The Name and Real Meaning of "Jezebel"

 

The name and Real meaning of “Jezebel”

Mary Ann Wray

Queen Jezebel in the Old Testament was the gentile wife of King Ahab, an impious, disobedient and compromising King of Israel. She married him for political influence. She was a Baal worshipping cruel queen who protected idolatry and persecuted the prophets of God. Jezebel promoted her own form of worship and prophecy (speaking for God). She spoke for a false god not Yahweh. King Ahab tolerated it because his heart was wicked, compromising and selfish. Jezebel seized the opportunity by “marrying” a king who was already in moral decline. She opposed the truth of God and persecuted the true prophets because they stood in the way of her immoral behavior and belief system. Her desire was to pollute Israel with idolatrous practices through moral and political takeover. In the end, she was destroyed just as Elijah prophesied it would happen. See 1 Kings 21: 23 & 2 Kings 9: 35-36.

Symbolically Jezebel in the book of Revelations is the name of a woman (a religious system) who pretended to be a prophetess (a spokesman/ woman for God), and claimed Christian “liberty”. Therefore, eating things sacrificed to idols and committing sexual immorality was tolerated and even promoted. Jezebel represents a form of religion but void of power, character, piety, pure devotion to Christ and laced with mixture of the world’s system and unethical politics. It mixes scripture with a worldly ideology to seduce and deceive the people of God. The result is paganism which leads to eternal death. The name Jezebel literally means Baal exalts, Baal is husband to or unchaste. Jezebel in spiritual terms, is a religious system and ideology that is “married” to idolatry, man worship, false prophecy, hedonism, political power and the world. It is unchaste, impure and not the Bride of Christ. It is full of compromise and leaven (false teaching).

“You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and seduces My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.” Revelation 2:20

Here John the revelator is doing something very Jewish. He’s not saying her real name is Jezebel, he is using the name as a characterization of an Old Testament wicked queen to describe a set of behaviors. The same way someone would describe a betrayer as a Judas or a false prophet as a Balaam. Jesus even used animals to characterize evil men such as “A brood of vipers,” King Herod as "that fox" and warning His disciples against "throwing pearls (wisdom) before swine (pig headed people)." Jezebel is the symbolic name of a system of leadership that pretends to speak for God but is full of compromise. Jezebel was the epitome of antinomianism. How do we see this evidenced in some New Testament so called pastors, teachers, apostles and evangelists today? Please allow me to explain.

Antinomianism comes from two Greek words: anti = against & nomos = law. This literally means “against the law.” Under the New Covenant we know that we are not justified by the law but by grace through faith in Christ. However, this does not suggest that we can break the laws of God without consequence.

 In the New Testament, Revelations 2: 20 equates “Jezebel” with sexual immorality, idolatry and spiritual seduction. What this means theologically is: antinomianism is the belief that because we are saved by grace, moral law and living righteously no longer matters for believers. In its extreme form, it says:

• Obedience to scripture isn’t necessary because grace covers all sin: past, present and future

• God’s commandments don’t apply to Christians

• How a believer lives has no real spiritual, moral or ethical consequence

 While the New Testament teaches salvation is by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8–9), some take this truth and push it too far, concluding: “If grace saves us, then conduct doesn’t matter.” The apostles pushed back against this ideology. What they taught in response to this false narrative is as follows:

• Romans 6:1–2 – “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid.”

• James 2:17 – Faith without works is dead

• 1 John 2:3–4 – Knowing Christ is shown by obedience

• Matthew 7:21–23 – Jesus warns about claiming His name without doing the Father’s will Grace does not abolish holiness — it empowers it.

 Christian orthodoxy (faith that lines up with core biblical doctrine) rejects both extremes of legalism and antinomianism. The Biblical middle ground is that we are saved by grace which produces a transformed life evidenced through loving obedience and holy living. Obedience isn’t the root of salvation, faith in Christ’s atoning work is. However, obedience is the fruit of salvation. In plain terms Antinomianism says, “I’m under grace, so how I live doesn’t matter.” The New Testament says: “I’m under grace, so I want to live differently, and His grace empowers me to do it.”

Jezebel is more than a Biblical character-it’s a twisted corrupted belief system that seduces people to fall away from Christian orthodoxy. When spiritual leadership begins to mix grace with spiritual permissiveness and twist scriptures to lead mean away from pure devotion to Christ in any way, shape or form, the result is always deadly.