Jehu, Son of Nimshi, is the chief general of Israel, serving King Yehoram, busy planning the next battle with the Aramean front when a young man sent by Elisha the prophet asks him to join him in a private room to hear an urgent message from the prophet. Once inside the room, the young prophetic messenger pulls out a jar of olive oil, pours some on the general’s head, and proclaims that Elisha, by YHWH’s command, anoints him as the new King of Israel, effective immediately. Jehu’s first task is to kill every last living being related to the current king, the queen mother and the entire House of Omri, so detested by YHWH for their worship of Ba’al and other local gods.
Within a few verses the carnage commences: Jehu kills both Yehoram the King of Israel as well as Ahazia, the King of Judah, who was visiting his wounded uncle. The location is important. Jehu meets the unsuspecting kings in the royal garden that once was known as Navot’s vineyard - ‘repurposed’ by Ahab and Jezebel years earlier, incurring further wrath. The last word that King Yehoram will ever hear are Jehu’s curses of his mother, Queen Jezebel. As the king rides towards his general, still not suspecting anything wrong, he asks Jehu - is all well? The general replies - ‘can anything be well as long as your mother keeps on with her prostitution and witchcraft?’ And that’s all the king needs to hear in order to understand that he’s under attack - but it’s too late. An arrow pierces his back as he flees. The king of Judah is also killed while fleeing.
Jehu’s next stop is the palace, where Jezebel, probably quite old by now and yet quite regal, is looking out the window of the tower, when she sees the general approach:
She only manages to ask the general - are you that murderer - before he orders a few servants to throw her from the window to the ground. All made up, the queen’s body crashes to the ground before Jehu makes sure his horse tramples her corpse that is then fed to the dogs. Just as Elijah has once predicted. When he orders that she be buried, because after all she is of royal blood all they find of her is her skull and feet, and hands:
Why the horrid details of the queen’s death? Why the focus on her make-up as the last gesture? Why the humiliating burial?
Over the centuries, many have added their speculation. In recent years, feminist scholars focus on the various ways in which this text betrays its authors multiple agendas - including anti-women and anti-other perspectives.
We need to remember that we are reading the story from the perspective of the Judean writers who consider Jezebel, her faith and family to be the enemy of our people. Hence her horrible death as the fulfillment of the prophecy.
“The story of her death reveals a woman of courage. Facing the murderer of her husband’s family, the queen makes herself up to look her best and calls Jehu a murderer, comparing him to a long-ago royal assassin who ruled only a week before being assassinated himself. She speaks with dignity, defiance, and grace.”
In Womanist Midrash, Rev. Wilda C. Gafney explores Queen Jezebel’s death scene with a different approach, offering startling detail and a deep sense of empathy and respect, recognizing what the text wanted us to read - and what we can still make of it:
“Jezebel’s death narrative is without peer in the Scriptures. It is an epic event told in four acts that take up thirty verses. In the first act God pronounces a death sentence on Ahab and Jezebel to Elijah (1 Kgs. 21:14–24). In the second act Ahab’s death and aftermath fulfill God’s prediction, foreshadowing Jezebel’s looming fate (1 Kgs. 22:34–40). In the third act an anonymous young prophet reissues the judgment on Jezebel and the (remaining) house of Ahab (2 Kgs. 9:4–10). The fourth act is the narration of Jezebel’s death in 2 Kings 9:30–37. The accounts exemplify a prophecy-and-fulfillment rubric. Jezebel is an object lesson, along with Ahab to a lesser degree. Jezebel’s violent death and the disposition of her corpse—a horrendous desecration by a profane animal—are a warning. Her fate is a warning to women who would usurp power and to men who marry foreign women. To make its point, the overarching narrative emphasizes that the violently spilled blood of Ahab will not be covered by the earth but instead will be licked up by dogs.
Lastly, the account of Jezebel’s death includes the infamous scene in which she prepares for her death by putting on her makeup and doing her hair. Why does Jezebel adorn herself for her death? Is this the ultimate use of feminine wiles to seduce her killer into changing his mind? No, the emphasis on Jezebel’s appearance, even womanliness, is not about sex. Her executioners are eunuchs, men on whom seduction skills would be of no avail. Instead, it is about her sense of self.
Jezebel is a woman and a foreigner, doubly marginalized and doubly despised. As a woman, culturally constructed through the artifice of beauty, she will go to her death. She is a queen until the end, determined to go to her death on her own terms. There is another aspect of Jezebel’s death scene that merits comment. She is the mother of a murdered son. Her son will not be lamented in the world of the text. Some will not consider his death murder. Jehu the regicide, the king-slayer, is titularly head of state and understands himself to be acting on behalf of the state—and God. Jezebel and her son and their people are reviled in the text. Their lives don’t matter to the framers of the text.
I listen for Jezebel’s voice in and between the lines of the Scriptures, and I don’t hear a sound. Instead, I hear the words of the gospel hymn “May the Work I’ve Done Speak for Me.”
Jezebel’s final words are her beautifully made-up face and her gorgeously arranged hair. She is the first woman to rule Israel. And she will not be the last.”
Two kings and the queen mother are already killed. But Jehu’s coup is not yet done. The coup continues and the trail of blood is far from done.
One more queen is still sitting on her throne.
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