Jezebel איזבל

Ahab took her from Sidon, and Scripture marks this as the turn: as if the sins of Jeroboam were not enough for him, he took Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal and went and served Baal. It is important not to miscount here: for a king's daughter to bring her own gods into her husband's house was ordinary. What was not ordinary is that in Israel it proved possible, and that the king followed his wife.

What she did. She fed the prophets of Baal and Asherah at court—four hundred and fifty and four hundred—and destroyed the prophets of the Lord; a hundred of them were hidden in caves and fed with bread and water by Obadiah, the steward of the palace, whom the sages identify with the prophet Obadiah. After Carmel she sent to Elijah: tomorrow at this hour your life shall be as the life of one of them—and he fled.

The vineyard. Ahab wanted to buy Naboth's vineyard, and Naboth refused: it was his fathers' inheritance. The king lay with his face to the wall and would not eat. Jezebel wrote letters in his name and with his seal, hired two scoundrels—and Naboth was stoned by due process. Here is a way of ruling for which the law is not an obstacle but a tool; and for it Elijah spoke to Ahab words more terrible than he spoke to anyone.

The end. At Jehu's rising she painted her eyes, dressed her head and stood in the window—and her own servants threw her down from it.