by Brian Godawa
The Spiritual World of Jezebel and Elijah
Biblical Background to the Novel
Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel
By Brian Godawa
The Spiritual World of Jezebel and Elijah: Biblical Background to the Novel Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel
1st Edition
Copyright © 2019 Brian Godawa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
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ISBN: 978-1-942858-46-1 (paperback)
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Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.
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Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Characters
Jezebel
Installation of the High Priestess
Elijah
Jehu
Athaliah
The Rechabites
Chapter 2: The Spiritual World of Israel
Monotheist or Polytheist?
The Watchers
1 Kings 22
Leviathan
Chapter 3: The Gods of Canaan
Baal
The Image of Baal
The Temple of Baal
Yahweh Versus Baal
Asherah
Astarte
Anat
Mot
Molech
The Archangels
Chapter 4: Cosmic Geography
Underworld Valleys
Sheol
Cosmic Mountains
Chapter 5: Cultic Practice
High Places
Standing Stones
Masks
Qedeshim
Sacred Marriage
Family Shrines
Cult of the Dead
Marzeah Feast
Rephaim
Child Sacrifice
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About the Author
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Chapter 1:
The Characters
The Story First
Many of my readers like to learn about the biblical and historical research behind my novels after they’ve read them. The fact behind the fiction. It helps bring context and explains some of the “stranger things” of the novels to those who are intellectually and spiritually curious. This book is a presentation of the research behind my novel Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel. The truth is that the material in this book is so fascinating it can be read on its own by those who hunger as I do to uncover the ancient Near Eastern background of the biblical text.
The novel retells the biblical story centered around Queen Jezebel of Israel that can be found in 1 Kings 16 through 2 Kings 11. Jezebel, a daughter of the king of Tyre, marries King Ahab of Israel in the ninth century B.C. The marriage is a political one for the purposes of uniting in defense against the hostile Aramean kingdom in the north. Despite the pragmatism, king and queen find themselves falling in love.
Tyre, a Phoenician coastal city, is cosmopolitan and Canaanite. So Jezebel brings wealth, sophistication, and culture to a less advanced agrarian Israel. Unfortunately, she also brings the worship of Baal, the storm god of Canaan, and even builds a temple to him in Samaria, the heart of Israel.
Since Israel is supposed to be monotheist in its worship of Yahweh alone, the prophet Elijah the Tishbite and his students at the School of Prophets rise up to condemn Jezebel and call Ahab and Israel back to Yahweh from their spiritual adultery with Baal. This leads to a series of confrontations between the two worldviews that play out in the narrative, the most famous of which is the Mount Carmel episode of calling fire down from heaven.
But Jezebel doesn’t give up. She fights back to gain more power and even trains Ahab’s sister Athaliah to emulate her ways as future queen down in Judah. Jezebel’s ruthless ambition forces a climactic battle that jeopardizes an entire family dynasty of kings.
The story of the novel is told through the eyes of Jehu son of Nimshi, who is the commander of the army of Israel. Jehu is a man who struggles with dual loyalty to both God and King. His dilemma becomes more pressing as the king whom Yahweh anointed strays from his God. As Jezebel’s power grows, Jehu must rise up to do what is right, facing the loss of everything he holds dear, or suffer the damning consequences of doing nothing.
Another unique aspect of the novel is the depiction of the spiritual world. As I will explain in Chapter 2, the novel pulls back the curtain of the unseen realm. It depicts the “spiritual principalities and powers” that reign behind pagan Gentile nations and how they have influence on the course of history. Baal, Asherah, Molech, and others are not mere myths without bite. They are actual names of demonic powers that are real and have their own agenda.
Though this is obviously speculative, the principle is biblical. This is not simplistic “spiritual warfare” of demons of lust and gossip clinging to us like bacterial ghosts of influence. This is the bigger picture of higher entities of power ruling over Gentile nations as depicted in Deuteronomy 32:8-10 and Psalm 82. Nevertheless, the storyline of these spiritual powers is intended to reflect the mythology of pagans and how it reflects spiritual reality within a biblical worldview.
Thus, as Jezebel seeks to implant Baal worship in Israel, we see the spiritual entity named Baal and his allies, Astarte, Asherah, Anat, and others maneuver for power in the spiritual territories of Israel and Judah, much like human mobsters might maneuver for power over their regions in a city under their control.
But Yahweh and his archangels have other plans to protect the seed of David from the Seed of the Serpent. That is the basic storyline of the novel Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel. Now enjoy learning about the historical and biblical research behind it all.
Jezebel
The story of Jezebel and Elijah is one of the most exciting and iconic narratives in all the Bible. One of the most well-known biblical miracles was Elijah’s showdown with Jezebel’s prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Considered the most wicked queen in Israel’s history, Jezebel has become a symbol for some in the modern church of women who embrace feminism. Feminists have sought to rehabilitate her image by revising it into one of a strong female misunderstood and oppressed by the “patriarchy.” Some prophecy pundits even believe we are currently reliving her storyline as end times prophecy.
Regardless of what you think of these various reactions, Queen Jezebel and the prophet Elijah remain as relevant to us today as they were 2,900 years ago.
In the novel, I have sought to depict Jezebel fairly and faithfully within her original ancient Near Eastern context. That context included both the volatile world of the divided kingdoms of ninth-century Israel and Judah—the prophet Elijah’s people as well as the culturally influential cosmopolitan spirit of Phoenicia—Jezebel’s homeland. My research involved fascinating
Bible scholarship, archaeology, and Canaanite mythology that I just had to share with my readers.
Let’s start with the queen bee, herself.
One of the first things the reader will notice is that the name of Jezebel in the story is actually Izabel, an anglicized version of her real Sidonian name, Ai-zebul. The Hebrew name change from Izabel to Jezebel is not merely a matter of dialect difference but a form of ancient prophetic insult. Ai-zebul (Izabel) translated most likely meant “Where is the Prince?”[1] This was the phrase Baal worshippers would utter every harvest as they waited for their crops to arrive. It was symbolized in their myth of Baal, the god of storm and vegetation, being rescued from death in the underworld, who would then bring life back to their fields. Hillel Millgram explains,
This myth, the centerpiece of Canaanite religion, found expression in Canaanite liturgy. During summer, the time of Baal’s long absence, the worshipers of Baal would go out in procession “seeking Baal,” chanting: “Where is Baal the Conqueror? Where is the Prince, the Lord of the Earth?” With the coming of the rains in the autumn, the cry would go up: “Baal the Conqueror lives! The Prince of the Earth has revived!” By their very names, Ethbaal and his daughter Jezebel proclaim the central beliefs of their religion. Ethbaal (its Phoenician form is Ittobaal) means “Baal Exists!” It is a proclamation of faith.[2]
Though Ethbaal and his daughter were priests of Astarte, their names carried the name of their most high god, Baal, a common naming technique of the ancient Near East, including Israel. In that world, names were also believed to assign destinies and even became expressions of authority by the namer over the named.[3] Thus Abram’s name, which meant “exalted father,” was changed by God to Abraham, which meant “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5) because that is what God would make him in his future.
In Jezebel’s case, the text of 1 and 2 Kings renames Ai-zebul to Ee-zebel (Jezebel in English), which linguistically in Hebrew turns her name into a profanity of excrement. Millgram again explains,
First Ai (where) was changed to Ee, a negative (none); thus Ai-Zebul (Where is the Prince? Where is the Exalted One?) becomes Ee-Zebul, “There is no Prince,” or “Unexalted.” Then Zebul (Prince, Exalted One) was altered to Zebel (feces, excrement).[4]
This named future of Jezebel is expressed in 2 Kings 9:37, which reduces the powerful queen to pathos with a double entendre of her future demise: “And the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, ‘This is Jezebel.’”
This same technique of renaming is used elsewhere in the Bible. Another example I used in the novel was that of Ashtoreth, a goddess who shows up often in the Old Testament.[5] The name refers to the infamous Astarte (Phoenician: Ashtart) of Canaan and was in fact the goddess whom Jezebel’s father served as high priest.[6]
It is said that ignoring someone is the most vicious way to hurt them. False gods were bad enough to the ancient Hebrew, but female goddesses were so offensive that the Bible writers didn’t use a word for goddess. They simply used their names (Asherah, Ashtoreth, Lilith).[7] But it has long been noted that the name Ashtoreth was a deliberate diabolical distortion of Astarte by using the vowels of the Hebrew word for “shame” (bosheth) between the consonants of Astarte.[8] The goddess was too shameful or profane for Hebrews to use her real name.
Names and language are powerful tools for altering our interpretation of reality. I’ve explained more extensively how God and the writers of the Bible altered, subverted, reimagined, and deconstructed pagan imagination and concepts in my book God Against the gods: Storytelling, Imagination, and Apologetics in the Bible. (paid link)
But this doesn’t exhaust the biblical usage of Jezebel’s name for theological purposes. In the New Testament book of Revelation, Jezebel shows up as a metaphor for spiritual apostasy among God’s people. In Christ’s message to the seven churches of Asia Minor, he warns the church at Thyatira of a “Jezebel.”
Revelation 2:18–23:
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead.
This condemnation has led to the common image of Jezebel as a harlot or sexually immoral woman. Some modern Christians call women who are sexually active outside of marriage “Jezebels.” But a closer look at the context reveals that this is not really the apostolic intent of the imagery.
While it is possible the false teaching in Thyatira may have included sexual rituals, since pagan religions often did, it isn’t likely this is the import of the text here. Christ was drawing from the books of 1 and 2 Kings as an analogy for what was going on in the Church. Jezebel wasn’t criticized in the Old Testament for engaging in sexual immorality. She was damned for bringing Baal worship to Israel.
When Jezebel is first introduced in 1 Kings 16:31-33, she is described as the wife of Ahab who influenced him to build a temple of Baal and worship the Canaanite god, along with Asherah. And in Ahab’s obituary in 1 Kings 21:25-26, it was said of him that “there was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” to go after abominable idols. But there is no mention of any sexual sin against her husband.
Jezebel could very likely have been a faithful, loving wife to Ahab. That is why she is portrayed as such in the novel. At least, she starts out that way. Her evil was not sexual immorality. Rather, sexual immorality was a metaphor for her spiritual evil of making Baal worship more popular in Israel.
Israel was called Yahweh’s bride throughout the Old Testament.[9] His relationship with his people was so sacred and intimate that it was covenanted like a marriage. So when Israel worshipped other gods like Baal, Asherah, Molech, and others, the prophets all likened that apostasy to marital unfaithfulness to her husband Yahweh. The most recurring image used of Israel in prophetic denunciations by God was that of an unfaithful wife, described as a harlot, adulteress, or prostitute.[10]
Israel’s spiritual infidelity was so prevalent that the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah described her as “playing the whore,” having sex with idols from the nations, “on every high hill and under every green tree” (Isaiah 57:5; Jeremiah 2:20; 3:6-9), which were the locations of the forbidden high places of idol worship. Ezekiel likened Judah’s polytheism to a spiritual prostitute “offering herself” sexually “to any passerby,” the gods of the Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians (Ezekiel 16:24-29, 35-36).
The Jezebel of Revelation was a religious and spiritual “whore” because of her apostate teachings as a so-called prophetess. Christians following those teachings were likened to “committing adultery with her.” There is even reason to believe that the Jezebel of Revelation 2 is poetically linked to the “Great Harlot” who rides the scarlet Beast of Revelation 17.
The first step in understanding this connection is to realize that of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, Thyatira is the fourth, which places it exactly in the middle of the seven. A well-known and oft-used literary device of many biblical writers is the poetic structure called “chiasm.” In short, chiasm is the structuring of a narrative where the first half of the story builds to a midpoint climax, which represents the most important thematic focus. Then the last half of the story mirrors the first half but in reverse, as if it is undoing the tension built up to the middle.
If the seven churches sequence of Revelation is understood as a chiasm, then that spiritual prophetess and harlot Jezebel is the midpoint focal theme. And it is precisely that royal/priestly figure of the Great Harlot, Mystery Babylon, which is being judged in Revelation 17. In fact, the judgment of that spiritually important city seems to be a cl
imactic center point for Revelation’s series of judgments (for a complete narrative story of who Mystery Babylon was, see my novel series Chronicles of the Apocalypse – paid link).
In conclusion, both Old and New Testaments explain Jezebel’s harlotry as a spiritual analogy of apostasy, not earthly sexual behavior.
Jezebel’s father was a priest of Baal, but he also became king of Tyre. So Jezebel was most likely a high priestess of Astarte since it was Phoenician custom to appoint the king’s daughter as the high priestess of the local gods.[11] Astarte was considered Baal’s consort in the Phoenician pantheon of Tyre. The writer of 2 Kings makes a poetic connection of Jezebel with the shameful goddess Astarte. And he does so during the description of her death at the command of Jehu, thus linking her execution with the eradication of goddess worship.
After Jehu had killed the king of Israel, he entered Jezreel to eliminate all of Ahab’s family. His first order of business was to kill Jezebel. Jezebel heard that Jehu was coming, so she prepared for his arrival. The text says, “She painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). This is a peculiar thing to draw attention to in such a story. Knowing how much Jezebel and Jehu despised each other, it would be foolish of Jezebel to think she could seduce the zealous warrior king. But Jezebel was no fool. The writer is making a deliberate artistic reference to a very common motif of Astarte worship in Canaan: the “woman in the window.”
Multiple ivory reliefs from the Iron Age have been found throughout Mesopotamia and the Levant that depict a woman peering out of a window.[12] She is linked to the cult of Astarte as a fertility goddess.[13] The writer of 2 Kings describes Jezebel as painting herself with make-up, a common motif of seduction (Jeremiah 4:30), in this case the spiritual seduction by false goddesses. Jezebel was about to be attacked and destroyed just as the goddess whom she had brought to Israel was about to be attacked.
