JEZABEL. - Daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon, and wife of Ahab (v.), king of Israel (875-853), over whom she had a baleful influence and of whose misdeeds she was largely responsible. The worst consequences were in the religious sphere, because of her systematic hostility to the Yahwistic religion and the favor she granted to the Phoenician deities Baal (the Baal of Tyre, called Melkart) and Astarte.
Idolatry spread to such an extent as to engulf almost the whole nation (cf. 1 Kings 16:30-33). A temple in honor of Baal was erected in the capital, while at the queen's expense hundreds of priests of Baal and Astarte who had come from Phoenicia were maintained (1 Kings 18:19). Nor did the favor shown to pagan cults remain within the limits of a syncretistic policy, but it issued in violent persecution of Yahwism, which had already been partially shaken in Israel by the superstitious practices introduced by Jeroboam I (v.). The persecution raged above all against the most genuine exponents of the religious tradition, "the prophets of Yahweh," many of whom fell victim to the hatred of the cruel Phoenician woman, and only a hundred could be saved by a pious Israelite, Obadiah, who kept them hidden in caves (1 Kings 18:4).
The most distinguished hero of the epic struggle was the prophet Elijah (v.), a typical figure of archaic prophetism. When idolatry seemed to have engulfed the country, Elijah foretold the three-year drought that desolated Israel; then he succeeded in obtaining a confrontation with the priests of Baal and, after a resounding miracle, exterminated them. Only then came the restoring rain. But Elijah incurred the furious wrath of the queen, and had to seek refuge toward the south, going as far as Beersheba and Mount Horeb (1 Kings 17-19).
The perverse soul of J. is attested also by the episode of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21): in order to take possession of the vineyard, she induced her husband to kill its rightful owner by a treacherous device. But the voice of justice thundered inexorably through the mouth of the persecuted Elijah, who harshly reproached the king and the queen for the horrible crime and foretold the imminent extinction of the house and an ignominious end for the instigator: "the dogs will devour J. in the field of Jezreel" (1 Kings 21:23; v. IEZRAEL): this was fulfilled to the letter at the beginning of Jehu's insurrection (v.); cf. 2 Kings 9:30-37.
After Ahab's death, J. continued to lord it over the kingdom under the reigns of his two sons Ahaziah and Joram. Her baneful influence extended over the Kingdom of Judah through the marriage of her daughter Athaliah to Joram (v.), son and successor of Jehoshaphat.
The name of the impious queen became a symbol of the seductive woman and instigator to idolatry and evil arts (cf. Rev. 2:20, the "woman of Thyatira").