Women in the Bible
What do you know about the Biblical Jezebel? Maybe you’ve heard the 1951 Frankie Laine song “Jezebel” or have seen Bette Davis’s 1938 Oscar-winning performance in the movie Jezebel. While the movies and music have attempted to portray Jezebel, or any comparison to her, as villainous—wicked and even lewd—what is the real story about Jezebel?
For more than two-thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with this reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute, and enemy of God, and—in addition to songs and movies—her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles, too!
But just how depraved was Jezebel?
Jezebel’s story is not a pretty one, and some—perhaps most—will be disturbed by her actions. But her character might not be as dark as we are accustomed to thinking, and Jezebel’s evilness is not always as obvious, undisputed, and unrivaled as you might think.
But any effort at rehabilitating Jezebel’s stained reputation is an arduous task, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is not a heroic fighter like Deborah, a devoted sister like Miriam, or a cherished wife like Ruth. Jezebel cannot even be compared with the Bible’s other bad girls—Potiphar’s wife and Delilah—for no good comes from Jezebel’s deeds.
Jezebel, Ahab, and Idol Worshiping in the Bible
As the Books of Kings recount, the princess Jezebel is brought to the northern kingdom of Israel to wed the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri. Her father is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians—a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites.
The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal—the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. As king of Phoenicia, Ethbaal was likely also a high priest or had other important religious duties. Jezebel, as the king’s daughter, may have served as a priestess as she was growing up. In any case, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.
When Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E., she provides a perfect opportunity for Bible writers to teach a moral lesson about the evil outcomes of idolatry, for she is a foreign idol worshiper who seems to be the power behind her husband. For some, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel, so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will not be further contaminated.
When Jezebel comes to Israel, she brings her foreign gods and goddesses—especially Baal and his consort Asherah—with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new husband, for just as soon as the queen is introduced, we are told that Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital city of Samaria: “He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a ‘sacred post’” (1 Kings 16:31–33).
Jezebel does not accept Ahab’s God, Yahweh. Rather, she leads Ahab to accept Baal. This is one reason why she is strongly vilified. She represents a view of womanhood that is the opposite of the one extolled in characters such as Ruth the Moabite, who is also a foreigner. Ruth surrenders her identity and submerges herself in Israelite ways; she adopts the religious and social norms of the Israelites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her own beliefs.
Well, despite Jezebel’s bad reputation, her marriage to King Ahab was actually a model partnership—a political alliance that provided both peoples with military protection from powerful enemies, as well as access to valuable trade routes: Israel gained access to the Phoenician ports; Phoenicia gained passage through Israel’s central hill country to Transjordan and especially to the King’s Highway, the heavily traveled inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south with Damascus in the north.
But although the marriage was sound foreign and economic policy, it was intolerable to religious purists who objected to Jezebel’s idol worship.
Jezebel even seems driven to eliminate Israel’s faithful servants of God, evidenced by Jezebel’s cruel desire to wipe out Yahweh worship in Israel—as reported in 1 Kings 18:4, at the Bible’s second mention of her name: “Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord.”
The threat and power of Jezebel is so great that the mythic prophet Elijah summons the acolytes of Jezebel to a tournament on Mt. Carmel to determine which deity is supreme: God or Baal.
There’s so much more to the Jezebel story, and it’s full of more intrigue and accounts of her untimely death—read all about it, and the stories of other Biblical women, when you get your BAS Library Explorer pass.
Discover details you never knew about all the important women in the Bible
Although the Bible is largely a product of the male-dominated societies of ancient Israel and the first-century C.E. Roman world, some of its most fascinating, evocative, and inspiring characters are women. And Jezebel is just one of them!
So, we’ve compiled a special collection of articles, Women in the Bible, about all the important women in the Bible—from Jezebel and Esther to Judith and Mary Magdalene and more—women who helped shape Biblical history and the message of the scriptures … and some of these stories will debunk popular myths and maybe even your own previously held notions.
Every new interpretation is detailed in this BAS Library Special Collection: Women in the Bible. You can read all of these eye-opening articles—with intriguing detail—and lots more from the vast library of the Biblical Archaeology Society:
• Lilith: Seductress, Heroine or Murderer?
By Janet Howe Gaines
• How Mary Magdalene Became a harlot
By Jane Schaberg
• First Lady Jezebel
By Mary Joan Winn Leith
• Forgotten Heroines of the Exodus/a>
By Tikva Frymer-Kensky
• Esther Not Judith
By Sidnie White Crawford
• Rachel and Leah
By Samuel Dresner
• Thecla: The Apostle Who Defied Women’s Destiny
By David R. Cartlidge
As a subscriber to the Biblical Archaeology Society Library, you are able to enjoy this remarkable collection of scholarly articles. And that’s worth quite a lot to students of the Bible and archaeology like you, because this collection, Women in the Bible, is just a tiny sample of what you get in the BAS Library with an All-Access pass.
