JEZEBEL (57.141s1 [man-cohabited, Aoxos Plat., p. 249 B., intacta, chaste : comp. Agnes, Gesen.; contr. from 3.!.-.4;t-.1=father of the heavenly habitation, an epithet of Baal corresponding to Fiirst] ; Sept. 'IckcipcX [the name is the same as the modern Isobel or habella]), daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre and Sidon [ETrinAAL], and consort of Ahab, king of Israel (n.c. 9r8). This unsuitable alliance proved most disastrous to the kingdom of Israel ; for Jezebel [whom Jose phus describes as yovaeov apacrn)pi6v TE tad TA patpop (A/14 viii. 13. 2)] induced her weak husband not only to connive at her introducing the worship of her native idols, but eventually to become him self a worshipper of them, and to use all the means in his power to establish them in the room of the God of Israel. This was a great enormity. The worship of the golden calves which previously ex isted was, however mistakenly, intended in honour of Jehovah ; but this was an open alienation from him, and a turning aside to foreign and strange gods, which, indeed, were no gods. Most of the particulars of this bad but apparently highly-gifted woman's conduct have been related in the notices of AHAB and ELIJAH. From the course of her proceedings it would appear that she grew to hate the Jewish system of law and religion, on account of what must have seemed to her its intolerance and its anti-social tendencies. She hence sought to put it down by all the means she could com mand ; and the imbecility of her husband seems to have made all the powers of the state subservient to her designs. The manner in which she acquired and used her power over Ahab is strikingly shewn in the matter of Naboth, which, perhaps, more than all the other affairs in which she was engaged, brings out her true character and displays the nature of her influence. Wh'en she found him fretting like a spoiled child, on account of the re fusal of Naboth to gratify him by selling him his patrimonial vineyard for a garden of herbs,' slit taught him to look to her, to rely upon her for the accomplishment of his wishes ; and for the sake of this impression, more perhaps than from savage ness of temper, she scrupled not at murder under the abused forms of law and religion. She hztd the
reward of her unscrupulous decisiveness of charac ter in the triumph of her policy in Israel, where, at last, there were but 7o0o people who had no bowed the knee to Baal, nor kissed their hand to his image. Nor was her success confined to Israel, for through Athaliah—a daughter after her own heart—who was married to the son and successor of Jehoshaphat, the same policy prevailed for a time in Judah, after Jezebel herself had perished and the house of Ahab had met its doom. It seems that after the death of her husband, Jezebel maintained considerable ascendancy over her son Joram ; and her measures and misconduct formed the principal charge which Jehu cast in the teeth of that unhappy monarch, before he sent forth the arrow which slew him. The last effort of Jezebel was to intimidate Jehu as he passed the palace, by warning him of the eventual rewards of even suc cessful treason. It is eminently characteristic of the woman, that even in this terrible moment, when she knew that her son was slain, and must have felt that her power had departed, she dis played herself not with rent veil and dishevelled hair, but tired her head and painted her eyes' before she looked out at thc window. The eunuchs, at a word from Jehu, having cast her down, she met her death beneath the wall [ JEriu] ; and when afterwards the new monarch bethought him that, as a king's daughter,' her corpse should not be treated with disrespect, nothing was found of her but the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands. The dogs had eaten all the rest. B.C. 884 ( I Kings xvi. 3r ; xviii. 4, 13, 19 ; xxi. 5-25 ; 2 Kings ix. 7, 22, 30-37).-J. K.