Queen Jezebel

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

 

 

Jezebel, Heroic Queen of Israel

 

The Name Jezebel has been made synonymous with the archetype of “the evil woman”, “harlot” and “ wicked and devious female” by the authors of the Old Testament. In fact the term “ to be a Jezebel” is used by people to mean that one is a backstabbing, manipulative and dangerous woman. This is what all women who are not nicely submissive to any man are called even nowadays by those who adhere to male supremacist forms of religion.

Why is this so? What are the underlying reasons behind this religio-social discrimination, and what is the actual truth behind the hatred towards independent , strong women that clearly comes through in bible stories? Let’s uncover the truth by rewinding the clock and going back to the turbulent days of Queen Jezebel, in the city of Jezreel in the ancient Near East. And for a change, it will be the story from the perspective of Jezebel and not the story that has been told to generations by the authors of  the book of Deuteronomy, although to be clear, their motives for  writing about Jezebel like this are examined.

 

The Kingdom of Israel had just come out of the period of rule under King Solomon, and had settled in their promised land. The kingdom was devided in two as time went on and in the 9^th century BCE, some of the Israelites were still devoted to the original Pagan Deities of the ancient Near East, as the new cult of Jahweh had only recently been established amongst them. In fact, as had happened later  , there was no discrimination based on faith, and Pagans used to mingle freely with Jewish people and Christians. This can easily be proven on many levels, just one of which the fact that early Christians were Nazarenes. Nazar refers back to Serpent, or Serpent worshipper by default. As we all know, Serpent worship and symbolism are the oldest form of worship on Earth apart from Goddess worship, both of which were and are an integral part of Paganism.

And herein lies the rub. In order to “purify “ Israel , the priests of the new male-dominated religion of Jahweh were on a mission to wipe out any other religion or belief amongst the common people. This turned out to be first on a theoretical and social level, followed by physical violence as the means to an end. There is ample evidence that stoning was used mainly to punish and kill  in those days. I don’t know if everyone realizes what it was like to be stoned to death by an angry mob. Even being hit anywhere on the body by a medium sized pebble is enough to make someone cry with pain, well, imagine hundreds of stones hitting you all over the head and body, with no mercy shown. And at the root of all of this, is discrimination on the basis of faith.The doctrine of monotheism left no room for Pagan beliefs.

On the other hand, King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, had been seeking a political solution to his countries’ economic problems. His close neighbour, Phoenicia, was the trading powerhouse of the time, and as such, access to markets and further trading opportunities would be dramatically increased if only a bond or political alliance could be made between the two nations.Not only this, but such an alliance would provide extra protection for both Israel and Phoenicia in a very hostile Near Eastern environment.

 

The most common way to make an alliance in those days was to arrange a marriage between the prospective heads of state. This gave credibility to the alliance in the minds of the people, and cemented the deal between the parties involved.

This is where Queen Jezebel enters the stage.

Princess Jezebel was the great-aunt of Dido, the Queen of Carthage; who was the founder of Carthage, the great trading nation of the Mediterranean, of such power that even Rome was challenged to compete economically and politically with the Carthaginians at the height of their influence.

 

As Princess, Jezebel was also a Head Priestess of the Pagan religion of ancient Phoenicia, and as such, actively promoted and presided over the worship of the Goddess Astarte, also known as Asherah and Inanna in other cultures; and  the Lord of Fertility, Ba’al; and many other Pagan Deities who were always venerated in the Near Eastern region for millennia.

King Ahab was certainly aware of his prospective bride’s religion, but this factor obviously was outweighed by the ecomic and political considerations that he was faced with.

And this basically is how Princess Jezebel came to be seated on the throne of Israel. Now the Queen Mother, Jezebel established temples and other sanctuaries in honour of the Goddess and God of the Old Religion, with the support of her new husband , who was seen by the orthodox Jewish religionists as weak, and under the influence of the woman they were now beginning to accuse of sorcery and false idolatry. Jezebel and Her religion were seen as severe threats to the cult of Jahweh, and already , they started to actively influence public opinion against the Queen and Paganism, discouraging the common people from going back to their Pagan roots .

It is worth noting that the power of Jezebel is reflected by the extremes that the conservative early Jewish religionists had to go to in order to destabilise her rule and suppress religious freedom amongst the people.

Because Queen Jezebel was the direct polar opposite of the “good, submissive and keep-silent-when-told-to” type of woman that is the ideal of some religions even in today’s world; and was rock steady in her faith and convictions as Head Priestess of the Old Religion; She was both hated and feared by those who had now sworn to bring her down and crush any vestige of Paganism amongst the Jewish people.

In this, the Patriarchal powers-that-were proved their Xenophobia and intolerant attitudes that have seemed to have remained a constant in contemporary times.

For example , in such societies there is also the fact that outsiders, or foreigners, are generally treated with the utmost suspicion. Ethnic discrimination is also a big factor in such societies, and it is made clear by the writers of the Book of Kings and Deutoronomy just how these social illnesses were also very prevalent in the Israel of those days.

As Head of State, and obviously wishing to do her utmost best to firstly, unite the two lands on all levels, not only politically and economically, but also to bring balance and harmony between all forms of Paganism and the Cult of Jahweh, Jezebel’s role as diplomat and Head of  State was very clear-cut. In order for this alliance to succeed, she had to legitimize Paganism, while allowing total freedom to the new religion of the Israelite religious establishment. The problem with this was not of Jezebel’s making, but in that the absolutists did not want any sort of compromise and displayed the utmost intolerance from the very beginning towards their new Phoenician Queen and her followers .

When reading the Bible and interpreting the stories, one must realize that firstly, history is written in the eye of the beholder, and secondly, that the authors of the Bible were never friendly towards the Goddess or Paganism. The contents of the Bible are not without prejudice towards Pagans to say the least, and the story of Jezebel is by no means any exception in the making.

Instead of the picture of a new monarch trying her best to make things work, while never surrendering her beliefs and core values;we have the writers of the bible accusing Jezebel of “killing off the prophets of the lord” amongst other accusations. The prophet Elijah is so threatened by Jezebel, that the infamous version of the tournament on Mount Carmel is given to us to believe, in that 450 prophets of Ba’al were challenged by Elijah to see which god was the more powerful. Evidently, the Pagan priests failed to light a fire without matches and took a whole day to fail miserably, while ol’ Elijah managed to win the fire-lighting challenge ( I don’t mean to poke fun, but this does sound like a Survivor challenge to me) by himself, with a once-off attempt. This “victory” is interestingly enough described as proving that Jahweh is “the ruler of all the forces of Nature” according to the Bible passages.

 

Instead of leaving it at this, the prophet then orders the 450 prophets of Ba’al to be taken away and slaughtered to the very last person by his radical followers. And just as his Jesuit fellows of the Burning Times later on in the course of history proved, killing, stoning, burning alive and torturing are a common pastime amongst certain male supremacist religions as means to an end. And in the view of these people, what they do, they are doing in the name of their god.

And at this point, the Deuteronomist writer allows Jezebel her first say. Evidently, and we must not forget that Jezebel was accused of killing off the Prophets of Jahweh prior to the  fire-lighting competition; Jezebel threatens Elijah with a similar fate as her Priests met at the blood-stained hands of Elijahs followers, and actually dares, in the words of the writer, to announce herself as an equal to Elijah. Now this was written in the days when women were not allowed to question anything that the man said, let alone call oneself a man’s equal so in the eyes of male supremacists, this was a deadly insult to Elijahs’ manhood and thus a symbolic threat to male dominance.

 

Although indignant , Elijah is so afraid of this mere woman that he then flees to the wilderness to escape any further confrontations.

His next attempt at dirtying the Queen’s name and reputation is done behind-the-scenes, and as physical intimidation and violence are not doing the trick first time around, Elijah invents a story that will discredit Jezebel in the eyes of the common people. In this classic set-up, Jezebel is said to have coveted a plot of land  adjacent to the royal palacewhere an innocent subject of the Jewish faith has a thriving vineyard and winery business. Jezebel sets him up with the help of some nobles and the poor vineyard owner is accused of treason and blasphemy on trumped up charges, executed, and his land ends up belonging to Ahab. This whole scheme, was evidently all the work of Jezebel, and to top it all, was done in secret behind the King’s back.

Now, Jezebel could really be accused of being an evil, deceitful, deadly and deceptive good-for- nothing woman in the tradition of Lilith, Delilah and the Scarlet woman by the authors of these biblical stories.

At this point, Elijah returns and puts a curse on King Ahab in Jahwehs name and proceeds to initiate a royal military coup d’etat. After Ahab’s death, pleasing to “the lord”, Jezebel’s eldest son takes the throne. Elijah manoevres one of his followers into the position of military commander in chief, who assassinates King Joram whilst on manoevres after insulting Jezebel to his face by calling her a murdering harlot and sorceress.

This commander and traitor to the crown, Jehu, now races back to the city to assassinate the Queen herself, backed up by a huge and uncontrollable vicious and angry mob. Jezebel was thrown from a window to the ground below, and trampled by horses and the mob. All of the associations of the Goddess on high being cast down by the followers of the new religion come across strongly in this conclusion to the tale.

 

Nevertheless, according to this story, the Queen meets her physical death as a Queen and Priestess – with the honour and dignity that Elijah and his ilk could never imitate. Anticipating her imminent death, Jezebel did not run or hide, as did Elijah after he commited mass genocide on the Pagan Priestesses and Priests with Jahweh's blessing in this story, but rather, dressed up like the Queen she was at her leisure, put on Kohl eyeshadow , made up her hair and sat by the upper story window for the bloodthirsty mob to arrive, totally and regally unconcerned.

The followers of Elijah cast Jezebel’s body out into the street for the dogs to eat, and thus the common people were shown what happened to Pagan Queens and the Pagans in ancient Israel by the “hand of god”.

Even though Jezebel actually ruled over Israel for 36 odd years, which was the time it took for the new religion, given the circumstances and social climate of the times to accomplish what it’s prophet Elijah aimed to do from the beginning – murder a noble Queen Mother and try to eliminate the popular religious belief system then dominant in the Middle East and all over the rest of the world, namely Paganism in the form of the magnificent Stellar, Goddess and Dragon Religions that have existed since before the creation of humankind.

 

Queen Jezebel will always live on in the hearts of Goddess devotees and Pagans who are separating fact from fiction, and truth from the lies that have been told with prejudice concerning our Deities and Heroines of days gone by;  and triumphantly reclaiming the glorious and rich heritage that we share.

 

Long live Jezebel, long live the Old Religion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hawwzIm7c_k&feature=colike

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

[2xp99e95dpw0s]

hi, just looked up Ashera on the web apparently she is the consort of the wife El ,the Holy Spirit /dove symbol! thank u for the information, lord and lady bless :)

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Oh yes, Fabia, Lady Asherah was also known as Ishtar and Inanna. The Names of the Goddess and God are many!

The pleasure is  mine in the giving :)

 

[2xp99e95dpw0s]

blessed be lady :)

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Thanks for your comments, Shodie Selene Nigfhtraven, and yes, this is one of the examples that the strong, independent women in herstory have given us.

The contemporary issue of tolerance amongst Pagans, and the intolerance between most other religions aside, is it not interesting to note that it was the Queen who mediated successfully between her Pagan followers and the followers of Jahweh for a period of 36 years. Then, the desire for domination and establishing a religious monopoly on the spiritual lives of the Israelites prevailed, and the zealous persecution of the followers of the Old Religion began in earnest.One of the most endearing of feminine traits is the ability to always seek moderation and peace rather than conflict.

The Old Testament particularly, is full of discrimination and hatred which is directed at Paganism.

Later on, we became associated with the devil worship which is alien to everything Nature-based Pagans stand for.

In these times, with the rising of the Age of the Daughter, swept in by the Stellar winds ~ it is becoming common knowledge amongst progressive members of the Abrahamanic religions that a great injustice has been committed by removing the Divine Feminine from mainstream spirituality, and identifying the Goddess with evil.. 

There cannot be any Balance without a Goddess as well as a God in any form of spirituality that is in accord with Nature and by extension, the Cosmos.

The Goddess tradition has no discrimination, and is all about Equality and Balance, as is it in Nature. So for me the real message that i receive from knowing a little more about Queen Jezebel and the real story of what happened, even in brief, the small details obscured by time ~ is that it is possible to achieve harmony between different belief systems, as long as the essential balance is not disturbed. This balance, which is slowly but surely coming back to this planet after an absence of millennia and which was disturbed by the forcible advent and domination of the patriarchy; is the Yin-Yang of Nature, the harmony between equal and complementary, not opposing, polar opposites.

It is only those who refuse to compromise, ie, meet others halfway and learn tolerance, as everyone is actually seeking union with the Divine after all; that stand in the way of progress and the spiritual evolution of the human race. 

[Zephonith Serpent Woman]

Every woman and every man has the Divine Feminine within, which means that we have to love and appreciate our Inner divine selves, both female and male, in every way.

Blessed be