(1) The daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians.  She became the wife of Ahab, king of Israel, and being of more masculine temperament than the somwhat effeminate monarch, ruled over him, gave him evil counsel, and at last caused his ruin.  She was a devoted worshipper of Baal, and intolerant of all other faiths but her own.  To please her, Ahab had to rear a temple and an altar of Baal, and set up an Ashera (q.v.) (1 Kings xvi. 31-33).  Though legally only the king's consort, and not the ruler of the country, yet she slew all the prophets of Jehovah on whom she could lay hands, and this, apparently on her own responsibility, without asking Ahab's leave (xviii. 4-13).  When she planned the death of Elijah (xix. 1, 2), and afterwards effected the judicial murder of Naboth, she similarly ignored the king's authority, though in the case of the latter crime he must have suspected what was going on, and when he found it out condoned the deed (xxi. 16-22).  On account of these murders and other violations of the moral law, Divine sentence was pronounced against her.  It was said, "The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel" (23).  The prophecy was fulfilled to the letter.  When, after her husband's death, Jehu executed pitiless vengeance on the royal household, Jezebel painted her face, tired her head, and, looking out at a window, called to him as he approached, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?"  On which the man of iron "lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on my side? who?  And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs."  "Throw her down," he cried, and they unhesitatingly obeyed.  She fell in front of his chariot, which he intentionally drove over her, her blood bespattering the horses and the wall.  Then entering a house, probably the palace, he ate and drank, the exciting scenes through which he had passed apparently not spoiling his appetite.  When he had had enough, he suddenly recollected that a piece of business had been neglected, and gave directions to repair the omission.  "See now to this cursed woman," he said, "and bury her, for she is a king's daughter."  On going, they found that the dogs, who with other animals constitute the scavengers of Eastern cities, had been beforehand with them.  They had left no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.  Thus dreadfully was the Divine sentence executed against the wholesale murderess, the blood of whose victims, like that of Abel, cried to Heaven for vengeance (2 Kings ix. 7, 30-37; cf. Gen. iv. 10; ix. 6; Exod. xxi. 12-14; Lev. xxiv. 17).
    (2) A woman at Thyatira who called herself a prophetess, and seduced some members of the Christian Church there to commit "fornication" and eat things sacrificed to idols.  It is possible that Jezebel may have been her symbolic rather than her real name.  If so, it was given because of a resemblance between her and Ahab's idolatrous and wicked queen (Rev. ii. 20, 23). (The Sunday School Teacher's Bible Manual, Hunter, 1894)