First Lady Jezebel

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Marriage and what the Bible has to say about it have been hot topics in the news lately. The Bible is full of marriages, certainly, but one should exercise caution in reading it as a source of guidance for modern partnerships, or as a source of wisdom about relations between spouses in the post-wedding “happily-ever-after.” If we compare two biblical couples in particular—Yahweh and Israel on the one hand, and Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 16–22; 2 Kings 9) on the other—we will find that just one of these is a good model for a happy, healthy, modern marriage. And it’s not the one you think.

According to biblical legislation, marriage was an economic transaction, a covenant (contract) between two houses with the bride as the link.¹ Israelites exalted this transaction by weaving it into the very fabric of creation in Genesis 2:24. And because it was such an important relationship, the Israelites made marriage a metaphor for their own relationship to God. The prophet Hosea (Hosea 1–2) was the first to compare God’s covenant with Israel to a marriage, and the comparison mostly bodes ill for the “wife.”^a In Hosea 1–2, Jeremiah 3 and, most notoriously, Ezekiel 16 and 23, the husband-Yahweh accuses wife-Israel with gross and flagrant sexual infidelity. And I do mean gross!—look at Ezekiel 23:19–20: “Yet she [Judah] increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions.”

God’s jealousy has less to do with connubial heartbreak than with a key aspect of the marriage transaction in Israelite society. Ancient Israel was what anthropologists call an “honor-shame” society, in which the husband’s honor depended on the public perception of his total control (that is, “ownership”) of an important piece of property: his wife’s sexuality. (This is why extramarital sex was out for wives but okay for husbands as long as they stayed away from married women.)

The ultimate authority, God, is the husband, according to the marriage metaphor. And when Israel strays—that is, pursues other gods like a wife pursuing extramarital affairs—God must embark upon a terrifying retribution to regain his lost honor. In Ezekiel 16:37–40, God strips the wife naked and hands her over to abuse (the language is full of sexual innuendo) at the hands of her lovers. In Ezekiel 23, God empowers enemy warriors to cut off Oholibah’s (that is, Judah’s) nose and ears, kill her sons and daughters, and tear off her clothes; “righteous judges” (Ezekiel 23:45) condemn her to death by stoning—the punishment for adultery prescribed in Leviticus 20:10.

From an ancient Israelite perspective, God’s reaction to Israel’s covenant infidelity may have seemed justified. But from a modern, Western viewpoint, God’s behavior looks disturbingly like that of an abusive husband (as numerous recent studies have noted)²—or like the perpetrator of one of the so-called “honor killings” that have recently made news in Spain, Jordan, India and Pakistan. It reflects a worldview in which the man has absolute power, unremarkable or nonexistent sexuality, and the right to speak and accuse, while the woman is characterized by dangerous uncontrollable lust and utter silence. Surely this is not our modern idea of marriage, nor a healthy notion of men and women.

A far better model is the marriage of Jezebel and Ahab. It’s not as perverse as it might initially sound: First realize that, in the Bible, both are victims of an anti-northern kingdom smear campaign at the hands of the southern Deuteronomist editor of 1 and 2 Kings.³ Jehu’s snide comment about Jezebel’s “whoredoms and sorceries” (2 Kings 9:22) served the propaganda needs of his coup d’état against her son, King Joram. When Jezebel “painted her eyes and adorned her head” (2 Kings 9:30), she was a fifty-something Queen Mother making a last ditch effort to intimidate a usurping murderer with the official trappings of her power. As a wife and mother, Jezebel actually comported herself with sober 046propriety. Her reputation as lascivious—as perpetuated in Revelation 2:20–23 (and on the book jacket) is wholly undeserved.

Instead, think of Jezebel along the lines of an American first lady—say Eleanor Roosevelt or Nancy Reagan. Even before their marriages, all three women shared something in common with their husbands: Eleanor Roosevelt came from the same New York political family as her husband; Nancy Davis was a Hollywood actress; Princess Jezebel of Tyre,⁴ like Prince Ahab of Israel, grew up in a palace. The reference to the prophets who ate “at Jezebel’s table” in 1 Kings 18:19 shows Jezebel, like Mrs. Roosevelt, supervising a personal household staff—not to undermine but to further her husband’s work. (Court prophets worked for the royal family.) When her husband was disheartened about Naboth’s vineyard (in 1 Kings 21:4–7), Jezebel was solicitous, encouraging and practical, just like Mrs. Roosevelt with her polio-stricken husband.

Moreover, this biblical first lady was trusted by her husband—she was a partner in power, neither a subordinate nor a scheming manipulator. Jezebel’s use of Ahab’s royal seal in 1 Kings 21:8 displays her husband’s confidence in her and willingness to let his wife promote an unpopular political policy, just as we know Roosevelt did with the controversial issue of civil rights. Unlike Adam in the Garden, Ahab doesn’t “pass the buck” and blame his wife when Elijah lights into him at the vineyard. Ahab also tolerated his wife’s religious beliefs (supporting Baal and Asherah); did President Reagan make a fuss about Mrs. Reagan’s astrologers? And like Mrs. Reagan, Jezebel was absolutely loyal to her husband and her husband’s legacy. Rather than fleeing, Jezebel went to her death to defy the usurper of her family’s throne. We come away from the contemplation of this couple with the impression of mutual support, respect and loyalty.

In the end, that Jezebel and Ahab have better marriage skills than Israel and Yahweh should sensitize us to the Bible’s ambiguity on the subject of marriage. It is worth considering this ambiguity, before we turn the Bible into a modern marriage manual.

Marriage and what the Bible has to say about it have been hot topics in the news lately. The Bible is full of marriages, certainly, but one should exercise caution in reading it as a source of guidance for modern partnerships, or as a source of wisdom about relations between spouses in the post-wedding “happily-ever-after.” If we compare two biblical couples in particular—Yahweh and Israel on the one hand, and Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 16–22; 2 Kings 9) on the other—we will find that just one of these is a good model for a happy, healthy, modern marriage. […]