Notable Women of Olden Time Part 6

JEZEBEL.

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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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.s of her s.e.x 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sociations of his faith and his people. There still clung to him some remains of the fear of the "Lord G.o.d 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 G.o.d of Israel, should have convinced her of the truth of His messengers--His indisputable claim to be the G.o.d--the Lord G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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, G.o.d forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

The faithful Israelite may have recoiled from the thought of its pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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! G.o.d 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.sed 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!

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There have been many like her. Her crimes have been sometimes equalled in atrocity. Her ruling pa.s.sions were pride and ambition; and she doubtless clung to the idols of her land from the unbounded license their worship gave to sensuality, and the opportunities it afforded, in its feasts and festivals, for display and gayety.

But she clung more tenaciously to her idolatry from motives of self-interest and national aggrandizement. It was the test of loyalty for Israel. It was in perfect consistency with such a character to turn away from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe.

In the expressive language of the Bible, she "hardened her heart;" and doubtless, like skeptics of later days, she could ascribe what she could not disprove to the working of natural causes, or to the arts of priestcraft.

We can all stifle the convictions of conscience and contemn the principles which conflict with our interest or our inclination; and there are in every station unconscious imitators of the Queen of Israel.

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ATHALIAH.

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The pious king of Judah not only formed a political alliance with Israel, but he even permitted, and probably encouraged, his son, and the heir to his throne, to marry the daughter of the impious Ahab and the idolatrous Jezebel. Jehoshaphat saw not the Queen of Israel as we see her--as unlovely as she was unholy. Dazzled by the splendour of her court, won by her grace and queenly bearing, he may have overlooked her crimes. The most unprincipled have sometimes carefully and successfully cultivated much that gives grace and attraction to social life. Some, whose hearts have been utterly selfish and callous, and whose lives have been one dark record of crime and cruelty, have yet shone as the centres of splendid circles, diffusing all around them pleasure and gayety. And men, themselves unstained, have been won by these fascinations to a close a.s.sociation with those whose principles were worthy only of reprobation, and whose a.s.sociation should have been shunned as in the last degree contaminating.

The intimacies between those who love and worship G.o.d and those who reject him are ever full of danger. And while the courtiers of Ahab and the flatterers of Jehoshaphat may have applauded the liberal policy of the King of Judah, and his freedom from the bigotry of the prophets who would reform Israel, he was pursuing a course which was to involve his family in calamity and bring corruption into his kingdom. Jerusalem and Samaria were not very remote from each other, and the kings of Israel and Judah seem at this period to have maintained frequent personal intercourse: an intercourse which appears not to have elevated the moral character of Israel, while it surely led to the deterioration of the piety of Judah; for when G.o.dly persons mingle freely with the impious,--especially if this intercourse originates from mere motives of ambition or worldly expediency,--the former will be much more ready to sink to the level of the worldling than to raise the worldling to their own.

The influence of this a.s.sociation with the depraved court of Israel doubtless had its effect upon the heart of Jehoshaphat. He was not drawn into idolatry, but he probably was less zealous in the service of Jehovah and in the vindication of his ways. He may have rather sympathized with the monarchs of Israel in their attempts to establish their own faith and maintain their own authority, than with the persecuted people of Israel in their efforts to preserve the worship of their fathers. While he regretted the idolatry of Jezebel, he may have censured what would be called the uncourtly intolerance or the bigoted zeal of the prophets, who uttered such denunciations and threatenings against the reigning family. Perhaps he pointed out to the few faithful Israelites whom he might meet in the train of Ahab or at the court of Israel the propriety of a more gentle mode or a more conciliating policy. As the friend of Ahab, he betrayed the cause of G.o.d, and upheld his iniquities. In all the persecutions they sustained, we do not find that the prophets of the Lord ever sought a refuge among their brethren of Judah. Hardly could they have expected shelter and protection from the king who was allying his own family with the house of Ahab. They found shelter among the heathen; they were nourished by miracles; they were hid in the coverts of the rocks, and were fed by ravens, while Jehoshaphat and his court were rejoicing in the alliance of Jehoram with Athaliah--the royal son of Judah with the royal daughter of Israel; and the worshippers of Jehovah and the devotees of Ashtaroth and Baal were mingled in their train.

There might have been heavy forebodings and low, suppressed murmurs among those who remembered the statutes of the Lord, and who recalled his dealings with his people; but the mult.i.tude could rejoice in the splendour and the festivities of the occasion; the court could exult in the pomp and display; and wise politicians could talk of the benefits to the two countries of speaking one language, springing from a common origin, and preserving their own national integrity, and yet presenting one united front to the common enemy. And Jehoshaphat may have hailed this marriage as the master-stroke of his policy, while religiously-disposed courtiers whispered that a scion of Israel, transplanted to Judah and nurtured by Jehoshaphat, under the influences of Zion, must indeed prove a plant of righteousness in this garden of the Lord.

Did Jezebel fear this? Did this strong-minded, politic, crafty woman feel that her daughter was placed under influences which might draw her from the idols of her mother, and make her recreant to the policy of her father's house?

Jezebel was too strong in the consciousness of her own power, to fear that her children would oppose her wishes or her plans. All experience proves that the wife exerts a powerful influence upon the character of her husband. Even where she has apparently little mental strength, she may possess great moral power, for evil or for good. This influence pervades her family, and is felt even while it is despised and disavowed. When holy and pure, it is as reviving, strengthening, invigorating as the pure breath of the morning. When it has its source in a selfish, polluted heart, it comes like the midnight miasma or the blast of the desert, prostrating and destroying all over which it pa.s.ses.

The character of the mother often determines the course and the destiny of her children. She imprints her own moral lineaments upon her offspring. She moulds their habits and she transfuses into them the feelings, motives, and principles which actuate herself. The influence of the mother is often so perpetuated in her daughters that the individual seems multiplied as she is faithfully reflected by them.

Where the mental and moral characteristics are marked, they are almost sure to descend; and the character of Jezebel was one to leave its impress.

Thus we find Athaliah worthy of the stock from which she sprang. She was the true, as she seems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early allied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she retained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and she exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the qualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life of Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the same daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud ambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder feelings, affections, and sympathies.

Jezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of her nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of crime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in the attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself to utter selfishness. In her most atrocious acts she seems to have had some regard to the aggrandizement of her family and to the gratification of her husband. The daughter was more depraved than her mother. Athaliah was utterly selfish, devoid even of the instinct of natural affection. A character more revolting is not presented to us in the pages of the historian, sacred or profane.

A woman rioting in blood that she might gratify her ambition! A mother destroying her offspring that she might possess their inheritance!

Jezebel was a depraved woman, but Athaliah was a monster--a woman dest.i.tute of all the feelings of humanity, working all evil, and only evil, from the mere love of self. With selfish desires which absorbed all consideration, and in their intensity prompted to unnatural crimes, having no object in view beyond her personal gratification or aggrandizement, there was not even the extenuation to be offered for Athaliah which could be urged for Jezebel; for the policy of Judea was opposed to idolatry, and in the family of Jehoshaphat she was surrounded by influences most favourable to a virtuous course, and influences which had never rested upon her mother. Under the very shadow of the Temple she perpetrated her most flagrant crimes.

Although the depravity of Jezebel led her to adopt a corrupt religion, to reject a pure and holy worship, and to cling to the dark and cruel rites of heathenism, the voice of conscience was not silenced, the light of the soul was not entirely extinguished. She felt the need of some faith--she clung to the altars of her G.o.ds. But Athaliah seems to have sunk into the brutishness of those who own "no G.o.d." She seems to have trampled upon all faith, as she violated all obligation--insensible alike to the calls of conscience and the aspirations of devotion. She had no womanly sympathies. She had high mental endowments--she had a powerful will and strong pa.s.sions--but she had no affections. There have been many Jezebels--but few Athaliahs. The affections compose so large a part of a woman's nature that we disown one who is without them. In her deepest guilt, in her lowest debas.e.m.e.nt, they still cling to her; and raised to the summit of power, they do not often wholly desert her.