Dennis Tuuri

# Jezebel and the Advancement of Evil

I mentioned to my wife last night. I said, “Did you know about Elijah throwing fire from the hill against God’s enemies?” And she looked real startled for a moment and then realized I was talking about Elijah the prophet and not Elijah our son. Worried he’d done something wrong with fire somehow.

Well, today’s scripture reading, we’re going to have two of them. We’re going to go back to the times of Elijah that we might come forward and understand a little better the letter to the church at Thyatira. So please stand and I’ll read Revelation 2:18-29 and then we’ll go back to First Kings 21:20-29. So first Revelation 2, and then we’ll go to First Kings 21.

Revelation 2:18-29: “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira, write these things, says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass.

I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I give her gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.

Indeed, I will cast her into a sick bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death. And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works.

Now to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end. To him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessel, as I also have received from my father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.”

And then First Kings 21 beginning at verse 20.

First Kings 21 beginning at verse 20: “So Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, oh my enemy?’ And he answered, ‘I have found you because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free. I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger and made Israel sin.

And concerning Jezebel, the Lord also spoke, saying, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city. And the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.”

But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. And he behaved very abominably in following idols according to all that the Amorites had done whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

So it was when Ahab heard those words that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about mourning. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “See how Ahab has humbled himself before me. Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son, I will bring the calamity of his house.”

Let’s pray.

Father, help us to understand these words and their significance for our praise of you and your works in history. Their significance also for our reformation as we try to turn from our sins to righteousness. We ask that your spirit might do his work. Then open our ears and hearts that we may open our hands the rest of this week to do your will. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

You can be seated. I’m listening to James Montgomery Boyce this morning. I do that every morning as I’m getting prepared to come to church on Sunday mornings. He’s been going through the Psalms, about ready to start Acts by the way in case you want to start listening to that next Sunday morning or he must be on other times as well. I’m not sure.

Anyway, he was talking about Francis Havergal, a hymn written by him. He referred to him as a he, and Francis Havergal I believe is a woman. I only say that because I only know that because on the internet site, the cyber hymnal, I think one of the songs that Connie recommended we sing is written by Francis Havergal. Might be “Who Is on the Lord’s Side.” And there’s a picture of her on the website. In one of the commentaries I was reading, not the commentary, one of the Bible dictionaries—one of the two Bible dictionaries on Logos—has an error in it about Jehu.

We’ll talk about Jehu some today. And it says that he killed Ahaziah, king of Judah. Or king of Israel rather. But the Ahaziah that Jehu actually killed was the king of Judah, not the king of Israel. I bring those two examples up to tell you we all make mistakes. Even Bible dictionaries on CD and even James Montgomery Boyce. So I’m going to make mistakes too. And so it’s important for you to be diligent to read the scriptures both in preparation for the sermon and then to follow it up afterwards in the week to make sure what I’m telling you is right.

I could be wrong. I’m going to try hard not to be wrong. I want to say something to the children. You know, we’ve made this transition into meeting in the gym, trying to have that long-term vision of saving money that God might plan us in a permanent location. That’s a good thing. And when we did that, I know that a lot of us were trying to entertain our kids or have them be entertained during the sermon—draw, play games, whatever it is. That’s good.

But as our children grow up, they should really attend to this, try hard to listen. I know I’m long and I know I use adult language, but I am trying now, and this is the third time we’ve done this, to have these worksheets for the kids. If you’re older than six or seven, then you really ought to try to begin to listen to portions of the sermon. And any older than that, you should be able to listen for these things that are on the worksheet and fill them in.

It’ll keep you involved. And then your parents, I’m trying—I’m not making any promises, but I am going to try to have this thinking question at the end of each of the worksheets for the kids that you can talk to them about during the week based on the major lesson of the sermon. And it I tend to get off in rabbit trails. I have a great interest in any of the things that I come across in my studies and some of you do too.

So I bring that in and sometimes I can lose focus. So kind of one of the big application points is always in that little think question for the kids. So it’s good for the adults too. So anyway kids, just you know try hard to act like a grown-up and listen attentively if you can and try to figure out what’s being said.

And what we’re going to do—we have a very simple—oh no, it’s not simple, it’s actually kind of long—but what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at Jezebel. Jezebel is referenced in the letter to the church at Thyatira and expects us when we get to that to know all about her, what it says in the Bible about her, and we don’t. So what I’m going to do is spend a week today talking about Jezebel and her times.

And first, we’re going to talk about, as your outline clearly shows with these nice little boxes. The first thing I’m going to talk about is the biblical history of Jezebel. And that’ll take a little time. And then I’m just going to read, maybe stop just a little bit on it, but then we’re going to read the Reader’s Digest version of that biblical history—kind of a little summation of the points that I think are important as we move next—actually not next week, but two weeks from the day—to talk about Thyatira. Next week I’ll be in Seattle. CSCC is ordaining their first deacon, Dale Cley. Praise God! And I’ll be up there to assist in the ordination. So Mr. Wilson will be speaking next week. But anyway, the summation—the reader’s digest version—will be the second thing we’re going to talk about.

And then after that we’re going to draw some correlations. Really, at the title at the top is “Jezebel and the Advancement of Evil.” And we’re going to draw some correlations between Jezebel and Baal—or Baalism rather—in the way we talked about in terms of the third letter in Revelation that warned about the dangers of Baalism. So we’re going to look at what we said about Baalism a couple weeks ago and kind of see some correlations to the time of Jezebel.

We’ll see Jezebel as a ratcheting up of evil, and we’ll see that as we get to that part of the outline. That’s the third part. The fourth part will be some other brief lessons in terms of major topics of our day. And then finally, a brief conclusion. And I’ll try to tell you at which point of the outline when we shift gears from point to point.

So we start now with the biblical history as recorded in the scriptures of Jezebel and what I’ve got for you under that first point is that the context first of all is political and economic maneuvers in Israel, the northern kingdom. And you know what that means: David and Solomon’s kingdom was united—one nation. And then with Solomon’s sin, God broke off two nations out of the one, divided them up. From that point on in the kings, when it says Israel, it means the tribes up north.

When it says Judah, it means a couple of tribes down in the south. Okay? And so you have two sets of kings. And it gets confusing. Like I said, Ahaziah—there was an Ahaziah who was king of Judah right about the same time as there was an Ahaziah, king of Israel. So it’s the northern and southern kingdom.

Well, Jezebel’s story takes place in the northern kingdom. Now, we’ll see it spreads to the southern kingdom, to Judah as well, but it starts in the northern kingdom. And what’s going on is the context for Jezebel’s story is the Omri dynasty. And I’ve got listed for you there: David, you know, king. I don’t have Saul really because David’s the great king. And Solomon, and after Solomon, Jeroboam received the kingdom to the north.

Remember Solomon’s stupid son, Rehoboam? Not a good guy. He didn’t listen to the counsel of the old guys. Turned to the young guys and broke the kingdom in two. But he had it all set up though. He had Jeroboam ready to take over in the north. But then Jeroboam sins, and this is a big thing, you know. As you read the history of Israel, the northern kingdom, they’re always saying those kings did what Jeroboam did. Jeroboam’s sin—he mixed the religion of Israel with the golden calf image. Remember that? Aaron brought up out of the gold—out of Egypt. He wanted to make snazzy worship services up in the north.

He was afraid. He knew the law of God said, “You have to go to Jerusalem.” At that time, there was one central sanctuary. And Jeroboam didn’t want his people going down there and getting sucked away from his political power. So he set up three or four—or two or three—fancy worship centers. And he kind of jazzed up the worship of Yahweh with the golden calf image. And that’s terrible.

So anyway, Jeroboam was the first what they call dynasty in the northern kingdom. He was the first king that had a dynasty. But the dynasty means that you don’t just rule, your son or sons rule too. So Jeroboam and Nadab ruled up in the north. And then after that, God took them out and he brought in a guy named Baasha and his son Elah. That’s the second dynasty then in the northern kingdom.

Then along comes the story of Zimri. Now not the Zimri in Balaam’s story. It’s a different Zimri. This is the Zimri—when I talked about assisted suicide. Remember Measure 51? This is the Zimri who became a king just for a week. He throws off Elah and becomes king. But then Omri comes along and says, “Hey, this guy, you know, he’s not a very strong king.” And people like Omri. So Omri goes to kill Zimri. And after just one week, Zimri burns the house down—the king’s house—down that he was staying in around him and kills himself. Suicide. So that’s the end of Zimri.

He wasn’t a dynasty, just the one guy. But then Omri takes over and Ahab, who is Jezebel’s husband, is Omri’s son. And part of the Omri dynasty. And you’ll see it’s got Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, and Joram. Ahab had two sons, Ahaziah and Joram. And they both became kings. So the Omri line had four different guys in it. And then the next line is Jehu.

Okay? So really, it’s kind of like you think of the main guys is you got Jeroboam and then you got Baasha, then you got Zimri, then you got Omri and his descendants. Now Omri was not a good guy. He did real bad, evil, the scriptures say, but he was competent. He was a competent evil man. They were kind of divided up there in the north and he wanted to bring all the groups together and also to have peace with the southern kingdom with Judah. And he did it. And not only that, but he also built an alliance with a country called Phoenicia. P-H-O-E-N-I-C-I-A. That’s the country that Jezebel comes from.

Now Jezebel comes from Tyre—you know, you’ve heard of Tyre and Sidon. Well, Tyre and Sidon were two of the major cities in Phoenicia. And this is not Israel. This is a foreign country. Okay. And so Omri—Jezebel lived in the city originally of Tyre in the country of Phoenicia. So she’s a Phoenician princess, comes from Tyre. And Omri wants to build an alliance with Phoenicia—Tyre and Sidon. So he arranges for the marriage of his son Ahab to Jezebel.

You know, it’s a marriage to bring a lot of balance of power so Omry can bring kind of peace to the land—not God’s peace, but just not a lot of war going on because you got another country out there—Syria and Damascus—and if they’re not strong in the northern tribes, they could get hurt.

Well, anyway, the point is that Omri built, first of all, economic ties with Phoenicia and actually sort of revived it. And then he built an alliance, political alliance, by having this marriage take place. And that’s how Jezebel comes into Israel and comes into God’s church in the context of the land, the northern kingdom, because Omri is doing these economic maneuvers and political maneuvers to try to bring these things together.

Now Omri founds—he buys a plot of land and it becomes Samaria, and Samaria becomes the capital of the northern kingdom. This is Old Testament history and this is in the context of Ahab and Jezebel.

Okay. Omri, his son, then Ahab is recorded for us as then marrying the Tyrian princess—that means from Tyre—and Baal worshipper, Jezebel. Turn now to First Kings. I got it wrong on the outline. It’s First Kings 16:31. And turn to that if you will. We’ll look at a few verses as we go through this history.

First Kings 16:

“It came to pass, as it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbel, king of the Sidonians—that’s Sidon—and went and served Baal and worshiped him and he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove. And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that went before him.

He’s the worst.

Now look at verse 34, the next verse. Little verse inserted here into the story with seemingly no reason to have it inserted, but it’s very significant.

“In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho. He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, the son of Nun.”

What’s going on? Well, remember when they went and conquered Jericho, the whole city was devoted to destruction. And God told Joshua to tell the people, don’t ever rebuild that city. And if you rebuild Jericho, you’re going to do it at the cost of your children. Your kids are going to die in the rebuilding of that—through accidents, sword, whatever it is.

So here, in the context of this wicked Ahab marrying this princess from Tyre, a foreign country, bringing her Baal worship and establishing Baal worship in Samaria, now the center of the northern kingdom, and setting up groves—in the context of that, we’re told that Jericho is rebuilt. That’s significant, you see, for a very clear mental image of what’s going on in the northern tribe. They’re becoming Canaan again.

Canaan is what had Jericho. When Jericho is wiped out, it becomes Israel. But now it’s becoming Canaan again—Baal worship. And so Jericho is rebuilt as a symbol that God gives us, wants us to have in our minds, of what’s going on here.

So Omri’s son, Ahab, rather—Omri’s son Ahab—marries Jezebel, and she is a real worshipper. She’s a devout. She’s a missionary. She wants to spread Baalism into Israel and get rid of the worship of God. Okay.

Next on the outline: Ahab, Jezebel, and Elijah. In chapter 17:1, we see the entrance onto the scene, in terms of biblical history, of Elijah.

“Elijah the Tishbite, who is one of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, ‘As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.’”

So right away, the opponent that God raises up against Ahab and Jezebel is Elijah. So he confronts Ahab with drought.

And he also then—we’re not going to read this—but he brings salvation. The next thing Elijah does is he goes to Zarephath at God’s command to minister to a widow there, to bring her salvation, to help her and her son to live. Well, Zarephath is between Tyre and Sidon. Well, he goes right to Jezebel’s land. Jezebel has invaded the land as a foreign conqueror, Baal worshipper, and God sends Elijah into her land to bring salvation to a widow.

And you remember later on in the gospels it says, “Hey, the only widow Elijah went to—you can go to any widow in Israel. He went to the one in Zarephath, in Phoenicia, in Tyre and Sidon.” You see, he brings salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth. It’s a picture of what Christ will do. And plus, it’s a picture of God’s warfare with these Baal worshippers.

Jezebel then wages war against Yahweh and his prophets. And if you look at chapter 18 now—turn ahead one chapter—chapter 18, we read in verse 4:

“For it was so when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifty in a cave and fed them with bread and water.”

You remember that story of Obadiah? Some of you will. Well, the point of that verse is she’s cutting off, killing the prophets of God. And so Obadiah has to protect them. You see, she’s not content to bring a merger of Baalism and Yahweh worship. She wants to kill all the prophets of Yahweh.

And the scriptures go on to tell us that she’s got at least 850 prophets of Baal going at it big time in the northern kingdom of Israel. This bad times, these real bad times. Some people say this is the great tribulation—what’s going on in the northern kingdom is the picture of the great tribulation of the Old Testament.

So Jezebel wages warfare, but Elijah then wages warfare against Jezebel. She comes to Israel. Elijah goes up there and saves the widow at Zarephath. She kills off the Lord’s prophets. And then Elijah goes to Ahab, summons him together and says, “Let’s have this little thing with you and all your Baal prophets up there on Mount Carmel, and we’ll go at it and see who’s the God of heaven.”

And you know the story of that one. I’m sure most of you should. The God of heaven demonstrates his great superiority over the Baal god, who is nothing, of course. And then Elijah has them killed—all the prophets of Baal that were gathered. So we assume from the text that he killed 850 prophets of Baal. And that’s in First Kings 18:19.

So we’ve got this Jezebel and we’re reading First Kings and Second Kings to find out what she did. And then we’ve got Jezebel coming out of Phoenicia. She comes from the city of Tyre. And she brings along the worship of Baal and she marries Ahab and then what she does is she brings Baal worship to Israel. She murders all of God’s prophets. And then we’ll see fairly quickly now that she also steals land from a guy named Naboth and kills his children. So real wicked stuff going on here.

Ahab tells Jezebel in chapter 19, verse one, that Elijah has killed off these prophets. He goes—she wasn’t there apparently. So he tells her and she then of course doesn’t like that and she goes in verse two and tells Elijah, “You got 24 hours and you’re going to be dead just like the prophets of Baal you killed. You’re going to be dead in 24 hours.”

And that’s when Elijah takes off running. Now I don’t know if he’s scared or not scared. I don’t know why he runs. Could be fear, but you got to try to stick close to the text. And what he does is he runs off, runs a great distance, and then in great fatigue and tiredness—this is where we talked a couple weeks ago about Elijah wanting to die. And he tells God, you know, this is terrible. You know, you’d think he’d be all boyed up, but no, he’s tired and depressed as a result of Ahab—or Jezebel—telling this and him taking off and running. That’s in verses one and two of chapter 19.

Now, what God does with Elijah is to feed him and strengthen him and cause him to rest, but he also gives him commission. And this is very important. So turn to First Kings 19 to verse 16. And this is God telling Elijah what he’s going to have him do.

“And Jehu, the son of Nimshi, shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay, and him that escape from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal and every mouth which has not kissed him.”

So Elijah is told to anoint Jehu as king and Elisha as the prophet to follow him. He has this commission. So in this battle that’s going on between Elijah and Jezebel, between God and the Baals as it were, a significant point comes when he’s told to anoint a different king.

And that will take a long time. Elisha will actually be the one to anoint Jehu. And he won’t even do it. He’ll send some prophets to do it as we’ll see in a couple of minutes.

And then we should also read here chapter 20, verse 42. We’re going to go to First Kings 21 in just a minute, but turn to chapter 20, verse 42. We’re moving through this story. Okay.

And what happens in chapter 20 here is there’s warfare between Israel—represented by Ahab as king of Israel—and Syrians, and Israel wins. But Ahab doesn’t kill the king, the head guy in Syria, like he’s supposed to have done. And so verse 42, God says unto him:

“Thus sayeth the Lord, because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall be for his life and thy people for his people.”

So here’s another statement against Ahab. He’s already—this is like the second strike. The first strike was that stuff where he brought in the Baal worship and he was doing terrible, and so God tells Elijah to anoint Jehu as king. He’s going to replace him.

The second reason why God comes to judge Ahab is that he doesn’t follow God’s directions to kill off the captain of Syria. Now why? Why didn’t he? Because if you’re a king, a pagan king, you don’t want to kill other pagan kings. You’re part of the same club. You know, it’s the little guys that you end up killing. And you end up befriending the king. Saul did the same thing. Remember that? That was Saul.

And Samuel came to him and said, “Why don’t you kill these guys? What’s this bleating of sheep and stuff? Why is this king here?” And he hacked him to pieces. Well, see, when you’re a pagan king, you think it’s a kingly prerogative to show grace to someone that God says you shouldn’t show grace to.

Okay, that’s very important. That sets us up for chapter 21. And that’s the story of Naboth’s Vineyard. And you’re probably pretty familiar with this story of Naboth’s Vineyard. You know, what’s going on here is that there’s this area, this town called Jezreel, and Ahab has one—he has a house there. Now the capital is up in Samaria, but Ahab has a house, a residence, in Jezreel. And right next to the king’s house in Jezreel, there’s a vineyard owned by a guy named Naboth, who’s a good Israelite, God-fearer, Yahweh worshipper. He’s a solid guy.

Now we know that because Ahab says, “I want to buy your land so that I can have a vegetable garden.” And Naboth says, “I can’t do it. It’s not a question whether I want to or not. I can’t because the law of God tells me that land is supposed to be held in perpetuity in a particular family.” You see, so Ahab was apparently wanting to buy this land forever in the promised land, in Canaan, in Israel.

The law said that everybody—the land was apportioned by tribes and by families and you can rent it out for thirty-five years, but in the year of Jubilee, you had to go back to the original owner. And Naboth knew his Bible. Naboth knew the law of God. Naboth wanted to glorify God by obeying his law. So he tells Ahab, I can’t sell you the land. You know, I got to be here.

And of course, Ahab doesn’t like that answer. And he goes off in a sulk because he goes to bed. He’s depressed. He won’t eat food. And then along comes his wife, Jezebel. And here’s where Jezebel comes back big into the picture. She comes along and says, “What? There’s a good way to take care of this problem.”

First of all, she says, “You’re goofy. You’re king.” And like pagan kings don’t have—can extend grace to whoever they want to and not kill the other pagan kings—pagan kings don’t like to let a little thing like some ancient law from somebody get in their way. If you want the garden, it’s yours. She’s an early proponent of what’s become known in America as the doctrine of eminent domain. For the good of the people, which means for the good of the king, he can take anything he wants. He has perpetual claim to ownership. And many pagan systems of government, that is what goes on. It’s state worship. That’s what these things devolve into.

Well, that’s what she says to him. You can take that land. I’ll fix it. So she goes off and hires some false witnesses to come against Naboth and to kill him, to tell lies about him and to kill him.

Now let’s look at verses 11, 19, and 25 in chapter 21. First Kings 21, let’s start with verse 11:

“The men of the city, even the elders and the nobles who are the inhabitants in his city did as Jezebel had said unto them, had sent unto them. And as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them.”

Now understand this. The men of the city, even the elders and the princes or nobles, all obeyed Jezebel without blinking an eye in arranging for the murder of Naboth and the stealing of his hereditary land. You see, this is how bad it was. We think, yeah, there’s seven thousand above the knee, a lot of good people out there still. No, seven thousand was a real small number amongst the nation of the—the northern kingdom. Times were really bad. And here all the rulers, the princes, the elders, and the people all said, “Yeah, we’ll kill that guy. We’ll set it up, Jezebel. That’s great. That’s fine with us.”

But in response, God of course brings his judgment to bear. And in verse 19, they go ahead and kill Naboth. By the way, we learn later on from Jehu that they killed Naboth’s sons too. They didn’t just kill Naboth. She stole Naboth’s vineyard, and she killed Naboth and all his children as well. We learn that later in Second Kings.

But in any event, then God sends Elijah to Ahab, who now has gone over to the garden that now is his property, and he doesn’t even start to begin to appreciate it. And along comes his prophet—of God. Prophet of God comes up and in verse 19 says:

“Thus sayeth the Lord, hast thou killed and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him saying, Thus sayeth the Lord, of the place where the dogs lick the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.”

When Naboth was killed, it says dogs licked his blood in Jezreel in this area in which his garden was found and which Ahab is going to take over for his vegetable garden. And the curse from God upon Ahab is that your children, the dogs will lick your blood and your children will die in the same way.

“Even thine—your blood. Ahab is going to be licked up by these dogs. And this is what we read at the beginning of the sermon. This is when Ahab says, ‘Oh, you found me, huh?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, you bet I have, and you’ve done wrong, and I’m bringing God’s punishment to you.’”

Then in verse 23:

“And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city, the dogs shall eat, and him that dieth in the field, shall the fowls thereof eat.’”

So all of Ahab’s kids are going to get killed and are going to be eaten by either dogs or birds. Both are a sign of God’s curse. And Jezebel, her blood’s just not going to be licked up. She’s going to be eaten by dogs. She’s going to become—yes, dog meat is what Jezebel is going to become. That’s her eschatology.

And then verse 25:

“There was none like unto him who did wickedness in the sight of the Lord whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.”

Okay. Now Ahab repents. We read about that at the opening. He repents to a certain degree. And God puts off this judgment for a while. But the judgment shall surely come. It shall surely come.

Okay. So Naboth’s Vineyard—Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel—all described in that particular chapter.

Next, in First Kings 22, we read of the death of Ahab. We won’t turn and look at that now, but as the story goes on, Ahab is told by a prophet of God that he’s going to die out there in battle. He disguises himself up. And this is the story where it says an archer shot an arrow per chance—at chance, just shot it up in the air. And the arrow comes down, by the sovereignty of God, and hits him right between his armor and pierces him. Doesn’t kill immediately. He drives his chariot back away from there, back to Jezreel, and the dogs lick his blood as he dies there, as his blood is oozing out of him.

Horrible ending for Ahab. And Ahab now is dead. But Jezebel isn’t. She’s going to live another eight or ten years and going to reign as the queen mother, so to speak, of the northern kingdom. Her two sons are going to reign, but she’s really the power behind the throne. That’s the idea.

Okay. So next, in this historical overview: Jezebel, her son Ahaziah, and Elijah. First Kings 22:51 to Second Kings 1:17 tells the story of Elijah and Ahaziah, the first and oldest son of Ahab to take over his place, and this was Jezebel’s son as well. And we won’t turn there, but in what we find there is that Ahaziah he goes out and is doing some stuff and doing some battling, and he actually falls through a lattice.

And the text says in Second Kings chapter 1 that he becomes sick and he’s laying on a sick bed—which we’ll bring up when we get to Revelation, that letter. Remember, “I’m going to cast those who follow her on a bed of affliction.” Well, Ahaziah, her son, is on a bed of affliction. And he sends out some guys to find a prophet of Baal to ask what’s going to happen. Is he going to die or not?

He sends out one captain with fifty guys, and they come upon Elijah. This is where Elijah’s on the hill throwing fire down, consuming God’s enemies. Captain and fifty guys walk up—the captain, the captain—well, actually he sends message back first of all that he’s going to die. But in any event, this—I guess that’s important to know—first Elijah has already sent a message to the king that he’s going to die, to Ahaziah. And so Ahaziah now wants to send these captains out to get Elijah and control him or kill him or something.

So anyway, Elijah then sends fire from heaven upon this captain and fifty guys. He says, “If I be a prophet of God, may God kill you all with fire right now.” And he calls fire down from heaven and fifty men and their captain—going to burn up. Gone. Toast.

Ahaziah doesn’t learn. He sends out another guy with another fifty men. Elijah says the same thing. Throws down fire from heaven. God sends it down and burns them up.

Third captain comes out with fifty guys, and he says—well, let’s read what he said. Second Kings chapter 1, verse 13:

“Sent again a captain of the third fifty, the third fifty, and his fifty. And he—the captain, the third captain of fifty, notice the repetition of the word third. The third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and besought him and said unto him, ‘Oh man of God, I pray thee, let my life and the life of these fifty thy servants be precious in thy sight. Behold, there came down fire from heaven,’ he says, ‘and you and burned up two captains of the former fifties with their fifties. Therefore, let my life now be precious in thy sight.’”

And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, “Go down with him. Be not afraid of him.” And he arose and went down with him unto the king.

Now, I only bring this up—it’s really one of those tangents I like to get off into, and if it confuses you, just forget it. But I bring it up because remember, we’ve said in the book of Revelation, you got the seven letters, you got the seven seals. Then you got the seven trumpets. And the seven trumpets are fire judgments. And if you read that section beginning in about chapter 8, you’ll see those trumpets bring down fire upon thirds.

A third of the grass is burned up. A third of the earth is destroyed. A third of this and a third of that. And Elijah fire judgments. And this is where Elijah brings down fire from heaven like he’s pictured as doing in Revelation—the greater Elijah. And this fire comes down and destroys two-thirds of these captains and their men. But the third captain calls this a man of God. It seems to me that he believes this is a man of God and he’s been brought to conversion. The third of the people brought to conversion.

So anyway, this is where that happens.

The point is that Elijah then still comes down and he tells Ahaziah to his face, same thing he told him by messenger: you’re dying. You’re toast. The curse is on your head and you’re not going to recover. And he dies.

Okay. Then along comes Jehu and Elisha. Remember, these were the guys that Elijah was going to anoint. And Elijah exits the scene now. And in Second Kings chapter 9 is the story of Jehu and Elisha. Elisha has some of his prophets anoint Jehu in Second Kings 9. And then Jehu swings into action.

And what’s he supposed to do? He’s supposed to go kill Ahab’s son, Joram, who now is ruling because Ahaziah is dead. And he does it. He goes out there and Joram is there with Ahaziah, king of Judah. You got the king of the northern kingdom and the king of the southern kingdom together on the road, and they meet Jehu. And Jehu kills the king of the northern kingdom, which he is supposed to do.

Then he kills the king of the southern kingdom. Now, he wasn’t necessarily supposed to do that. The Bible didn’t tell us that he was supposed to do that, but he did it.

And then he rides on to Jezebel’s house. Jezebel is sitting in a window, and you probably know the story. She dolls herself up with makeup and puts her hair up nice. I do not believe that she was trying to entice him into a physical relationship. That imagery is putting on regal attire or makeup. She’s letting herself be dressed up like a queen. She’s reminding Jehu, I’m royalty here in this land of Israel in the northern kingdom.

And then she tells to him as he drives up—she looks down from the window and says, “Oh, is this Zimri? And is peace going to be upon Zimri?” What’s she talking about? Well, remember Zimri, the bad king who struck out against God’s anointed as it were, the previous king to him, and killed him and took over the throne.

Jezebel is a tough opponent even in death. And she doesn’t just lay down and take it. She doesn’t run away. She flaunts it. And she tries to intimidate Jehu with her being the queen of the northern kingdom and telling him, “You’re Zimri, man. You kill me, things aren’t going to go well for you.” Very interesting what she does there.

And you know then that he says doesn’t bother him. He yells up, “Are there any eunuchs up there? Who’s up there?” “Well, you got some eunuchs, some followers of Jezebel, up there in the room with her. Throw her out.” So they throw her down on the floor, on the ground.

Now this is the same ground that it seems that Naboth’s vineyard was in Jezreel, right next to the king’s palace. So she gets thrown down onto Naboth’s old ground. And her body—whack, splat—blood on the wall, blood on the horse. Blood everywhere.

Jehu then rides over her with his chariot and then he goes and has a meal, goes and has dinner, worked up a good appetite, and he says, “You know, we ought to bury her. You know, she was a queen. We should bury her. Shouldn’t leave her out like that.” He apparently forgot that God had already told him that the dogs were going to eat her up. And indeed, the dogs, by the time they got back to her, they did eat her up.

The only thing that’s left of Jezebel is two hands, two feet, and her skull. I won’t go into that—another rabbit trail which I’m not going to go down—but it’s an interesting fact.

In any event, this prophecy then is true: that this woman who brought Baal worship to full maturation of the northern kingdom—it pretty well wasn’t that big a deal in the years leading up to that. She brings it in. She kills off the prophets of God. She conspires to steal Naboth’s vineyard and kill Naboth and his children. And she now, as the judgment come upon her, she is laying there in Naboth’s vineyard and she is actually eaten up by the dogs.

Okay. Now, Reader’s Digest version—a lot of details I’ve just thrown at you. Here’s where it all kind of comes together.

Jezebel is a Baal devote and missionary. She’s not into this in a just quasi way. She is into it. She wants to promote Baalism. She achieves foreign domination of Israel through her marriage to wicked Ahab. She is responsible for his sins. Omri’s attempted balance of economic and political power absolutely fails because no one is neutral. Balance of power works for a little bit of time until somebody can gain the advantage. And here, attempted balance of power with the Phoenicians, but that’s a different god, different worldview.

And they come in and become self-conscious about their worldview through Jezebel. And they try to kill off all the prophets of God. She—that is Jezebel—promulgates Baal worship in Israel, which her daughter, wicked Athaliah, spreads into Judah. Hadn’t mentioned her—mentioned her two sons who are both kings in the northern kingdom. She had a daughter who married the king in the southern kingdom in Judah. And the scriptures tell us that Athaliah brought Baal worship into Judah.

So Baal worship comes into all of Israel through the conduit of Jezebel because Omri is trying to make this balance of power—neutrality stuff—work. You see? And then her wicked daughter Athaliah brings that Baal worship into the southern kingdom into Judah.

Her evil religion, Baal worship, yields an evil political theology. She kills the prophets of God and replaces them with the prophets of Baal. That’s what she’s doing, right? She got 850 to replace all them.

When she’s killed off the God’s prophets, she attacks the garden planting of the Lord—Naboth and his sons. Naboth means “sprout.” His land is a vineyard. It’s wanted as a vegetable garden by Ahab. The imagery is all over the place. He’s the planting of the Lord. Remember what Balaam’s prophecy was? We’re to be the planting of the Lord. We’re the garden of God. We’re his beloved wife, who was always represented as a garden—in the Song of Solomon, for instance.

So that’s who Naboth is. And that’s why I say here: she replaces her—she replaces Naboth and his children with grove goddesses. Remember, I said that Naboth and his children—if they represent the church of God, represent the garden of God—represent the—the bridegroom is the point here. Okay?

And her—she has this offer. She kills off the garden of God and replaces it with grove goddesses. Now, I don’t know if she did it right there in Jezreel on Naboth’s land or not, but it’s significant to point out that she had grove goddesses as well. False gardens.

But in the long haul, the chickens come home to roost. Ahab’s blood is licked by dogs. Jezebel becomes dog meat. Her children are cast into a bed of affliction and die horribly. She represents foreign domination of Israel by turning Israel into Jericho. Jericho is rebuilt in the context—that’s what’s going on. Israel is turned into Canaan again, and you got a few people left. We’re going to have to reconquer the land through the preaching of God’s word.

She is a dangerous opponent even in her death. This is what the readers of the letters to the church at Thyatira would have brought into the reference to Jezebel.

Okay, let’s talk a little bit about some correlations. Letter three in Revelation talked about Balaam. Letter four warns of Jezebel. There’s a progression going on which we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks. But notice the clear and obvious progressions.