"I'll Take Women in the Bible for $200, Alex..."

Answer: She is one of the worst women ever to be mentioned in the Bible. Even to this present day, her name refers to wicked, shameless, and immoral women.

Question: Who is Jezebel?

Just yesterday I was reading 1 Kings 21. This story makes me cringe each time I encounter it. It is the history of a particularly ugly incident in the history of Israel. The king at the time was Ahab, a wicked ruler. He introduced the worship of Baal to God's people, hated the prophets sent by God, and allowed himself to be ruled by a wife who was worse than he was. He was also a complaining husband. Ahab looked out his castle window one morning, and decided he would like to have a garden he saw below. He went to the owner and asked to buy it in order to grow vegetables. The owner, Naboth, politely declined, saying that he was not free to sell the property, since it was a family possession. So what did Ahab do? Instead of finding another gardening alternative, he went home and whined to his wife.

"And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him for he had said, 'I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.' And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food."

Jezebel, upon hearing her poor husband's tale of woe, decided to help him out by securing the field herself.

"And Jezebel his wife said to him, 'Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful: I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."

And so she did. She accomplished this by lies, slander, false testimony, public humiliation, and the murder of an innocent man. Apparently in those days the king was in his legal right to confiscate the property of executed criminals - and with Naboth out of the way, Ahab was then free to plant carrots and tomatoes.

Jezebel had many other nasty qualities, though she thought of herself as a very spiritual woman. She died a miserable death, and it is recorded with gruesome detail, in 2 Kings 9:30-37. Her legacy lives on, but not in any way that you will want to imitate. She is mentioned in the last book of the Bible (Revelation 2) as just the kind the kind of woman that you don't want to be in your local church. In any case, remember her name. She may come up in a Final Jeopardy round that I may sponsor someday on CandyceLand.