Guess what the number one girl's name for babies was in 2009. It was "Isabella." The top boy's name was "Jacob." I would never have guessed either one of those. I got that from the government website that tracks baby names all the way back to the 1880s (www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/). They have all of the boys' names and girls' names (the top 1,000) for each year. Interestingly enough, one very cute name was missing from all of the lists - "Jezebel." Hmmm. . . why don't mamas name their daughters "Jezebel?"
Well. . . let's face it: Some names are just better left alone. Come to think of it, the name "Jezebel" does get frequent mention in our society, but as a description of character rather than someone's formal name. The Oxford Dictionary has the following entry for the name: "a shameless or immoral woman" Hey! What's in a name anyway!
While everyone knows to shy away from naming their daughters "Jezebel," probably very few really know anything about her. Jezebel was the wicked Queen of Israel during the reign of her equally-wicked husband, King Ahab from 874-853 B.C. They were a notorious couple - completely absorbed in themselves. Jezebel, born a phoenician princess, was actually the woman behind the man. . . the throne of Israel. She was ruthless in her pursuit of her sworn enemy, God's prophet Elijah. He seemed to always stand in the way of her diabolical plans.
Jezebel had a large entourage of pagan prophets. Israel had turned its back completely on the one true God at this point in its history. In I Kings 18 we discover that King Ahab has had an all-points bulletin out for Elijah for the last three years. Ahab blamed Elijah for the God-imposed drought. Elijah had only delivered the message.
Elijah and Ahab agree to a showdown between Elijah and Jezebel's 850 prophets. On the big day, Elijah has them build an altar on which animal sacrifices were to be made. He challenges these prophets to call down fire from Heaven to burn up the sacrifice. . . supernaturally.
Elijah taunted, "Hey. . . you Baal worshipers, your gods can make fire. . . can't they?" Well. . . it wasn't for the lack of effort that the pagan priests couldn't manufacture fire. Those pagans dressed and sacrificed a bull; they prayed all morning until noon. . . nothing. Then they danced upon the altar. . . nothing. Elijah begins to mock them, suggesting that their god was busy or perhaps sleeping. That's when those pagan priests go the extra mile and begin to cut themselves "till the blood gushed out upon them." After a morning of noble efforts on behalf of their Baal, still. . . NOTHING! It was a tough day to be a priest of Baal.
After these cut-up and humiliated prophets to Baal miserably fail, Elijah has the altar soaked with water before he prays to bring fire down from Heaven. Whoooooooosh; all burned up! It had a tremendous impact on the spectators; it is reported that, ". . . they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God."
After the showdown, there was not the traditional, "Good game, good game, good game. . . " you know. . . like you do after a gentlemen's contest. Actually, Elijah commanded that all these false prophets be put to death. Watch your back Elijah, I know someone who is going to be very unhappy (Jezebel) when she hears this story. And then there was rain. Elijah flees to Jezreel, about 20 miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee.
When Jezebel hears about the watered-down altar-fire contest, she is steamed to discover that the losing team (her false prophets) were subsequently all executed by Elijah. Ooooooo! Tough loss! Elijah, fearing Jezebel, high tails it into the wilderness and literally asks God to take him on home; God declines, feeds him, and he takes off to spend 40 days in the wilderness. God speaks to him there, but not until after Elijah does a little bit of poor mouthing to God about how bad things are - seems everybody has forsaken God but him, and they all want to kill him. Yeah, I've felt like that sometimes; haven't you? And. . . then the big show - a mountain-splitting wind followed by an earthquake followed by a fire - right before Elijah's eyes.
And then. . . God spoke to him in "a still small voice." God sends Elijah on one more mission before he is to turn his prophecy job over to Elisha. Oh. . . one more thing: God will leave a remnant in Israel of 7,000 who had not gone after Baal. What! Just 7,000 in that whole Northern Kingdom of Israel? Where'd everybody go? Answer: after false gods.
Jezebel did manage to outlive her miserable husband by a little while, but her end was quite unpleasant. A man named "Jehu" becomes the new King of Israel and comes gunning for Jezebel. She had gone to her upstairs room to paint herself up for the big meeting with the new King of Israel. She kind of taunts him when he shows up. She's not expecting it to be a good day anyway. King Jehu hollers up to her attendants to throw Jezebel down out of the window. They did; she splattered; the dogs ate her - leaving just a skull, feet and hand parts - not even enough to bury, just as Elijah had prophesied back in I Kings 21:23. What a fitting end to such a wicked woman.
Here's the lesson: In the end, God always prevails. Through all the tough times in between, Elijah prevailed and Jezebel lost. Paul assures Christians in Romans 8:37, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Because Jesus is my Lord, I am assured of victory. . . GREAT PROMISE!
Pastor Wayne Turner of Fayette Bible Church in Fayetteville is also the author of Bible Track, an online daily Bible-reading schedule and commentary which may be accessed at http://www.bibletrack.org. |
