OT, Pt.2 Job-Malachi
12/6/11
Who was and is this Jezebel?
For over two thousand years Jezebel has been known as the bad girl of the bible, the wickedest of all the women. The ancient queen has been denounced as a prophet of false and foreign gods, a witch, prostitute, killer of innocents, and enemy of the one true God. Before her time as queen of Israel, she was raised as a princess in the kingdom of Phoenicia where she grew up as a priestess of Baal, there most powerful god. The story of Baal is a god that dies in spring, and a goddess of love and war mourns. But after an endless summer with drought and famine Baal is resurrected in the fall bringing with him rain and storm. Baal because of his time of resurrection was the god of fall and autumn, rain and therefore the god of melancholia and sorrow. He was the god of storm, the maker of thunder and lightning bolts, and the god of fertility and sex. He was also known as Prince Baal or the rider of the clouds and in the bible he is often called Baalzebub, changed to Beelzebub in the New Testament. He brings with him several goddesses such as Ashera, The Queen of the Sky and Astarte, the lunar goddess symbolized as a star within a circle (often seen in witchcraft today). She also was a goddess of fertility sex, and war, this was not only a sexualized religion, but a violent one to. Slashing and cutting oneself was a part of the religious ceremonies, as was human sacrifices, sometimes even child sacrifices. Jezebels life was formed around such beliefs, and from the day she was born until her death she stayed faithful to her gods. Her background shows that this is all she knew, and in her land to worship these gods was normal.
She was as devout of a follower of her gods as Elijah and his and her influence on Gods people in the northern kingdom would with no doubt prove this. In 1st kings 16:31-33 'He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served