Ahab and Jezebel

RV23-02

Ahab, ruler of Israel, was a weak man, and he followed readily, consequently, his pagan wife's leadings in religious matters. This is always the sign of a weak man – when he has to follow his wife's leading in spiritual matters. He obviously, in that case, has no manhood. Manhood always begins with spiritual capacity. Manhood always begins with capability of being able to lead in spiritual things relative to a wife and relative to women that one may be working with.

In 1 Kings 21:25-26 we read, "But there was unto Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up, and he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things, as did the Amorites whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." Ahab was not only a weak man; and, he not only lacked manliness himself, but he also was not very bright. Obviously, he knew enough about Jewish history to know what God had done to the heathen nations (the Canaanite nations descended from the Hamitic line who had once possessed the land of Palestine). He knew what God had done in destroying those people for the very things that Ahab was now tolerating through his wife, Jezebel, in the practice of Baal worship and all that that connoted.

Baal was, of course, a Canaanite deity who was incorporated into the Babylonian mystery religion of Nimrod. This religion was set up to oppose the worship of the true and living God. Baal worship (as we showed in the previous session) was characterized primarily by sexual perversion; by immorality; and, by human sacrifices. This Old Testament Jezebel was obviously a domineering female who was the bitter enemy of the worship of the true God, and who brought destruction and divine judgment on her family. She was a Phoenician Cleopatra.

The point that is going to be made here in the book of the Revelation and in the letter to Thyatira is that there existed in that day (in that congregation) a Jezebel-like woman who had all of these qualities that we're seeing in the original Jezebel. Moreover, and more importantly, she had all the corrupting influence of the Jezebel that we see in the Old Testament. So to get a thorough understanding of this Jezebel is very important, so that you can come back to the letter in Thyatira and really get the gist and the impact of what God the Holy Spirit is saying to us there.

The thing that Jezebel did, of course, was destroy the anchor point of the ancient world in the form of the Jewish people who were the one source of the knowledge of the true God, and who were the one people who were oriented to divine viewpoint. In our day. I suppose there is no nation who bears that role upon the face of the earth as does the United States. We are the anchor point of American society. We Christians who are doctrinally oriented people, and who are positive toward that orientation, are the anchor point of our society, and as such really of the world.

What's the future of the United States? The future of the United States is entirely dependent on how firm that anchor can hold to God's ordained relationships with the human race; for the relationships of the establishment of government; for the relationships of the divine institutions; and, for all of these things that God has ordained for the protection and happiness of the human race during the era of the angelic warfare. This is what Jesus was actually saying in Matthew 5:13 when He said, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its savor with what shall it be salted? It is therefore good for nothing but to be cast out and be trodden under the foot of man." The thing that salt does, of course, is preserve. When Jesus said to the people of God, "You are the salt of the earth," He was saying, "You are the anchor point. You are the preserving element."

So indeed today are those believers who understand doctrine. That is the only hope for the United States of America – a large contingent of believers who are anchored to doctrine. If they're big enough, the nation will hold, and God will continue to honor this country. If not, He will take it like salt; throw it out; and, let it be trodden underfoot as nations before us have been. This is the serious thing that Jezebel did in the Old Testament. She was destroying the salt quality (the preserving quality) of divine viewpoint in the people of Israel, and was taken down the road to destruction because they had lost the quality of being an anchor point of God's point of view in the ancient world.

King Ahab

God said, "Ahab, here is your destiny. That act (of murder) has placed you under the sin unto death, and there is no evading it. You will have this executed upon you, and you will have it executed in this way: that your blood is going to be shed, and the dogs are going to lick it up in the same place where they licked up the blood of innocent Naboth." Well, this sentence, of course, was executed as the result of a battle in which Ahab was involved in the coordination with Jehoshaphat, the ruler of the southern kingdom, who was by and large a godly man, and by and large was trying to keep the nation on a straight road relative to God.

This is described for us in 1 Kings 22:29. Mind you that what we are reading here came upon Ahab as the execution of the sentence of death that was pronounced upon him. This was the direct result of having knuckled under to the influence of his wife, Jezebel. Had he stood up to this woman and rejected her evil influence, this would never have been written concerning Ahab: "So the King of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, went up to Ramothgilead. And the King of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, 'I will disguise myself and enter into the battle. But put on your robes.' And the King of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle. But the king of Syria commanded his 32 captains, who had ruled over his chariots, saying, 'Fight neither with small nor great, except only with the king of Israel.'"

However, Ahab went into the battle disguised in the robes of the King of the South, the King of Judah, in order to confuse the enemy. Jehoshaphat foolishly placed himself in the disguise of Ahab, the King of the North: "And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, 'Surely it is the king of Israel.' And they turned aside to fight against him, and Jehoshaphat cried out." Jehoshaphat immediately realized that he had made a terrible mistake, because what he discovered was that everybody was out to get Ahab, and they thought that he was Ahab. So he yells out and says, "I'm not he. See – it's me, Jehoshaphat. You can tell by my southern accent. I'm not from the north. I'm from the south. You're mistaken here."

Continuing: "And it came to pass when the captains of the chariot perceived that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him. A certain man drew a bow at a venture at random and shot the king of Israel (Ahab) between the joints of his armor." What a lucky shot. Of all places, to have a place where the armor has to move (a joint in the armor), this man shoots an arrow at random, and Ahab takes a muscular move at just the right point; opens up the plates of his armor; and, the arrow zings right in there. It hits him in a vital spot: "Wherefore, he said unto the driver of the chariot, 'Turn your hand and carry me out of the host (out of the battle), for I'm wounded.' The battle increased that day, and the king was held up in his chariot against the Syrians, and he died that evening. And the blood ran out of the room into the inside of the chariot. And there went a proclamation throughout the host about the going down of the sun saying, 'Every man to his city, and every man to his own country.'" It said, "Get out. The king is dead."

So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried the king in Samaria: "And one (someone) washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood. And they washed his armor according to the Word of the Lord which he spoke." This was the heritage of Ahab from his wife, Jezebel. Are you getting a feel for the kind of female this Jezebel was, and the consequences of listening to her religious viewpoints?

Let's take a look at her sons. Ahab and Jezebel were married. They had two sons that are crucial here to the story. One was Ahaziah, the eldest. Then they had a younger son named Jehoram. Then they had a daughter named Athaliah. Ahab was king of the northern kingdom of Israel. In the southern kingdom of Judah, the king was Jehoshaphat at this time. He had a son also named Jehoram. Ahab and Jezebel had a son named Jehoram, and Jehoshaphat had a son named Jehoram. So there's a Jehoram in the southern kingdom, and a Jehoram in the northern kingdom. You really have to follow this carefully in the Scripture to keep these separated.

Ancestors of Jesus Christ

The evil that Jezebel brought upon her husband followed upon the sons. When Ahab was killed, Ahaziah, the eldest son, naturally succeeded to the throne. His reign was very short. We find in 1 Kings 22:51-53 that he reigned but for two years: "Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in Samaria the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel." What kind of a reign did Ahaziah produce? He's been reared by Ahab and Jezebel. Well, verse 52 says, "And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father; in the way of his mother; and, in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." In other words, Ahaziah comes to the throne, and he follows in the same corrupt Baal worship – the same evil religious pattern that had been taught to him by his father and mother, Ahab and Jezebel, and which he had inherited from those who had preceded him in the family line. Verse 53 tells us specifically: "For he served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel according to all that his father had done." So Ahaziah was no better than his father, Ahab.

It so happens, in 2 Kings 1:2, that we're informed of an accident that Ahaziah suffered where he fell from the second floor of his palace through a latticework (or through a grille of some kind), and sustained an injury. 2 Kings 1:2: "And Ahaziah fell down through the lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick;" that is, he was injured. Now he wants to know what's going to happen to him as the result of this injury. This guy is beginning to get uneasy because he has seen what has happened to his family. He saw the kind of fluky death his father had suffered. And his mother, Jezebel, was also under a divine curse. So he's going to get some information from beyond the earthly realm (beyond the human physicians) on what his chances are as a result of the injury that he suffered in the fall.

Where does he look for this information? He follows the family pattern of evil: "And he sent messengers and said unto them, 'Go inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron whether I shall recover from this disease." He sends to a shrine at Ekron, which was in the territory of the Philistines, to inquire at the shrine of a god named Baalzebub. Baalzebub means "Lord of Flies." We're not sure why he's called "Lord of Flies," or what it is that Beelzebub was commemorating. Jesus Christ, you remember, in the New Testament was accused of performing His miracles by the power of Baalzebub; that is Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, who ultimately, of course, represents Satan. But of course, you'll see the name of Baal in this name. What was Ahaziah doing? He was looking again to the evil source of the Baal god for information about himself. That's a downright insult for the man, who is the head of part of God's earthly people, and who is their king in the northern kingdom, to go looking to this pagan deity (this idol God) for information through the priests of the Baal gods concerning himself?

Well, what he did was brought upon himself a pronouncement of death through God's prophet Elijah. 2 Kings 1:16-17: "He said to him (Elijah said to Ahaziah), 'Forasmuch as you have sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His Word? Therefore, you shall not come down off that bed to which you have gone, but shall surely die." Elijah puts it to him point blank: "Do you have to go to a heathen God for inquiry? Is there not your God in Israel, the living God, from whom you could have gotten this information?"

The Evil Spirit World

Verse 17: "So he died according to the Word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Joram, the son of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, because he had no son." So Ahaziah has suffered death – the direct influence of the way his mother reared him. We come to her other son, Jehoram. Jehoram ascends the throne upon the death of his brother, and he assumes the authority. 2 Kings 3:1 says, "Now Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in Somalia." One of the things that this son did do when he first came to the rule (and perhaps began to put two and two together) was that he diminished the worship of the god Baal. In 2 Kings 3:2-3 we read, "And he (that is, Jehoram, Ahab's son) wrought evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and like his mother. For he put away the image of Baal that his father had made." He did clean up the act of the family somewhat.

Verse 3: "Nevertheless, he clung to the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, and did not depart from them. They had a false system of worship in Samaria, and that had been brought about initially by Jeroboam, and he continued that false system of worship which God did not recognize, because God's true system of worship had to be done at the temple in Jerusalem. So Jehoram tries to clean up the act.

Jehu

Continuing: "So Jehu rode in the chariot and went to Jezreel for Joram lay there. And Ahaziah, King of Judah, has come down to see Joram." Notice that there is an Ahaziah who was the son of the Athaliah (Jezebel and Ahab's daughter) and Jehoram (Jehoshaphat's son). They have an Ahaziah, and Ahab and Jezebel had an Ahaziah, and he's dead. This was the Ahaziah that's dead. But you've got these double names in two places here. So you keep getting all these duplications of names, so you really have to have a chart to keep track of what's going on in the ballgame. Ahaziah comes over here and he's visiting Jehoram who has been wounded. It's sort of a state visit – kind of sympathy visiting of the sick.

Verse 17: "And there stood a watchman on the tower of Jezreel, and he spied the company of Jehu as he came and said, 'I see a company.' And Joram said, 'Take a horseman and send to meet them, and let him say, is it peace?'" The watchman says, "There's somebody coming – quite a party." Joram, who's lying there wounded and recuperating, says, "Send a party out and see whether they're coming in peace."

Continuing: "So there went one on horseback to meet him and said, 'Thus says the king: is it peace? And Jehu said, 'What have you to do with peace? Turn behind me.' And the watchman told, saying, 'The messenger came to them, but he did not come again.'" The watchman says, "Your messenger went out, but he's not coming back." Jehu said, "Peace? Why are you talking to me about peace? Fall in behind me. That's the only peace I have for you."

Continuing: "Then he sent out a second on horseback who came to them and said, 'Thus says the king, (Joram, ruler over the northern kingdom), is it peace?' Jehu answered, 'What have you to do with peace? Turn behind me.' The watchman told, saying, 'He came even unto them, and he didn't come again. And the driving is like the driving of Jehu.'" The watchman says, "I think I know who it is. I see the chariot a little closer, and I see the way this guy is driving. I know who that is:" "That's Jehu, for he drives furiously."

So here was this guy zapping around, four-on-the-floor, and the horses are careening around and skidding around the turns. And he says, "Oh, oh. I know who drives like that. There's only one guy who drives like that. That's Jehu that's coming." That unnerves them a little bit. That's putting them a little bit on edge here when they discover that: "And Joram said, 'Make ready,' and his chariot was made ready. And Joram, King of Israel, and Ahaziah, King of Judah, went out each in his chariot. And they went out against Jehu, and met him in the portion of Naboth, the Jezreelite." How ironic. Jehoram says, "Ahaziah, we better go out and meet that boy. This doesn't look good."

So they each get in their chariots and get their contingents of details of men with them, and they go out and meet Jehu, and they want to know, "What's the story? Are you coming in peace?" And where did they meet them, but in the very place (in the very portion of the vineyard that Jehoram's mother and father had taken from innocent Naboth, and had brought about his murder.

Verse 22: "And it came to pass when Joram saw Jehu that he said, 'Is it peace, Jehu?' And he answered, 'What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many?'" Jezebel was still alive. Ahab was dead, but Jezebel was still alive. She was still functioning full blast with the Baal worship. And Jehu says, "Peace? Peace when your mother is still worshiping Baal – that harlot?" And that is a well-chosen word, because prostitution and sexual immorality and adultery were all at the heart of the Baal worship. She was in there practicing it with all the rest of them. Furthermore, we hear something more here. Here is witchcraft: the communication with powers superhuman; the communication with the demonic world. She was into that, too, which was naturally a thing that was always associated with idol worship.

Continuing: "So Joram turned his hands and fled and said to Ahaziah, 'There is treachery, O, Ahaziah.'" Jehoram got the message right away as to what Jehu had in mind. He wheels his chariot about, and he yells to Ahaziah, "Let's cut out of here immediately. There's treachery here. Let's get out." So they decide to split. Jehu grabs a bow, and with his full strength, he let's go with an arrow. And he hits Joram between his arms, and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sank down in his chariot. With one well-placed arrow, Jehoram, son of Ahab and Jezebel, suffers the curse of death that rests upon this family because of the religious system that the mother has practiced and taught her sons.

Continuing: "Then, said Jehu to Bidkar, his captain, 'Take up, and cast him in the portion of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. For remember how that when you and I rode together after Ahab his father, the Lord laid this burden upon him: 'Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his Sons,' said the Lord. 'And I will requite you on this plot,' said the Lord. Now, therefore, take and cast him on the plot of ground according to the Word of the Lord.'" And that is precisely what they did with Jehoram. They threw him out. They threw his bleeding dead body on the very ground, so that the ground drank up his blood, as it had drunk the innocent blood of Naboth.

Jehu then proceeded to exterminate all of the members of the Ahab family and the devotees of the Baal cult. We have this described in detail, which we will not read now, but you might be interested in reading it. It is in 2 Kings 9 and 10. It gives an extensive description on how Jehu now proceeded to wipe out everybody in this family – anybody who was connected, and everybody who was left. The kiss of death was upon them. Along with this, in part of that record, we will look at 2 Kings 10:18. Here is what this man did relative to the Baal worship. This is the only way that you can deal with false doctrine and false practices: "And Jehu gathered all the people together and said unto them, 'Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu shall serve him much.'" That doesn't sound good, does it? Here's this man that's just wiped out this family to exterminate this evil from the land. He gets up and gathers the people together. And his first pronouncement, because now he is a public figure (he is a politician), is to say, "Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu (me), I, will serve him much."

Well, boy, a ripple of amazement goes through the crowd. They don't understand this. Well, Jehu is acting like a politician. He is now speaking with the politician's forked tongue. Verse 19: "Now, therefore, call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all the servants and all his priests. Let none be missing. For I have a great sacrifice to offer to Baal. Whosoever shall be missing shall not live." But Jehu did it in subtly to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal. Ah, there is the snake – there is the stinger. He said, "I want all of you to gather together – all those of you who are leaders, priest, or, worshipers: everybody. I have a great sacrifice to offer, and I want you all here. I'm speaking with authority. Anybody who doesn't show up is going to be killed.

Well, even if they were suspicious of him, they couldn't take the chance of not showing up. Verse 20: "And Jehu said, 'Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal.'" And they proclaimed it: "Oh, that sounds good." It's getting to sound better all the time. That's what they did for the Lord God. They proclaimed solemn assemblies. Verse 21: "And Jehu sent through all Israel, and all the worshipers of Baal came, so there was not a man left who didn't come. They came into the house of Baal, and the house of Baal was full from one end to the other." They gathered right in the meeting place of Baal." "He said to him who was over the vestry, 'Bringing forth vestments for all the worshipers of Baal.' And he brought them forth vestments. Now they put on their priestly garments, and everybody is beginning to breathe a little easier. They feel, "This is really wonderful. We thought we were in trouble, but Jehu is our kind of man. He understands where the real action is. Here we are going to have this high, solemn ceremony, and we're getting ready to worship Baal.

Continuing: "And Jehu went, and Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshipers of Baal, 'Search and see that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshipers of Baal only.'" Jehu is taking a precaution. He's doing something that is amazing. He wants to be sure that a true believer in the living God somehow hasn't wandered in out of curiosity. He says, "Check and see that there are no real believers in Jehovah here."

Continuing: "And when they went in to offer sacrifice and burnt offering, Jehu appointed 80 men without, and said, 'If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that let him go, his life shall be for the life of the man. It came to pass, as soon as he had ceased offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, 'Go in and slay them. Let none come forth, and they smote them with the edge of the sword. And the guard and the captain cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal." Jehu said, "Go in there now and kill every one of them. If you let any of them escape, I'm going to take your life."

Continuing: "And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and they burned them, and they broke down the images of Baal, and they broke down the house of Baal, and they made it a latrine unto this day." That's an imaginative, creative touch, isn't it? I like that. That really testifies. That really says something about what they Baal worship amounted to. What a memorial! Turn the place into a latrine.

Thyatira

Jehu understood how you stop evil. You destroy it. The same principle applied to the warfare that brought them into the Promised Land. How do you stop an aggressor nation? Principles of warfare in the Bible say that there is only one way: you destroy the enemy's ability to make war. That's how you stop your enemy. You do not act as the United States did, for example, in Korea and Vietnam, hoping that the enemy will get tired and quit, and start behaving himself. History has taught us very well that aggression, which is not met and stopped with equal violence and equal determination, will simply feed upon itself and expand. It will not back off. The only way those nations could have been preserved was the way the people of Rhodesia, for example, were trying to do it. They refused to let the communists have a part in the nation. They refused to let them be part of the voting. They refused to let them be involved in positions of authority. They were destroying them. We used to do that. There was a time when it was a terrible thing to be a communist in this nation. It was like being a homosexual. If you wanted to survive in society, you kept it quiet.

Now, our government has systematically removed all restraints upon a person who is a communist from being in positions of authority. They're doing exactly the opposite of what Jehu did in stopping this evil. And communism is an evil, and it will not be stopped by permitting it to prosper; permitting it to exist; permitting it to stay aboveground; and, permitting it to put its head up and to flourish wherever it wants to. Jehu understood the divine principles, and the Scripture says, "Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel."

Jezebel

What is she trying to do? Well, her plan is to seduce Jehu. Her plan is to use the same sexual charms that have made her so popular in Israel as a religious leader. She's going to try to seduce Jehu. So she paints her face, and she arranges her hair, and makes herself look just as attractive as she can.

Please don't use this verse to show that it's wrong for women to use cosmetics. I learned that when I was a teenager, but that's dumb. And don't use this verse to try to scare women out of using cosmetics because the same thing might happen to them that happened to Jezebel. I assure you that that is not the case.

Up to this point, Jezebel didn't do anything wrong. She obviously was a beautiful woman. She was the Cleopatra of Phoenicia of the time. She knew how to handle it, and how to make the most of it, and that's what she did. She thought she could seduce Jehu as she had so many before: "And as Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, "Did Zimri have peace, who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window and said, 'Who is on my side? Who?' And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he said, 'Throw her down.'" And she's standing up here on the balcony, out over the court way, and Jehu is looking up, and she's telling him what happens when you treat royalty in the wrong way. And if you want peace: "If you do something to me like you've been doing to my family," and all that. He asks, "Who is with me?" A couple of the eunuch servants say, "We're with you, Jehu." And he commands them to throw her down. They pick her up screaming, clawing, and shouting, and they pitch her over the railing, and she falls down into the street. The Bible says that when she hit the pavement, some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall.

Then Jehu, who's still standing in his chariot (four-on-the-floor; gunning the engine; and, just waiting), whips the horses and goes careening over her: horse's hooves are stomping on her; crushing the body; splintering; smashing; knocking wounds in with their hooves; gouging out her eyes; crushing her bones; and, trotting her underfoot so that her blood is splattered in every direction. Jehu, being a man of God, and oriented to divine viewpoint, and knowing how to function on divine viewpoint, knows exactly what to do promptly following this incident:

Verse 34 says, "When he was come in, he did eat and drink." So he goes in to lunch. If he had had a sack lunch with him, I'm sure he would not have minded sitting in the street and using her for a prop on which to eat his lunch, providing that he could find a place that wasn't too messy. Don't be horrified. Don't be shocked. If you're a doctrinally oriented person, you will recognize that it was the almighty Jehovah Elohim who had commanded Jehu to do just exactly that. Only some fool liberal or some fool who doesn't believe in the inerrancy of Scripture will say, "I don't believe that God would command this man to do this. I don't believe that this is a true record." This is the kind of stuff that the people who do not believe in inerrancy are challenging – that this is not befitting the God whom we worship: that He would command Jehu to execute this kind of judgment upon this woman. But that is exactly the God who commanded this. And that is exactly why Jehu was so acting. And Jehu, in perfect peace and in perfect stability, as a military man who knew what he was doing, and having functioned on this divine viewpoint, went in and had lunch.

However, he is a man of honor, and he is a doctrinally oriented man. Therefore, he realizes that there is something that should be done no matter what Jezebel has done, and no matter the judgment of God upon her. There is something that also is right before God that he should fulfill. He says to one of his people, "Go see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." He says, "Don't leave her out there lying in the street. Go out and get her, and let's bury her." That is God's order for a king's daughter.

Continuing: "And they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands." Why? Because the dogs had eaten the rest of her, even as had been predicted. Only the head was left that conceived that diabolical plan that brought Baal worship into the nation of Israel, and that came up with schemes such as destroyed a great and a good man like Naboth. Only the feet were left that ran with such eagerness to report to Ahab that she had pulled it off, and Naboth was dead, and the vineyard was available. Only the palms of her hands were left – those evil instruments that had signed the death warrant of Naboth. The dogs wouldn't touch them.

Verse 36: "Wherefore they came again and told him, and he said, 'This is the Word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant, Elijah, the Tishbite, saying, in the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel. And the carcass of Jezebel shall be as refuge upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel, so that they shall not say, this is Jezebel.'" You won't even be able to recognize her. There won't be anything left. You won't even be able to put a corpse in a casket and say, "This is Jezebel." She's gone.

That was the destruction on this family, which had upon it the kiss of death entirely because of the Baal worship that this woman brought into the godly element of the Jewish people. She was destroying them as an anchor in the world for divine viewpoint – a world that was completely in the dark without it.

But wait. The story becomes even more intriguing as of this point, because our attention now has to shift over to the other kingdom – to the union of Athaliah and Jehoram. Something fantastic now evolves out of the fact that here is Athaliah, reared in the home of Ahab and Jezebel, and reared in all of the Baal religious viewpoint, who now moves from the northern kingdom down south into Judah, and into the very family of the line of King David, through whom Jesus Christ is to be born. A fascinating series of incidents now begin to unravel, which further exemplifies to us the consequences of what this woman, Jezebel, did in contaminating the spiritual life of her family; of her husband; and, of her nation with the Baal worship. If you'll come back for the next session, we'll tell you all about it.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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