A Tale of Two Queens: Jezebel

Episode 14 - Part One

Hello, and welcome to this special edition of In the Lighthouse: your safe harbor from the storm. This is Daphne Collins, your Lighthouse Keeper welcoming you back as I present another installment of our series, “Heroes Of the Old Testament,” and today we’re going to begin with Part One of a two-part series which is entitled, “A Tale of Two Queens,” and the first featured queen in our story is Jezebel. Before we begin our story of this famous queen, it is important to give you historical context on what happened in Israel and why this woman and her name became synonymous over time with everything wicked.

Approximately 640 years before the period of our story, that great deliverer of the Hebrew’s out of bondage in Egypt, Moses, stood in the presence of the Almighty God on the craggy peaks of Mount Sinai while the people waited a total of 40 days for his return. It was during this sojourn in the wilderness that God gave Moses the Law for him to teach the people. God’s intent was for them to learn it, live it, and teach it to their children throughout the generations. Moreover, they were to present themselves to others as a people set apart and unique amongst the pagan nations surrounding the land that the Lord was giving them.

When the voice of God spoke the words of the Law to Moses, it sounded like rolling thunder from the top of the mountain; causing the ground to tremble beneath the people’s feet. When God was present, billows of smoke and clouds enveloped the top of Sinai.  Moses listened closely to the resounding voice of God as he issued the decalogue and, with his own hand, carved the Law upon two stone tablets cut from the granite wall of the mountain. 

 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.  “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:2-6). 

Moses took the Law to the people to begin teaching them how they should live when they cross over into the land of Canaan. Throughout their wilderness wanderings, God continued instructing Moses on what he must teach the people concerning the abominable practices of the pagan nations across the great river Jordan. He said to Moses, 

“You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you” (Exodus 23:24, 31-33). 

All through their 40 years of desert wanderings, Moses reiterated the command of God to the people to ensure that they would never forget what the Lord their God did for them and warned them not to follow after the abominable practices of the pagan nations they were sent to conquer and destroy. 

“And when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,  for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire” (Deuteronomy 7:2-5). 

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—" (Deuteronomy 18:9-15). 

Moses also instructed his second in command, Joshua, who obeyed all that God commanded of Moses. Then God spoke directly to Joshua and commanded that they were to take the land of Canaan and drive out all its inhabitants (Joshua 11:15, 23). As leader, Joshua was instructed by God to issue allotments of the land of Canaan to the 12 tribes, and they, in turn, were to drive out the inhabitants and take the land, “from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates” in the name of Yahweh.

The Book of Judges, however, entails that the Israelites did not drive out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, and they forgot all that was taught them from their 40 years in the wilderness. Furthermore, they failed to teach the words of Moses to their children and began to practice the idolatry of the surrounding nations and worship their gods (Judges 10:6-7). An interesting cycle of sin and repentance became a pattern during the time of the Judges.

The people would sin, God’s anger would be stirred up and a foreign enemy would oppress the people. The people would cry out to God and he, in turn, would raise up a judge to deliver the people from their enemy. The people would thank God, forget his deliverance, and start their pattern of sin all over again.

Nearly 400 years would pass between the time of the judges and the installment of the first king over Israel, yet disobedience to all that God instructed the king not to do, remained a central theme, and one that would impact all the generations to follow. King Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was the people’s choice. King David, a man after God’s own heart, was God’s choice.

King Solomon, David’s son, and God’s anointed servant, sought wisdom and was given that in abundance and even more than he’d ever asked of God. As God’s king over Israel, Solomon was given specific instructions to follow as did his father, David. One absolute command was that he was not to “enter into marriage” with foreign women “for they will turn away your heart after their gods” (1 Kings 11:2). Solomon, a lover of all women with a prodigious libido, did not obey the command of the Lord, and had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Consequently, as God predicted, these women turned “his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” As it was during the time of the Judges, so too, did God’s anger burn against the king’s disobedience, and he pronounced judgment against Solomon’s shining kingdom through his prophet Ahijah the Shilonite.

God judged that following Solomon’s death, the kingdom would be divided in two. In the north, 10 tribes would be given to Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, to be their king; whereas the tribe of Judah would remain as the southern kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with the covenant God made with David (1 Kings 11:26-39). Following the death of Solomon, the kingdom did indeed divide in two with Israel in the north, and its capital Tirzah, which later became Samaria. Judah was the southern kingdom and its capital, Jerusalem.

The sin of idolatry continued in the divided kingdoms – primarily with Israel in the north because of the weakness of the kings and their willingness to enter into political alliances with the pagan nations around them.  God strictly forbade these kings to align with these wicked nations, otherwise, they would fall under his judgment against them and their generations.

We will now look to the kingdom of Israel in the north, and its monarch, King Ahab, the son of the great King Omri, founder of the short-lived Omride Dynasty, whose rule boasted military conquest and expansion. He resided in the capital of Tirzah and then built his palace on a hill in Samaria which became the new capital location. Samaria and the Valley of Jezreel are the two primary locations where much of our story takes place. As it is with all rulers, a future king requires a queen, and in this telling, her name is Jezebel, princess of Sidon. 

Okay, let’s get started!

Show Notes

Opening Theme: Heroes of the Old Testament

Introductory Theme: A Queen’s Tale by Luke PN

Transition Theme: Epic Vocal Trailer by Rafael Knox

Conclusion Theme: Stars of the Orient

Transcript of “A Tale of Two Queens: Jezebel” by Daphne Collins

Transcript of “Are You a Devil?” by Laine Wilder