Jezebel Jade

Jezebel (;"Jezebel"
(US) and ) was the daughter of Ithobaal I of Tyre and the wife of Ahab, King of Israel, according to the Book of Kings of the Hebrew Bible ().

According to the biblical narrative, Jezebel, along with her husband, instituted the worship of Baal and Asherah on a national scale. In addition, she violently purged the prophets of Yahweh from Israel, damaging the reputation of the Omride dynasty. For these offences, the Omride dynasty was annihilated, with Jezebel herself suffering death by defenestration.

Later, in the Book of Revelation, Jezebel is symbolically associated with false prophets.

Meaning of name

Jezebel is the Anglicized transliteration of the Hebrew . ''The Oxford Guide to People & Places of the Bible'' states that the name is "best understood as meaning 'Where is the Prince? ( ), a ritual cry from worship ceremonies in honor of Baal during periods of the year when the god was considered to be in the underworld. Alternatively, a feminine Punic name noted by the ''Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum'', 𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤀𐤆𐤁𐤋 ''b‘l’zbl'', may have been a cognate to the original form of the name, as the Israelites were known to often alter personal names which invoked the names of foreign gods (cf. instances for Baal, Mephibosheth and Ish-bosheth).

Biblical account

Jezebel is introduced into the biblical narrative as a Phoenician princess, the daughter of Ithobaal I, king of Tyre ( says she was "Sidonian", which is a biblical term for Phoenicians in general).
According to genealogies given in Josephus and other classical sources, she was the great-aunt of Dido, Queen of Carthage. As the daughter of Ithobaal I, she was also the sister of Baal-Eser II. Jezebel eventually married King Ahab of Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel.

Near Eastern scholar Charles R. Krahmalkov proposed that Psalm 45 records the wedding ceremony of Ahab and Jezebel, but other scholars cast doubt on this association. This marriage was the culmination of the friendly relations existing between Israel and Phoenicia during Omri's reign, and possibly cemented important political designs of Ahab. Jezebel, like the foreign wives of Solomon, required facilities for carrying on her form of worship, so Ahab made a Baalist altar in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. Geoffrey Bromiley points out that it was Phoenician practice to install a royal woman as a priestess of Astarte, thus she would have a more active role in temple and palace relations than was customary in the Hebrew monarchy.

Elijah

Her coronation as queen upset the balance of power between Yahwism and Baalism. As a worshiper of Baal, Jezebel had significant power and influence, which she used to both support Baal's cultus and eliminate its rivals, using methods that the Bible describes in brutal terms.Bayor, Conrad Kandelmwin. "The Alienation of Jezebel: Reading the Deuteronomic Historian's Portrait of Jezebel in the Contemporary Global Context." (2017). Obadiah, a pro-Yahwist figure in Ahab's royal court, secretly protected the survivors of these purges in a cave.

As a result, Elijah invited Jezebel's prophets of Baal and Asherah to a challenge at Mount Carmel. The challenge was to see which god, Yahweh or Baal, would burn a bull sacrifice on an altar. Jezebel's prophets failed to summon Baal in burning the bull sacrifice, despite their cries and cutting themselves. Elijah, however, succeeded when he summoned Yahweh, impressing the Israelites. He then ordered the people to seize and kill the prophets of Baal and Asherah at the Kishon River. After the prophets were slain, Jezebel swore to have Elijah become like her prophets (i.e. killed), even if it meant embracing divine judgement upon herself if she failed to do so. Elijah fled for his life to the wilderness, where he mourned the devotion of Israel to Baal and lamented being the only Yahwist worshiper left.

Naboth

After an unspecified amount of time had passed, since Ahab was notably rebuked by an unnamed prophet for letting Ben-Hadad survive (Ben-Hadad planned to capture Ahab's "wives", including Jezebel, as plunder after besieging Samaria), he visited Naboth's residence. The residence was located near the royal palace in the city of Jezreel. Wishing to acquire Naboth's vineyard so that he could expand his own gardens, Ahab asked to purchase Naboth's vineyard in exchange for a better quality vineyard or financial compensation. Naboth declined, which he justified by informing Ahab that his vineyard was ancestral property. Ahab returned to his palace, sullen and depressed by Naboth's response. Jezebel decided to console him by arranging for Naboth to be entrapped and later executed on the (false) charges of blasphemy against God and the king. After Naboth was executed outside the city, his corpse was licked by stray dogs. Jezebel then informed Ahab that he could seize Naboth's vineyard.

Elijah condemned Ahab for committing theft and murder. As punishment, God decreed Ahab's death and the annihilation of his royal line. Jezebel's death was also decreed, with her corpse to be devoured by dogs.

Death

Three years later, Ahab died in battle. His son Ahaziah