See also

Family of Ahab and Jezebel of JUDAH

Husband: Ahab (760- )
Wife: Jezebel of JUDAH (755- )
Children: Athaliah (893- )
Ahaziah (860- )
Jecholiah (850- )

Husband: Ahab

Name: Ahab
Sex: Male
Father: Omri (785- )
Mother: -
Birth 0760 B.C. Judea
Occupation King of North Isreal
Title King of North Israel
Death
Cause: killed in battle

Wife: Jezebel of JUDAH

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Jezebel of JUDAH

Name: Jezebel of JUDAH
Sex: Female
Father: Ethbaal (915- )
Mother: -
Birth 0755 B.C.
Occupation Queen of Israel
Title Queen of Israel
Title Princess of Phoenicia
Death
Cause: defenestration, ordered by Jehu

Child 1: Athaliah

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Athaliah

Name: Athaliah
Sex: Female
Spouse: Jehoram (893- )
Birth 0893 B.C. Samaria, Kingdom of Israel
Title frm 0842 B.C. to 0837 B.C. (age 50-56) Queen of Judea
Occupation Queen of Judah
Death Jerusalem, Judea

Child 2: Ahaziah

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Ahaziah

Name: Ahaziah
Sex: Male
Birth 0860 B.C.

Child 3: Jecholiah

Name: Jecholiah
Sex: Female
Spouse: Amaziah (840- )
Birth 0850 B.C.
Occupation Princess of Judea
Title Princess of Judea

Note on Husband: Ahab

More evil than previous kings.

Married Jezebel

. Served Baal

. Reigned during Elijah's time

Was shot and killed during battle

His father was Omri

(1Kings 16:29)

+++++++++++++++++

Son of King Omri. Reigned from 740-720 BCE. Influenced by his nefarious Zidonite wife Jezebel, Ahab encouraged idol worship in his domain and persecuted the true prophets of G-d. Disregarding Joshua’s ban, he rebuilt the city of Jericho, for which he was admonished by Elijah the prophet and punished with a three-year drought. King Ben-Hadad of Aram twice attacked Israel, with an army much stronger than the Israelites’, yet Ahab miraculously defeated Ben-Hadad and forced him to return the Israelite territory which his father had conquered. When Ben-Hadad refused to give back the city of Ramoth-Gilead, Ahab joined forces with King Jehoshaphat of Judah to force the Aramites’ compliance. Ahab was killed in battle and succeeded by his son, Ahaziah. For his many sins and his cooperation with his wife’s depraved schemes, his entire household was ultimately destroyed, as Elijah prophesied1

Note on Wife: Jezebel of JUDAH

was a princess, identified in the Hebrew Book of Kings as the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre (Phoenicia) and the wife of Ahab, king of north Israel.[1] According to genealogies given in Josephus and other classical sources, she was the great-aunt of Dido, Queen of Carthage.

 

The Hebrew text portrays Jezebel as a power behind the throne. Ahab and Jezebel allow temples of Baal to operate in Israel, and that religion receives royal patronage. After Ahab's death, Ahaziah and Jehoram, his sons by Jezebel, accede to the throne. The prophet Elisha has one of his servants anoint Jehu as king to overthrow the house of Ahab. Jehu kills Jehoram as he attempts to flee in his war chariot.

 

Jehu confronts Jezebel in Jezreel, where he incites her court officials to murder the queen via defenestration and leaving her corpse to be eaten by dogs. Jezebel became associated with false prophets. In some interpretations, her dressing in finery and putting on makeup before her death led to the association of use of cosmetics with "painted women" or prostitutes.

 

Jezebel is the Anglicized transliteration of the Hebrew ???????? ('Izebel/'Izabel). Attempts to trace the meaning of the name are speculative, since its origin can only be conjectured.

 

The biblical Hebrew 'Izebel may be rooted in a Hebrew word for "prince/nobility" or "husband" (bul/ba'al) combined with the word for "naught/none" ('iy), "there is no prince/nobility/husband," suggesting a lack of character (i.e. implying lack of royal sensibilities) or of morality (i.e. unmarried, implying adultery or fornication). It may also find its root in a Hebrew word for "dung" (from gbl; note here Ba'al-zebul/Ba'al-zebub, "Lord of dung") combined with the word for either "naught/none" ('iy) or "island" ('iyz), thus "no dung" or "island of dung."[citation needed]

 

Other sources find meaning from the character's native Syro-Phoenician language. It may be rooted in the word ba'al (lord), referring either to the Syro-Phoenician god, the "King of Heaven," or simply the royal title "lord." Thus, Iz-ba'al may mean "the Lord (Ba'al) exists/exalts" or "where is the prince," a name known from liturgies of the Syro-Phoenician Ba'al cults.[citation needed]

 

Scripture and history

Jezebel from "Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum "Jezebel's story is told in 1st and 2nd Kings.The story concerns an intense religious-political struggle — the most detailed such account of any period in the history of the Kingdom of Israel. The account portrays the religious side of the events, with the political, economic and social background — highly important to modern historians — given only incidentally.[2]

 

Jezebel is introduced as a Phoenician princess, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Phoenician empire. She marries King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom (i.e. Israel during the time when ancient Israel was divided into Israel in the north and Judah in the south). She helps convert Ahab from worship of the Jewish God to worship of the Phoenician god Baal. After she has many Jewish prophets killed, Elijah challenges 450 prophets of Baal to a competition (1 Kings 18), exposes the rival god as powerless, and has the prophets of Baal slaughtered (1 Kings 18:40). Jezebel becomes his enemy.[2]

 

The scholar V. Barzowski interprets Ahab's marriage to Jezebel as a dynastic marriage intended to cement a Phoenician political alliance. This went back to the times of King Solomon, to give the then-inland Kingdom of Israel access to the Mediterranean Sea and international trade. The monarchy (and possibly an urban elite connected with it) enjoyed the wealth derived from this trade, which gave it a stronger position vis-a-vis the rural landowners. The monarchy became more centralized with a powerful administration.[3][dubious – discuss]

 

Barzowski believes that the story of Naboth, a landowner killed at the instigation of Jezebel so the King could acquire his land, points to this interpretation. With her foreign religion and cosmopolitan culture, Jezebel represented a hated Phoenician alliance from which the landowners had little to gain and much to lose. Their resentment was expressed in religious terms as related to the difference in religions. Eventually Jehu's achieved a bloody coup, instigated and supported by the prophets whose actions the Bible preserves.[3]

 

Interpretations

The death of Jezebel, by Gustave DoréIn The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, Roger Williams, the founder of the American colony of Rhode Island and the co-founder of the First Baptist Church in America, wrote of Naboth's story as an example of how God disfavored the use of government force in religious matters. Williams believed using force in the name of religion would lead to political persecution, contrary to the Bible's teachings.[4]

 

Fine sees Jezebel as an assertive woman, who was attacked and finally murdered by the fanatic representatives of a male-dominated religion. She interprets her memory as vilified for thousands of years for the same reason — i.e. "because she was an independent woman who did not let men dominate her, and who continued to defy the aggressives males to her last breath."[5]

 

Cultural symbol

Bette Davis as JezebelThe name Jezebel came to be associated with false prophets, and further associated by the early 20th century with fallen or abandoned women.[6] In Christian lore, a comparison to Jezebel suggested that a person was a pagan or an apostate masquerading as a servant of God. By manipulation and/or seduction, she misled the saints of God into sins of idolatry and sexual immorality.[7] In particular, Jezebel has come to be associated with promiscuity. In modern usage, the name of Jezebel is sometimes used as a synonym for sexually promiscuous and sometimes controlling women.[8] In his two-volume Guide to the Bible (1967 and 1969), Isaac Asimov describes Jezebel's last act: dressing in all her finery, make-up and jewelry, as deliberately symbolic, indicating her dignity, royal status and determination to go out of this life as a Queen.

Sources

1"Bible".