King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were the royal couple of Israel most vilified by later biblical writers,it is ahab who made Israel and its army one of the strongest on the stage of Near Eastern nations and powers in the early ninth century B.C.E.He fortified and beautified the newly founded capital of Israel,Samaria.
(9th Century B.C.E) King and Queen of Samaria.
Archeological excavations show that during his reign cities in various religions of his kingdom were built up so that Israel could withstand attack from neighbouring peoples.His reputation gained the attention of the Phoenicians to the north so that one of their priestkings offered his daughter Jezebel to Ahab in an arrange political marriage.
The Bible records that Ahab fought three or four wars with the dreaded ARAMAEANS and won two of them.The genius of Ahab’s foreign policy seems to be his peacemaking with Judah to the south,the philistines states to the west,and Phoenicia to the north.Conversing his resources and limiting his battle allowed him to concessions from the ARAMAEANS.
The real challenge came from the traditional hot bed of imperial ambition.mesopotamia.Here the fierce Assyrians were mobilizing their forces to re-establish there empire in the western end of the Fertile cresent.Only make shift alliance of all the Kingdom could stand in Assyrians’s way.The Assyrians records tell of a battlefield victory at Qarqar (853 B.C.E) in the orontes Valle,in the coastal region of present-day Syria,but it was not decisive enough for the victors to push on toward their goal.Phoenicia was not even touched,much less Israel.Other minor losses for Israel during this time are reported in the Moabite stone: A small region far to the southeast(Present day Jordan) seceded from the hegemony.
Ahab also knew how run the internal affairs of the state.He relied on the new capital of Samaria to integrate the Non- Israeliests interest groups, chiefly the advocate of Baal and Asherah Worship,while the older city of Jezreel served as the residences to the traditional elements of Israelite culture.This balance suggest that Ahab allowed the building of Foreign Temples,though he showed some wavering attachment to the Israelite God.The explanation of double mindedness , according to the Bible,was his increasing submission to his Phoenicians wife,Jezebel.According to the geologies given in JOSEPHUS and Other Classical sources,She was the great aunt Dido,Banished princess of Phoenicia and legendary founder of CARTHAGE.She was an ardent devotee of baal,working behind the scenes to achieve dominance for her religion and dynasty.She tried to eliminated all traditional Prophets in Israel and plotted against the famous prophet Elijah.
She outlived her husband by 10 years and only died when her personal staff turned against her in the face of a rebellious general.Her son and daughter went on to rule.Ahaziah was king after two years after Ahab’s death;then her son Joram ruled for eight years ;her daughter Athaliah married the king of Judah,then ruthlessly killed all offspring of her own son so that she could rule for six years after her son’s died.
In the biblical account Elijah,the prophet of the Israel,is the unadulterated light that casts the reputation of Ahab and Jezebel into dark shadows.Ahab stands as a pragmatists who compromises his faith and coexists with idolatry,while Jezebel takes on role of a self -willed and idolatrous shrew whose drive for power undermines divinely balanced government.In the new testament ,Jezebel become a types of seductive false prophetess who give license to immorality and idolatry under the cloak of religion.
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