Member-only story
The wicked Queen of King Ahab!
The bad girl of the Bible!
Our class discussed female figures in the Bible in a religious study last Sunday. Pamela presented:
Jezebel:
As a princess, Jezebel is the daughter of Ethbaal of Tyre, King of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites.
After the reign of Solomon, the Israelites settled into the promised land, established a monarchy, and separated into northern & southern kingdoms. But God's chosen people continually went astray.
Their worst sin is the worship of alien deities.
Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E. They bring her to the Northern Kingdom to wed the newly crowned king Ahab, son of Omri. (1Kings 16:31.)
As noted in brief passages throughout the Book of Kings, she became the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel.
Jezebel's marriage to Ahab was a political alliance. The union provided both peoples with military protection from powerful enemies & valuable trade routes.
As a result, Israel gained access to Phoenician ports, and Phoenicians gained access through the King's Highway, the inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south to Damascus in the north.
It was sound foreign policy, but idol worship was intolerable for God's chosen people. Besides, the Israelites are ethnocentric & xenophobic people.
The Phoenicians worshiped many gods & goddesses. In particular, Baal, the Canaanites' agricultural God.
The ancient queen was the enemy of God, a murderer, and a prostitute.
She becomes the power behind her husband, King Ahab. She enticed him to build a sanctuary for Baal within the capital city of Samaria, where they worshiped Baal.
Furthermore, she fosters her Baal religion with many gods, ritual sex, & temple prostitutes.
Not only that, but she hates the monotheistic Hebrew religion.
Jezebel imports 450 Baal prophets from Phoenicia & orders the murders of many of Yahweh's prophets.
