Sister Jezebel

1 Kings 21:1-21a

If I had encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, I would miss out on the pleasure of stumbling across the reference for some later cultural icon. At my current level of ignorance, I get the surprise of saying “oh that’s where this phrase or name comes from.” Sunday’s daily lectionary included most of the story of Ahab from 1^st Kings. Melville practically rewrote the Old Testament in Moby Dick. It’s not clearly there’s anything other than Biblical references in the novel.

To recap, Ahab was a king in Israel (when the kingship of Israel and Judah were split) who decided he wanted a vineyard owned by a guy named Naboth. He offers a sale or trade, but Naboth ain’t interested. Ahab pouts, so his wife Jezebel decides she’ll get him the vineyard – after all, he rules Israel, so why shouldn’t he have it. And she’s probably sick of seeing him mope around the house. If he won’t take care of the situation she’ll do it for him. So she writes letters in Ahab’s name sends them to “the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.” As Ahab, she tells them to find some thugs to accuse Naboth of something, anything, then take him out and stone him to death. The elders and nobles do this, Naboth is stoned to death, Jezebel gets news of this and sends Ahab off to get his vineyard. But the Lord gets in touch with Elijah, tells him to tell Ahab “Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.” Furthermore, Elijah tells Ahab that he (it seems Elijah speaks of his power here) will “consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.”

Here’s a story of greed driving someone to bring down their house, the obsession of Melville’s whaling captain. But let’s not forget Jezebel, who is the villain here, like Eve in the garden (or Lady MacBeth). It’s one of those evil women, women as temptress passages that make it difficult to reconcile Christianity with the kind of relations between sexes people of good faith want to have in this day and age. Social progress is real (to update and reverse the Louvin Brothers), and we can’t accept the casting of men and women suggested by this passage.

The lectionary demurely cuts off the passage here. The rest of the chapter doesn’t exactly help much (1 Kings 21:21b-29:

“and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. Also concerning Jezebel the Lod said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ [Jezreel is where Naboth had his vineyard] Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.’

(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel. He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites.)

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster on his house.’”

First of all, the passage circles back to Jezebel and gives this bloody account of the end awaiting her. It’s pretty graphic, and makes it impossible to ignore the fact that the passage blames Jezebel. It’s no wonder the designers of the lectionary decided to cut off where they did. What preacher in his or her right mind wants to preach on the dogs eating Jezebel in Jezreel.

The next paragraph, in parentheses in the NRSV, at first seems to make the point again, although it puts Jezebel in a purely abetting role. Ahab sold himself. He acted abominably.

Why the Lectionary leaves out the last paragraph is harder to understand. In that, Ahab makes amends. He can’t get off the hook entirely—causing the death of another person for the reason of personal gain is clearly out of bounds. But even in the face of such an abomination, God finds room for mercy.

What are the options in interpretation here? One is to say women are a bad influence, better keep them under tight surveillance. That has certainly been the fashion in many times and places. The other is to argue that gender doesn’t matter, the point here is that someone wants something, and lets the people close to them engage in abominable behavior on their behalf. A view on the sad state of fallen humanity. But glossing over the gender misses the fact that this scenario comes up at least one other really significant time, and the roles are never reversed.

That leads to the next option, to say this reflects the social realities of the time. It’s about what a person does with their power, and what those close to power do to curry favor with power. In this society, that sort of public power was only held by men. When Hilary Clinton takes over the White House, Bill Clinton will play the Jezebel role.

I can’t quite get to any of these positions. I think you have to accept the sexism embedded in the book, in this book of ultimate importance. But there is clearly a need to move the faith to a position past that kind of sexism. I think it occurs through some sort of dialectic process in which the reality of such texts is acknowledged, but is met with an antithesis rooted in the contemporary experience of Christian communities of good faith that leads to a practice of Christianity that reflects the capacity of the human family to progress, even within the limits of historical time between Christ’s resurrection and return. We cannot make paradise no more than we can build a tower to heaven, but we can be better in our stewardship of creation and our acts of love to our neighbors (that would be everyone).

Add-on. In addition to what I picture when I hear the name Jezebel—Bette Davis, fere’s another image of Jezebel, by a late 19^th/early 20^th century painter named Byam Shaw. The picture here is of a vain woman, but you really don’t get that from the passage in Kings. Her motives are to snap her husband out of it—maybe as a matter of convenience, maybe a reflected sense of the household’s dignity, but she could just be trying to do her duty in misguided way. But these names have a capacity to take on a life of their own after they are lifted from the Bible.