STORY 66
Jezebel—A Wicked Queen
AFTER King Jer·o·boʹam dies, each king who rules the northern 10-tribe kingdom of Israel is bad. King Aʹhab is the worst king of all. Do you know why? One big reason is his wife, wicked Queen Jezʹe·bel.
Jezʹe·bel is not an Israelite woman. She is the daughter of the king of Siʹdon. She worships the false god Baʹal, and she gets Aʹhab and many Israelites to worship Baʹal too. Jezʹe·bel hates Jehovah and kills many of his prophets. Others have to hide in caves so that they won’t be killed. If Jezʹe·bel wants something, she will even kill a person to get it.
One day King Aʹhab is very sad. So Jezʹe·bel asks him: ‘Why are you sad today?’
‘Because of what Naʹboth said to me,’ Aʹhab answers. ‘I wanted to buy his vineyard. But he told me I couldn’t have it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jezʹe·bel says. ‘I will get it for you.’
So Jezʹe·bel writes letters to some chief men in the city where this man Naʹboth lives. ‘Get some good-for-nothing men to say that Naʹboth has cursed God and the king,’ she tells them. ‘Then take Naʹboth out of the city and stone him to death.’
As soon as Jezʹe·bel learns that Naʹboth is dead, she says to Aʹhab: ‘Now go and take his vineyard.’ Don’t you agree that Jezʹe·bel should be punished for doing such a terrible thing?
So, in time, Jehovah sends the man Jeʹhu to punish her. When Jezʹe·bel hears that Jeʹhu is coming, she paints her eyes and tries to fix herself up to look pretty. But when Jeʹhu comes and sees Jezʹe·bel in the window, he calls to the men in the palace: ‘Throw her down!’ The men obey, as you can see in the picture. They throw her down, and she dies. This is the end of wicked Queen Jezʹe·bel.