god. Her name appears again at the very end of the Bible, where the Lord uses it as a symbol — which raises the question of what made this one woman so significant.
Who she was
One reference work sums up her life in a few lines, from her family to her violent end.
Morrish Bible DictionaryDaughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, wife of Ahab king of Israel, and mother of Ahaziah, Joram, and Athaliah. She was a bold, wicked idolatress, and stirred up her husband to do evil against the Lord. She "cut off" the prophets of the Lord, and had four hundred prophets of Baal that ate at her table. When these were killed by Elijah, she threatened the life of the prophet, but he escaped out of her hands.
Her hatred of Israel's God was not random. It came with her upbringing.
C. KnappHer zeal for the spread and maintenance of the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte, is therefore easily accounted for; hence, also, her deep-rooted hatred of the holy worship of the Lord, and her murderous plans against His prophets. Her name means chaste — Satan's counterfeit or mockery, as it were, of purity.
Commentators differ on what her name meant; another writer takes it as "dunghill."
The marriage that opened the door
The marriage itself was the first sin. Israel had been told plainly not to marry into the surrounding nations.
W. W. FeredayThe Israelites were expressly forbidden to intermarry with the corrupt nations of Canaan... The certain results of disobedience here were stated by God Himself: "they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly" (Deut. 7:3-4). There is no suggestion here that a God-fearing husband or wife might win an ungodly partner for the truth; the very opposite result is certain.
The real power on the throne
Ahab held the title, but when Jezebel swore to kill Elijah after his victory over the prophets of Baal, no one stopped her.
C. KnappJezebel's unbreakable will is now stirred to passion. Enraged, she threatens with an oath to make Elijah's life like that of her slaughtered favourites, and he flees the kingdom in fear. She was clearly the real ruler in Israel, for Ahab, as far as Scripture tells us, did not make even the mildest protest against her murderous threat.
Naboth's vineyard
When Ahab sulked over a vineyard its owner would not sell, Jezebel arranged a false accusation and had the man stoned. One writer draws the line from that act to the way her name is used at the close of Scripture.
The Christian's FriendShe has been well described as "the wife of responsible Ahab," and so the seriousness of his offence was, as we learn from the use of Jezebel's name in Revelation 2, that he allowed her to take his place and to act by his authority. More wicked, if that were possible, than her husband, as determined as he was timid, untroubled by any scruples, fearing neither God nor man, she would soon get the coveted vineyard for Ahab.
Her death
Years later Jehu was raised up to destroy Ahab's house. Jezebel met him at a window, painted and defiant.
C. KnappHer natural vanity showed itself right to the last. She probably knew her end had come; but instead of preparing her soul, she adorned her body — soon to be eaten by dogs — darkening her brows and eyelashes, as was the eastern custom, so that she might look queenly and beautiful even in death.
The sentence had been spoken through Elijah long before it fell.
Arno C. GaebeleinMore than fifteen years had passed since the Lord, through Elijah, had announced the doom of the house of Ahab and the doom of Jezebel. And now the hour of execution had come. God will judge in the end, though He is never in a hurry to carry out the judgments He has threatened.
Jezebel in Revelation
In the message to the church at Thyatira, the Lord charges that assembly with tolerating "that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess" (Revelation 2:20).
Frederick W. GrantThyatira is marked by the tolerating of one who calls herself a prophetess — that is, she claims divine inspiration for herself — and who by her name, Jezebel, carries us back to the idolatry of Israel's worst days, and to the bitter persecution of God's saints and servants by a woman who, foreigner as she was, exercised royal authority among the professed people of the Lord.
The evil goes a step further than anything named in the earlier messages.
J. N. DarbyBalaam was a prophet working among the saints to seduce them; and Jezebel, a prophetess established inside, is a further advance in evil — not merely a seducer, as Balaam was, but a mother of children there, having children of this corruption.
Summary
- Marriage. The whole story starts with a union God had forbidden; the warning was that the foreign partner would turn the heart away, and that is exactly what happened.
- Influence. Jezebel supplied the will Ahab lacked. He held the crown; she used it, and he never protested.
- Blood. She killed the Lord's prophets, hunted Elijah, and had Naboth judicially murdered for a vineyard.
- Judgment. Elijah's sentence stood unfulfilled for over fifteen years and then fell exactly — proof that delay is not cancellation.
- Symbol. Her name returns in Revelation 2 for an evil tolerated inside the church, teaching, seducing, and raising children of its own.