"When Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it: and she put paint on her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked through a window." (2 Kings 9:30-31) Jehu calls her the "accursed woman." (2 Kings 9:34) Her name has become a synonym for all that is base and evil. Who was this woman with the painted face? How did Jezebel come to be a name that makes us shudder?

She was not born the cruel, evil woman that she became, but what she became may very well have been determined by the early teaching she had. She came from Phoenicia and was nurtured in an atmosphere that was foul and filthy. The idol gods to whom she was introduced were gods of filth and lusts. They made no claim to make men good.

Jezebel made an unfortunate choice for a marriage companion. She married Ahab, king of Israel, who half-heartedly was a follower of the Lord. The biggest difference between Ahab and Jezebel was that while he was weak and wicked, she was strong and wicked. Jezebel dominated Ahab and turned him to her religion away from the God of his fathers instead of him turning her to serve Jehovah. How rare it is to find a man who will hold on his way when his wife does not support him.

Not only did Jezebel influence her husband and dominate him, but she influenced the court the same way, thus dominating the nation of Israel. She was so active and aggressive that she swept the nation into idolatry.

The more Jezebel sinned, the more she seemed to prosper. The more one prospers in wrong doing the greater danger of becoming permanently married to the thing that will ultimately bring about their ruin. The deeper involved in sin she became the more her anger raged toward Elijah who rebuked her sin. Anger at the preacher is no substitute for repentance. She had seen the failure of her own gods at Carmel (1 Kings 18) and she had witnessed the fire of Jehovah consuming the offering of Elijah, but she remained unmoved. Instead, she threatened the life of Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time" (1 Kings 19:2).

Now as Jehu enters the gate of the city, she must face the man who would be the instrument of her death. Rather than appear in sackcloth and ashes begging for mercy she paints her face and stands in the window as a preacher of righteousness. She does not yet realize that her sin is her doom. For a lifetime she has sown seeds of lust, hate and murder. Now she will reap the harvest.

Jehu shouts, "Who is on my side?" Those who show their faces are instructed, "Throw her down" (2 Kings 9:32-33). As she is thrown from the wall, blood is spattered on the wall of the building and on the hoofs of the horses and the wheels of the chariot as Jehu repeatedly drives over this evil woman. After Jehu feasts in the palace he says to the servants, "Go now, see to this accursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king's daughter" (2 Kings 9:34). As the servants went out to bury her body, all that was found was her skull, the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands. The dogs had eaten her as the prophet had foretold (cf. 1 Kings. 21:23). Certainly, we are reminded, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).

In all this one can not help but wonder, "what could have been" if Jezebel had given herself with this same devotion and enthusiasm to serving God. What a waste of a life. She ruined her home, destroyed her husband, led Israel into idolatry and was ultimately thrown down into the street to become dog meat. What a legacy. It isn't a wonder why no one names their daughter "Jezebel."