Jezebel—a Wicked Queen
Do you know many girls named Jezebel? I didn’t think so! And there is a very good reason. Jezebel was the name of an extremely wicked queen in the Old Testament. When King Ahab took her as his wife, we are told that “he went and served Baal and worshipped him” (1 Kings 16: 31).
The Bible tells us that Jezebel massacred (killed) the prophets of God. She especially wanted to kill Elijah, because Elijah had killed the prophets of her false god, Baal. In 1 Kings 21, we learn that Jezebel also had an innocent man killed so that her husband could take the man’s vineyard. Jezebel used her influence as King Ahab’s wife to cause him to do many bad things.
After that, the prophet Elijah told Ahab that dogs would eat the body of Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel (1 Kings 21:23). When Ahab died, there was a new king of Israel named Jehu who came to the city of Jezreel. He saw Jezebel looking through a window and told the men who were on his side to throw her down from the window. The Bible tells us that her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses. Then Jehu “trampled her underfoot.” Later when some men had come to bury her, all they could find was her skull, her feet and the palms of her hands. The prophecy of Elijah had come true! The dogs had eaten the flesh of Jezebel.
In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we read Jezebel’s name again. Her name is used to describe another woman who was calling herself a prophetess and causing many people to sin (Revelation 2:20). The Jezebel in the Bible was a murderer who worshipped false gods. She caused her husband to do evil and met a terrible death because of her wickedness.
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