Although the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of Israel, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had been governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked the reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more to provoke the God of Israel than all that were before him." He pursued the path which had been marked out by his predecessors when he married, and he found in his wife an efficient aid. By the strength of her mind, by the energy of her character, by the introduction of an idolatry at once more corrupt and more ensnaring, she did more to complete and seal the apostasy of Israel than all who had gone before her.

The name of Jezebel has descended to us as one of the most opprobrious epithets which can be applied to a woman. Little did the haughty queen who bore it imagine what a reproach and offence it was to become for future ages, in unknown lands, and among unborn nations.

We think of her always as old, withered, thirsting for blood, and incapable of the finer sentiments and all the softer emotions of human kind. There was a time in which she shone as the centre of a splendid and luxurious court, where minstrels sang to her and poets praised her and princes flattered her, while statesmen confessed her influence and cabinets adopted her plans. Fascinating, artful, able, ambitious, and unprincipled, she may be regarded as chief among many of the most celebrated of this class of her sex of ancient or modern days.

There have been queens, not of heathen lands and barbarous Asia, but of refined and christianized Europe, upon whose memories rest quite as dark shadows as those which cover the character of the Queen of Israel. It is sad to remember how many of the most atrocious acts which disgrace the annals of our race are to be traced to the influence of female ambition, jealousy, hate, or revenge. Larger possessions than that of the vineyard of Naboth have been obtained by perjury and blood; and few modern courts could consistently condemn the principles or the policy by which the monarchs of Israel attempted to consolidate and perpetuate their dominion. In the estimation of many statesmen and many historians, greatness has sanctified all the means by which power is either to be attained or preserved, and the splendour of the court has fully atoned for all the oppression of the people.

While she was fitted to co-operate with her husband, and ready to promote his designs and to embrace the policy which had guided the court of Israel, she soon assumed and ever maintained that influence which the stronger mind, the more powerful will, ever exerts over the inferior and weaker. Through all his reign, Ahab ever deferred to her; and while she goaded him onward in his career of crime, she stimulated and upheld him by her daring defiance of the commands and threatenings of the prophets of the Lord. She possessed all the energy, power, and constancy which ever belongs to minds of a high order, and which fit them for greatness in virtue or crime—insuring widespread usefulness or leading to desperate wickedness. She never was turned from her course. She never faltered, trembled, or hesitated in the pursuit of her object. She witnessed, unawed and unmoved, miracles of judgment and of mercy. She saw unpitying a land consumed by drought and a people perishing by famine; and when the parched earth drank the showers of heaven, while she rejoiced, she was neither softened nor made penitent by the blessing.

Ahab could not entirely divest himself of every national characteristic, or the remembrances and associations of his faith and his people. There still clung to him some remains of the fear of the "Lord God of his fathers," some feelings of reverence and awe for the name and worship of Jehovah. No such compunctions troubled Jezebel. When Elijah visited Ahab, the impious monarch quailed before him and trembled at the denunciation of Divine wrath. Jezebel answered his reproofs by scorn and threats, and her menaces drove the prophet from the altar where he had triumphed.

Yet her history is replete with sad interest. While it declares the certain ruin which follows national sins and national corruption, it displays also much of the wonderful forbearance of Jehovah. As we retrace his dealings even with the guilty house of Ahab and the apostate people of Israel, we are reminded of One who, ages after, wept over Jerusalem. "Oh, if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace—but now they are hidden from thine eyes."

During the earlier years of the reign of Ahab, while Jezebel was engaged with all zeal and activity in proselyting the people of Israel to the worship of Ashtaroth and Baal, she was constantly resisted by the prophets sent as messengers from Jehovah. And many miracles of mercy and of judgment, wrought before her by the power of the Lord God of Israel, should have convinced her of the truth of His messengers—His indisputable claim to be the God—the Lord God. She resisted all—not from the want of evidence or the power of believing, but from the perverseness of a determined will and a hardened heart. Yet he who styles himself a God merciful and gracious, long strove with her, though at last she provoked him to depart and leave her to her chosen way.

The seizure of the vineyard of Naboth seems to have consummated the iniquity of Jezebel, while it brought all the distinguishing traits of her character into full light.

Judah was a land of rocky hills and narrow though fertile valleys. The possessions of Israel were broader and more luxuriant; and in the beautiful plain of Jezreel the kings of Israel had built their favourite city of Samaria. In that city, Ahab erected the temple consecrated to Baal, and there he maintained four hundred and fifty priests for his service, while the Queen of Israel kept four hundred in the groves consecrated to Ashtaroth. "But the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite was hard by the palace of Ahab, King of Samaria."

The King of Israel desired the vineyard of Naboth, either to enlarge his grounds or to add to their beauty and variety. Yet, despotic and unprincipled as he was, the laws of possession were so fixed, the rights of property so established, that, on the refusal of Naboth to sell his inheritance, he dared not use violence; and he sank into sullen despondency.

It has ever been characteristic of wives like Jezebel to maintain their ascendency by arts and blandishments, and by ministering to every corrupt propensity of their husbands. With the watchfulness of a devoted wife, she saw the vexation of her husband.

"Why is thy countenance so sad?"

"And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for that."

Naboth had said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

The faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its passing into the hands of the unholy worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth and being polluted by their orgies. But Ahab did not give the denial in its full force. He represents Naboth as simply refusing. "I will not give thee my vineyard."

We seem to see the actors before us, in the spirited, yet simple narration, as it proceeds. Ahab, heavy, sullen, morose—with clouded brow and furrowed cheek. Jezebel, with her flashing eye, her queenly gait, her haughty aspect, and all the workings of pride and craft and ambition expressed in her faded but still striking features. With what utter contempt would she look upon the husband who sank into despondency because he had not the skill to devise, or the will to perpetrate, the iniquity which would insure the attainment of his desires!

"Dost thou govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."

And a darker plot, or one more artfully devised, has seldom been unravelled among all the iniquitous intrigues of courts and statesmen. Naboth was doubtless a true worshipper; and for once Jezebel professed all honour to the laws of Jehovah. He was arraigned and tried by the laws of Moses—long trampled upon and disused. And all the solemnities of religion were resorted to, to aid her plans and advance her purpose.

Falsely arraigned, accused, and condemned, Naboth was executed, and his sons perished with him. The hands of his brethren were imbrued in their blood. She who managed the plot found other agents to execute her designs. With impious hypocrisy, she insulted heaven by ordaining a solemn fast, for God and the king had been blasphemed. These transactions display the deep depravity of the Queen of Israel, while they show the influence of her character and example upon her people. The very ministers of justice were made the abettors of her guilt; and law, with all its formalities and solemnities, was made to sanction crime. How many sins were committed to gratify one idle, covetous desire! God was insulted and defied and blasphemed; justice was corrupted; and falsehood, perjury, and murder were all used to accomplish the wicked will of Jezebel. And how many victims have been thus arraigned, and perished thus, in later days! This deed awoke the vengeance of Jehovah. Even as Ahab took possession of his blood-stained field, the prophet of the Lord met him and denounced the doom of the perpetrators of the dark crime. All were to perish, and all were to die deaths of blood and shame. Husband, wife, parents, and children—all, to the latest generation, were to be cut off—to be rooted out of the earth as an abominable stock, and to rot in the sight of the heavens. Ahab humbled himself, as he received the message of the prophet, and showed an outward reverence: and his doom was so far softened that the destruction of the family was not immediate: but Jezebel seems still as bold and unmoved as ever. Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, entered into alliance with Ahab, and visited his court to witness the splendour and share the hospitalities of Jezebel; and while both were warring against Syria, Ahab was slain in battle.

Jezebel doubtless would have scouted the folly of those who saw the fulfilment of both prophecy and sentence in the dogs licking the blood from the chariot and the armour, as they were washed in the pool, which probably was on the lands of Naboth; yet she might have foreseen thus her certain fate—and as Ahab had died, so she should die. Her doom was yet deferred. She long survived her husband, and prosperity and such honours as attend the prosperous were her's. She was the daughter, wife, and the mother of kings. Her sons ruled Israel. Her daughter sat on the throne of Judah. She dwelt in royal state at Jezreel, and enjoyed possessions which had been obtained by revolting crimes. Ahab had died a bloody death. Jehoshaphat was gathered to his fathers; the King of Syria perished by the hands of his servant; and Elijah was taken up to heaven—but Jezebel still lived.

What were the occupations of her old age? Was she still busy, restless, and intriguing? Or did the past haunt her with dark remembrances of shame and crime, and the avenging future cast its shadow over her soul? Did the stern decree of the prophet ring in her ears, and late remorse drive her to the dark cruelties of her bloody idolatry, in the idle hope of expiation? Such an old age could not have been happy. She was left to fill up the measure of her iniquity, while memory told of past sins, and conscience whispered of the coming retribution, and the avenging justice of heaven hung like a dark cloud over her guilty house. Past the season of pleasure, deprived of the power she had so abused, without the honour and sacred reverence due to virtuous age, she may have had a foretaste of her future retribution, though surrounded by all the splendour of royalty, with trembling and abject slaves ministering to all her wants.

One son after another quietly took possession of the throne of Israel, and Jezebel may have derided the prophecy of Elijah; yet the sentence, long delayed, was fully executed. The hour of foretold vengeance arrived. In one day, the King of Israel was dethroned and murdered, and the race of Ahab was swept from the face of the earth. The last act of her life was worthy of Jezebel herself,—of the Queen of Israel in the days of her prime. She heard of the death of Jehoram and of the insurrection of Jehu. Neither the timidity of a woman nor the yearnings of a mother had a place in her soul. In the hour of carnage, surrounded by all the horrors of death, the pride of her nature prevailed, and all the daring of her character was displayed. She forgot neither the proprieties due to her rank nor the embellishments needful for her person. With the vanity of the woman and the pride of a queen, "she painted her face and tired her head," and then haughtily presenting herself before the murderer of her children, she uttered a maddening taunt and defiance. By the hands of her servants she was cast from the windows of the palace of Israel into the very grounds which had been the vineyard of Naboth; and as she was dashed to the earth, the wheels of the chariot of the destroyer of her race passed over her, and the feet of the horses trampled upon her. "And the dogs ate Jezebel by the walls of Jezreel." Thus her doom was accomplished!