Breaking the Ten Commandments with Jezebel The name Jezebel implies that the teaching of Jezebel of Thyatira is a serious threat to the church. Footnote: See, for example, Exod. Also, see comments on Rev. Tagged on: 7 Letters to 7 Churches , Revelation , Revelation By Dr. Paul Hoskins January 25, Revelation. MP3 Audio 5.
If the Jezebel of Revelation is not a real person, she may represent the spiritual idolatry practiced by Church members influenced by the worldly customs of Thyatira. Jezebel Thyatira Revelation spiritual adultery. You might also be interested in United Church of God. She is easily demonized by people who have been taught to hate her, instead of realizing that all religion is hearsay to outsiders.
Jezebel was unfairly demonized by the propagandist Deuteronomistic source to push the centralization of the cult, like many people in the related books. Elijah committed many atrocities, yet people blindly accept that what he did was correct. Moral blinders are dangerous, even when reading your holy book. The author sounds like Jezebel herself trying to rationalize and justify fighting against YHVH as if it acceptable. What you have to understand is that Jezebel came from Ancient Phoenicia, where a different culture with a different religion was the norm.
And she probably had no knowledge about YHVH or the laws of Israel, when she became the queen of her new country. Ahab should of course have made sure that she got lessons in these important matters, but he was too weak to demand this to happen. And this weakness was the start of a long process, where his whole family was killed off.
And the fact that his family was killed off, including Jezebel and all their sons, gave all their opponents a chance to start a smear campaign against them, and to condemn Jezebel in particular. It is much easier for me to see this as a power struggle between two people, who both did awful things in the name of their two different religions.
And it was about time that somebody stopped to see this story in black and white, so we could start seeing it in shades of grey instead. Wow, very troubling. If the standards of good is God, then of course she was extremely vile. When measuring morality one must first choose the right measuring standard. I find your synopsis troubling. My religion is not a cult. If you intimately knew the one true God, you would understand the relationship Christians and devout Jews have with Him. The individuals who wrote the Bible did not write their own words, 2nd Timothy The bottom line is this, Jewish people and Christians are to worship no other deity but God.
Any other worship is a sin. Worship involves human baby, sacrifices at the alter of Baal, sex and molestation of infants and children, performed wild orgies with humans and animals. These Canaanites were among those who had mixed DNA of fallen angels.
They are an abomination. This is poorly formed opinion that lacks maturity and actual research. Seriously, If this was written by a 17 yo, there may be more room for grace. But a grown woman? Please Furienna, research, actually research Baal worship, do not just Wikipedia it. Then read the article again. Revelation But I have this against you: that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess [claiming to be inspired], and who is teaching and leading astray my servants and beguiling them into practicing sexual vice and eating food sacrificed to idols.
Take note: I will throw her on a bed [of anguish], and those who commit adultery with her [her paramours] I will bring down to pressing distress and severe affliction, unless they turn away their minds from conduct [such as] hers and repent of their doings.
But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not explored and known the depths of Satan, as they say—I tell you that I do not lay upon you any other [fresh] burden: Only hold fast to what you have until I come.
Thanks Janet for giving us more insight on the character of Jezebel becouse yes she died then but her spiritial sons and doughters live up to today and they are the Enamies of the God of isreal and the cross of christ,so where as u balanced it we have seen the deception that she carries and she must be stoped if christianity is to survive.
But in all this we thank God who grants the victory he did it then and he will do it again.. Typical op ed…when will scholars teach instead of stealing and manipulating the minds of our young people. This is a defense of Phoenician religion and a condemnation of the Hebrew religion. Here, the Hebrew writers of the narrative are all punk men conspiring, exaggerating, and manipulating things. This article is more manipulative and misandric than the author accuses the writers of the Bible to be misogynistic and manipulative.
How boring. This article is so biased. If I made a list of all the negative words you have used in this article the men would win that seems strange….. The last reference to Jezebel in the Bible is actually Revelation This shows she actively taught the Israelites to live immoral lives. Actually, no. But it was rather a hateful charicature of her, based on several other centuries of prejudices and mud-slinging. Yes, Janet Howe Gaines has criticized the male bias towards women like Jezebel among the men who wrote the Bible.
Neither do I see any hatred of God. But I guess that thinking outside years of Judeo-Christian tradition is too much for some people…. What is the point of postulating motive onto an author, especially when you do not know that much about the author?
This is a tactic that, unfortunately, is overused today regardless of subject matter. This makes me sad. In fact, it is fairly oppressive of you toward the author, to assume that there was ill intent in his documentation and not an accurate depiction of what transpired.
Do you take into account the countless men in the bible who are also painted in the same negative light? Or the other kings of Israel that are shown to be just as bad as Jezebel? Frame this in light of the rest of the text all the old testament , and I think you do not see a biased portrayal of this person, but a fair retelling of the life of someone who was against God.
It is obvious you are reading this from the perspective of one who does not believe in the existence of God, but you should not diminish the perspective from which the author is writing by devaluating his belief.
And you are reading this from the perspective one, who believes that the Bible is always right. It is true that there are many men in the Bible, who are without doubt portrayed as evil. Too much incorporated opinion to what end? You are mistaken, Furienna. Not only did He die in our place, He died because of His great love for us, and paid our debt of sin so that we may join Him in eternal fellowship with God.
No other god or religious leader has been able to both claim and DO what Jesus did. The God of the Bible is the only God who actively loves and seeks out a relationship with us; all other so-called gods apparently need to be appeased, and care nothing for their worshippers.
Firstly, there are myths from other religions about demigods being able to raise other people from the dead Asclepius in Greek mythology or about gods returning from the dead Adonis in Greek mythology and Balder in Norse mythology. So that is not unique for Jesus and Christianity. And as for the rest of your post, that is how you see things from your point of view. If these words apply to the views of others, then they certainly apply to yours also.
Very interesting article. Was that way in the past, still that way today. More people have died in the name of god than for any other reason. But yes, this huge conflict between Elijah and Jezebel seems to prove your point. They were both so sure that their faith was the only right one, so much that they both were willing to murder their opponents.
How I would have wished that Ahab had been strong enough to just tell them to respect that different religions exist and let each other be. But he was too weak to do so, so things got out of hand. The Bible is superior to all other religions. No one comes to the father except through me. It is holy. Written through men by the Holy God. It requires the help of the Holy Spirit who helps us understand it. Reading it as a scholar without the help of the Holy Spirit will not reveal all that God intended for the reader to understand.
Janet this is all based on your opinion, please get to know the true God before you go twisting the bible with your unimportant opinions, thanks have a blessed day. God often accused His people of harlotry — of turning their backs on Him and worshiping other gods. And no faith can be superior or inferior to another. In fact, they acknowledge that. We are not naive to disregard things that stare us in the face every single day.
So before you tell other people that they need to see that different people have different beliefs, I think that you need to consider your own adivce. What makes you think that you are the one to decide and dictate whether no faith can or cannot be superior or inferior to the other?
You say that with such apparent arrogance. Have you conducted a full, in-depth study and comparison of all the faiths in the world and their fallacies and infallacies to come to an honest, well-backed and provable conclusion that no faith can be superior or inferior to another? That sounds like a rather arrogant comment from someone who is judging others of being close-minded. The Bible clear states that the faith of Jesus Christ, which has been given to the Christians superior and the others inferior.
And you must think that your faith beliefs and opinions are superior to those expressed by others here because you are arguing with them, policing them and trying to prove them wrong for thinking believing what and the way they do. You are opposing them because you think your opinions and beliefs are superior to theirs, and theirs inferior.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Saying no faith can be superior or inferior to another is your opinion, not a statement of absolute truth. As much as you agree with the author of this article and communicate that the author of the story of Elijah, Ahab and Jezabel was biased against Jezabel, we also are not naive to the fact that you have your own biases against the Bible and Christians which are clearly evidenced in your writings; biases that reflect a variety of ideas held by various groups and parties in society—that are biased against Christians and the Bible, that make you react and communicate the way you do.
You have your own biases but are accusing others of being biased, and are also calling others out for double standards. This is the type of hypocrisy that many who feign moral high grounds over others in society often exude and are fragranced with.
I believe that we grow up in a world not understanding that the war of the supernatural is among us. The Bible says we entertain angels unawares…Paul does not specify what kind of angels those are. Remember Revelation ,22 Jezebel was given space to repent. To practice killing…. Obedience is the requirement.
To disobey is to practice the art of witchcraft, which God clearly states will keep people out of the kingdom of heaven Revelation Follow what He says. We need not die. Death is reserved for the fallen angels with whom Jezebel was ultimately worshiping. Her and her people. There was something different about Ruth. Perhaps she was easily swayed by the God of Naomi. But the reason why she was in that position in the first place is because Naomi did not teach her boys the necessity of living a godly lifestyle, for her name is translated as pleasant and her children, because of her pleasntry came out sick and died as a result.
Romans says the wages of sin is death. Sin is a super natural thing which needs to be handled by a super natural God. There is none other that shall stand on our behalf but Jesus Revelation , who surely did not look over her condition. But coveting is an issue. If someone saw a family heirloom of yours and made it up in their mind that they were going to offer you money for it, but you said no because it was precious to you, nor was it personally yours to just give away.
And they got upset and plotted to kill you to get it and succeeded, shall we excuse them because they served demons their whole life? God forbid. And indeed He does. Because contentment is a practicum in the book of faith. That was all she knew, indeed. But God is the One who seeks and saves the lost. So the soon coming day that John ,29 are fulfilled when she rises during that second resurrection she shall rise up and He shall say she is guilty of promoting covetuousness, murder, adultery against the God of the seventh day Sabbath, which breaks all the first four commandments.
James , whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. If I were to write a piece this long, I would make sure that I had knowledge wisdom and understanding first. The word of God is not something you can pick up and interpret anyway you want. Sounds like you need Jesus in your life.
The word of God is Holy and true and you or anyone else will never change it. If you ask God to forgive you of your sins and forsake them. If you truly mean it. If you confess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you ask him into your life, you to can be saved. Then if God is willing you will began to understand that this is not a cult because your mind and understanding will be opened to the truth.
Then you could spend your time wisely and write things that honor God and do not take away from the Truth… God Bless….
All we have to do is look at the book of Revelations in the Holy Bible. Can it be a Coincidence that Everything in this book has either already happened, is happening today and heading for the end? Are people really that blind? Very scary indeed. Very politically correct article about a wicked woman. Seems the author does not view the Bible as the Word of God, and her interpretation of those events in the history of Jezebel falls in quite nicely with that view. Those things were considered horrible already by the men, who wrote down the stories about here into the Bible.
But if you had read this article properlyh, you could have learned to see her as more than just a murderous monster. Like so many other posters in this comment section, you ignore that Jezebel had another religion than you.
For her, there was no one and only god. But she would have believed in many different gods and goddesses. And furthermore, she grew up in an ancient culture with a hugely different set of values than ours.
She wanted her subjects to honor her gods and obey their king. And no matter how harsh it might seem today, it was a natural reaction from a princess from Ancient Phoenicia.
Like so many other people, you skip over the fact that Elijah also had people killed. Which makes you wonder exactly why he is supposed the hero, while Jezebel is supposed to be the villain. So if you stopped seeing Elijah as a lily-white hero and Jezebel as a jet-black villain, you would see that they both are more complex than that.
They both have shades of gray, which have mostly been ignored for the last years. And furthermore, the writers of the Bible were against Jezebel from the start.
This was an ambitious woman from a different culture, who refused to convert to Judaism and be subservient to her husband. And that would have been absolutely frightening to these men. And it was also a huge blow against Jezebel, that Jehu managed to destroy her whole dynasty. So there would be no one left to tell her side of the story.
I got annoyed with this blog post. It seems like the writer is taking sides with the wicked Jezebel and justified her folly. She deserved it! She was idolatrous, a murderer, perverted and more! Rather than understanding that it is more important to obey and worship the only true GOD! Because the lusts of her heart was much more important to her.
Yes us humans are all born to sin. But if we would only be obedient to God we will curb those sinful tendencies. This writer has feminist and humanist view rather than a godly view. Dear JJ… Jezebel grew up in a culture, where there was nothing wrong with a queen doing what she did. Ahab should have known better though and explained to her what was right and wrong in Israel, that it was important that she learned that they had a different religion and different laws than her native Phoenicia.
She wanted her subjects to honor her gods and obey their king, which would have been a very reasonable mindset for a queen back then. The problem was that she never learned to accept the culture of Israel, the country that she was supposed to reign over.
So there was a huge backlash against her, until she finally was murdered by some of her opponents. That is clearly supposed to be seen as an act of badassery, if you ask the writers of the Bible. But how is he any better than Jezebel in that regard?
So I have to say that both Elijah and Jezebel had shades of grey, which has been overlooked in years of Judeo-Christian tradition. They are both more complicated than that. I have to thank you though for being more open-minded about this than many other posters in this comment section.
This was a well written article and very interesting. There many great observations based on facts, and you have sensitively questioned the audine to think for themselves which is great.. I continued to read to just see what was written. There were some fascinating historical and cultural contexts which I really appreciated.. I felt the deception did come more from the sentiment you had towards jezebel and the spirit in which she was operating from.
Yes she is human, but she chose, by her own free will, to live a life based on her allegiance to the Kingdom of Darkness and not the Kingdom of God. Just like Adam and Eve.. Who we obey, we give over our authorities.. I loved the cultural context with the make up and other symbolism. It was interesting. I bless you and your journey with Holy Spirit as you grow to walk in supernatural revelation and discernment into the things of the Spiritual world.
I bless you to grow in wisdom in understanding the relationship humans have with the spiritual realm. Bless you. This is a very scholarly post! Now I see Jezebel from a different perspective and viewpoint.
Dear Fresh… Yet again, it has become necessary for me to ask a fundamentalist Christian to think outside their box for a while. Did she do some things, which sound terrible to us? But she did what alas would have been natural for any Phoenician royal of that era in the same situations. And when you consider that Elijah who is meant to be the hero of the story had people killed in one single day, you have to wonder why Jezebel is supposed to be the villain here. It might work for you, but you have no right to force it upon anybody else.
It seems you feel that, in your view, every commenter and comment needs your approval. Insightful article but lost in feminism. The narrative and opinions are in my opinion very PC and lefty liberalised. The scourge of western culture. To try and romanticise Jezebels wickedness in a culture that is extremely far removed from modern culture displays a lack of understanding of the text and Holy Spirit revelation.
One cannot blame the writer who is in ignorance of a born again experience of the living God. His son Jesus is coming back and all things will be according to His will as told by the prophets.
Dear Irene.. You seem to be yet another religious person, who refuses to think outside the box when it comes to Jezebel. The truth is though that the men who wrote the Bible were biased against her from the start, and they did what they could to throw her name further and further down in the dirt. But if you try to see the events from her perspective, she will soon come across as a much more sympathetic person.
Jezebel grew up as the princess of a Phoenican city state, within a very different culture than that of Israel. Her husband, King Ahab, should have made sure that she got lessons in the culture of her new country. But he was a weak man, who prefered to let his much stronger wife take control and do what she wanted. So she would never understand that enforcing her Phoenician culture on Israel was the wrong way to go, because nobody but her husband the king had any right to tell her to stop.
So then, Jezebel was told that the people of Israel only had one god. And that would simply not have made any sense to a person, who had grown up in a different culture with a polytheistic religion. Instead, she felt a duty to honor her Phoenician gods and worship then. Going so far that she persecuted the prophets of Jahve would of course give her a bad reputation within the Judeo-Christian tradition, and it sounds terrible even from a modern secular point of view.
So why is Jezebel supposed to be the villain? Religious freedom was simply not a concept at the time, not from either side.
And both sides were just as cruel when they got a chance to be cruel…. Naboth was an innocent victim, yes. Ahab knew that Naboth had the law of Israel on his side, so he could only let him be and sulk over not getting that vineyard. But to Jezebel, this made no sense. Because in her culture, the king was above the law. He had the right to demand what he wanted when he wanted it from his subjects. And a traitor deserved nothing but death.
Of course, Ahab should have told her to leave Naboth alone. But yet again, he was a weak king and let his queen handle it as she saw fit. Nothing in this article changed my mind about Jezebel. She was a murderer of the prophets of the Lord. She cold bloodily had Naboth killed for her petulant husband. She, like the wives of king Soloman, had a devastating impact on the character of their husbands.
Both had married for political gain. It is right for her name to associated with the personification of evil. But I guess that I have to repeat the key points. Firstly, we have to put much of the blame on King Ahab. He seems to have been a weak husband, who did not care about giving his wife lessons about the religion and the laws of Israel. For years, he was completely happy with letting her do what she pleased.
And that included watching her bring her phoenician culture, with its religion and its laws, to his country. And we should not forget that the Bible was very biased against Jezebel from the start to the end. She was after all an ambitious woman from a different culture, whio refused to convert to Judaism.
And the fact that she and her whole family was defeated made it easy for her opponents to start a smear campaign against her. And no matter what you feel about it, I have to say that Janet Howe Gaines makes a good case for that Jezebel, while not being an innocent angel, could be a greatly misunderstood figure.
So … to so obtusely deny all of that, to repudiate its significance, to completely dismiss it and worse, to argue justification for Jezebels treason is beyond the pale and inexcusably ignorant. Sinai with their God — The law of the Ten Commandments..
I will kick this ignorant Janet-whats-her-name off my perch any day every way, all day. She is a propagandist of the worst kind — pretending that she is not one. It continues to amaze me how we impugn motives onto the Creator of the Universe, i.
I found this a very interesting article on a different way to read how Jezebel is presented in the bible. Found the article fascinating and well worth my time. And that is actually a fair point, and that is probably also what lead to her undoing.
Because, as he said two verses later in 1 Corinthians , prophecy builds up, encourages, and consoles other Christians. So, when someone appears on the scene in church history, like Jezebel did in the first century, we need to take time to identify her sin and equip ourselves to oppose its presence in our midst.
After reading in Revelation of the splendid spiritual qualities in Thyatira, it is genuinely tragic to discover that moral compromise was present in the church. In that healthy body a malignant cancer had begun to form. The similarity between Thyatira and Pergamum and their joint dissimilarity with Ephesus here comes to the fore.
The Ephesians could not bear the presence of falsehood and took no uncertain steps in ridding the cancerous error from their assembly. But it was done at the expense of love. Not so with Thyatira. While abounding in love they had lost their sensitivity to error and had compromised the glorious truths of both doctrinal and moral uprightness.
Some have suggested that Jezebel is none other than Lydia herself Acts , who, if it were true, had badly fallen from the initial spiritual heights that we read about in Acts Of course, there is nothing at all in the biblical text to suggest this identification.
Jezebel may be a veiled reference to the pagan prophetess Sibyl Sambathe , for whom a shrine had been built just outside the walls of the city. This is doubtful, however, and for two reasons: first, she is spoken of in rather definite terms, implying that a distinct historical personality is in mind and not merely a shrine to a pagan goddess; and second, the text suggests that the individual was actually a member of the church externally, at any rate of Thyatira and under the jurisdiction and authority of its leaders.
The most likely interpretation is that, in view of the opportunity granted to her for repentance, Jezebel was a female member of the church who was promoting destructive heresies and leading many into moral compromise.
Note the parallel in the letter to Pergamum in which the Nicolaitans are subsumed under the name of an Old Testament figure: Balaam. Some contend she was a born-again believer who had simply gone astray, but I suggest that her behavior and beliefs are an indication that whatever claims she made to being saved and prophetically gifted were spurious. According to 1 Kings , Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, who married Ahab, king of Israel.
Hardly an endearing legacy! Jezebel was responsible for the killing of Naboth and confiscation of his vineyard for her husband 1 Kings She sought the death of all the prophets of Israel 1 Kings ; 2 Kings 9 and even came close to killing Elijah 1 Kings Her death came as a result of being thrown from a window where she was then trampled by a horse.
When an attempt was made to recover her body for burial, it was discovered that the only thing left was her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands.
According to 2 Kings , dogs had eaten her flesh, in fulfillment of a prophetic word from Elijah:. She may even have been the leader or hostess of a house-church in the city.
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