Jezebel Revisited

Few characters in the Bible are presented in as negative a light as Jezebel, wife of King Ahab of Israel and nemesis of the prophet Elijah in First Kings. Jezebel connived with her husband to defraud and murder the solid citizen Naboth. She was an enthusiastic idolater and devotee of the local Canaanite divinities known as Baals. She is even presented as a Freudian-style castrating woman, mocking her husband and shaming him into act

ions totally contrary to Israelite law and tradition. Her collusion with Ahab brought the Israelite monarchy into a nightmare of injustice and folly.
Such unrestrained evil makes Jezebel seem less of a historical figure and more of a prototype or a symbol. As the stories unfold, she takes on the larger-than-life features of a witch-queen, a wicked stepmother, or a manipulative siren. She incarnates the dark side of femininity, the seductive power of pagan nature-religion, and the unconscious fears men project most intently upon powerful women. Is Jezebel too bad to be true?
In the Bible, the prophet Elijah is also larger-than-life, the prototypical spiritual warrior who confronts the evil witch-queen and her whiney consort. Yet even Elijah is susceptible to primal dread of hostile feminine power. Condemned to death by Jezebel, he “…went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ (I Kings 19:41)
The God of Israel comes to his rescue, of course, and he ends up in a cave in the same mountain where the Law was revealed to Moses. There Elijah experiences a profound epiphany, the details of which invoke for me images of the birth process common to all human beings. Elijah goes to the entrance of the cave, and there experiences in sequence “a great wind”…an “earthquake”… and “a fire.” Only then is God revealed in “sheer silence”(NRSV) or, alternatively, “a still, small voice.” (KJV). At birth, human beings emerge from a cave-like tunnel and are met with a blast of cold air, propelled out of the safety of the womb by a series of world-shaking contractions, and finally gathered into warm, protective coverings and spoken to in soft, reassuring tones.
Here is the antidote to all misogynistic fear and blame: gratitude for having been nourished, birthed, and protected by our mothers, and by our God. Our salvation lies in the future, where we can become free and mature individuals and form wonderful adult companionships with our mothers. In this story, God is not to be found in the mighty wind, the powerful earthquake, or the consuming fire, but in the “sheer silence.” (I Kings 19:12) Even the macho God of Israel has a soft side. Maybe what God is saying to (at least some of) us here is “guys, get over it!” Except more gently, in a “still, small voice.”
In the Bible, Jezebel comes to a sorry end, thrown down from a city wall by two eunuchs (how’s that for Freudian symbolism!) and eaten (most of her, anyway) by dogs. Under different circumstances perhaps Elijah, transformed by his encounter with the “God of sheer silence,” might have staged an intervention with Jezebel, supported her in dumping the hopelessly codependent Ahab, helped her overcome her addiction to idol-worship, and ultimately collaborated with her in developing a kinder and gentler form of Jahwistic religion.
It is unreasonable to expect that Elijah could (or should) have acted this way. But is it so unreasonable for us?