A Homily by Rev. Henley, on Sunday, June 13
Reading 1 King 21:1-21
Jezebel has come to be used as a symbolic name for an evil women. For almost 3,000 years now.
The Jezebel story has some historic truth and takes place in the ninth century before the common era when the kings ruled the Hebrew tribes in the their divided political entities Israel and Judea. Jezebel is first a princess, the daughter of the king of a Phoenician city-state, second a queen of a Hebrew king Ahab. She is the mother of a the son who succeeds king Ahab—Ahaziah, and possibly the mother of the son who succeeded Ahaziah—Jehoram.
She was a co-ruler, obviously ruling domestic affairs while her husband King Ahab fought the battles and handled foreign affairs
She had her own household, her own prophets, and perhaps her own religious cult
Even after her husband and sons were dead, the next king, who began a new lineage of kings, had to kill Jezebel to fully exercise his powers of kingship.
What a powerful woman.
The Scriptures do name her queen, scholars do agree it is because of the patriarchal, androcentric bias of the writers. She was a strong, powerful, contrary, intelligent, educated, independent woman
She did not need a man, nor did she seek advice, favor, or permission from men.
No wonder they called her a harlot. Just because she put on her make-up and dressed up to wait for the men to kill her. She was not a harlot; she was a brave woman.
Contrast Jezebel with Esther (meaning “star” sometimes connected with the Babylon goddess Ishtar…)
A book of fiction written five hundred years later when the Hebrew people were captives in the Persian Empire. Esther, because of her beauty, was selected as one of the young virgins in the Persian king’s harem as a “possible” replacement for the banished queen Vashti. The king falls in love with her and is seriously considering her—but has to check out all the candidates before his final decision
Esther is waiting, compliantly
Eventually, she becomes queen—the king does not know—she is Hebrew
But even she has to wait to be called into the King’s presence, because if anyone enters without permission, they are immediately assassinated.
Esther waits compliantly,
Meanwhile, Mordecai, her adoptive father becomes involved in a deadly power-struggle with the King’s grand vizier—actually—he refuses to bow before the grand vizier—
Mordecai goes to Esther and asks for her intervention
She however is still waiting to be called in to the king
Meanwhile, the grand vizier has obtained permission to slaughter the Hebrew people while they are celebrating Purim
Mordecai becomes desperate, begs Esther to intervene
With the death of her people she no longer waits
She then uses her intelligence and initiates a plan
Acknowledging the possibility of death, she goes to the king—she then, invites him to a banquet, and then, another banquet
It is after she has sufficiently influenced him that she admits her identity as a Hebrew and asks him to save her people from catastrophe
Two women of the Hebrew Scriptures, five hundred years apart
Jezebel and Ruth
I could ask the question who is the real harlot? But I won’t, because women had no choices in how they lived their lives, with the rare exception, and Jezebel was the exception
Jezebel and Ruth
Both were true to their religion, and we know it was not uncommon for Hebrew kings, and Hebrew men to marry outside the tribes—even when the prophets told them not to… that is one of the reasons, the prophets said, they were taken as slaves to Babylon
So Jezebel’s primary enemy was the prophet Elijah, because she refused to deny her religion
Ruth had no enemies, her story was popular with the exiled Hebrews, but she, too, refused to deny her religion
Today, strong women are called many names. AND feminism is an ugly word. “Feminism” meaning to see the world through the eyes of women and their children.
Women still to this day or ridiculed for being strong, intelligent, thinking creatures
It is still difficult for independent women to marry; if they want to…
Don’t ask me why
Jezebel, no matter what you call her—is still Jezebel—even today in the twenty-first century. She is the woman who is a strong, powerful, contrary, intelligent, educated, independent woman. What I hope all women could be.
Jezebel never does anything men in the Bible, men in her culture did not do; she alone is symbolized for 3,000 years for her actions. What a celebration for women who refuse to buy in to the patriarchy, and she did all these things grounded in her religion. A religion that later was subdued by the Roman Empire and then Roman’s Christianity.
Where is God in all this?
Where is Yahweh in all this?
For Esther, there is no mention of Yahweh
However, when the Scriptures were translated into Greek hundreds of years after Esther’s story, the scribes added prayers and praise to Yahweh
Jezebel, on the other hand, has her God, and Elijah can’t stand it
He uses all his wits to out maneuver Jezebel and he really never does
It reminds us though, that God is always in our stories, in our lives,
A God of many names is never apart from us