The religious influence of Jezebel in the northern kingdom and of Athaliah, her daughter, in the southern was of greater consequence in the shaping of the history of the times than their lack of moral worth. Jezebel was an ardent worshipper of Baal; indeed, she was the patroness of Baal's prophets, the very bulwark of idolatrous practices in Israel. Over against her stood the prophet Elijah, the representative of what was apparently a lost hope. Jezebel had driven the prophets of Jehovah into the dens and caves of the earth. It is commonly thought that while men have more vices than women, women have stronger prejudices. But here is a woman of whom it may be stated--altering a remark made concerning Nero--"There is no better description of her than to say she was--Jezebel."
The Baal worship which she would foster, and did greatly succeed in fastening upon Israel until its overthrow by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, was a debasing nature-worship, which tended to destroy manhood and drag womanhood into shame. And while there was set up no material monument of her power in Israel, yet it required generations for the pernicious influence of her life to die away. If, as Dean Stanley suggested, that Hebrew epithalamium, the forty-fifth Psalm, was written in honor of Jezebel's marriage to Ahab, none of its ideals concerning the new-made queen was ever realized in Israel. She must stand in the history with Jeroboam whose constant literary monument is disclosed in the oft-repeated words, "He made Israel to sin."
In contrast with the proud and cruel queen whose aim had been to slay Elijah and all who stood for Jehovah worship are certain obscure women who protected and comforted the prophet. "You will find a tulip of a woman," says Thackeray, "to be in fashion when a humble violet or daisy of creation is passed over without remark." We shall not fall under the implied condemnation by forgetting the nameless widow of Zarephath who, though found gathering a few sticks to make a meal of the last handful of flour and a little oil left in the cruse, yet when asked took the fleeing Tishbite into her frugal home and shared with him her poor repast. For fully a year did Elijah live under the widow's roof, and the meal in the barrel wasted not, nor did the oil in the cruse fail, till the famine was broken by the coming of the long delayed rains.
A people's religion will register its mark quickly upon its women. A most suggestive Semitic conception is found in the use of the figure of marriage to describe the relationship between a people and their god, or perhaps more accurately, between a land and its governing divinity. This entire conception finds its best illustration in the term Baal, which means husband, or lord. The god was conceived of as father and the land as mother of the people and of all the products of the soil.
The influence of the Baal cult upon Israelitish society, especially upon woman, cannot be understood without reference to the nature of that worship. Picture before your mind's eye the rustic prophet Amos, with wandering staff in hand, impelled by a divine impulse, making his way northward, and carrying a divine message to the people. He reaches Bethel in the southern part of the kingdom of Israel--a city that from time immemorial had been a sanctuary. He is shocked at the terrible orgies practised about the altars there in the name of religion; at the unbridled passion and lewdness in the name of the god and goddess of fertility, Baal and Ashtoreth; at the men and women revelling in shame, that the increase of the land might be celebrated and productiveness symbolized.
It is while looking upon such a scene of bestialized worship and debauched womanhood that Amos cries out in prophetic grief:
"The virgin of Israel is fallen,
She shall no more rise.
She is forsaken upon her land
There is none to raise her up."