40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Kings 9:14-37 (Episode 332)

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Jehu is riding like a madman and there is no peace in his path for idol worshippers. There is land that still belongs to Naboth. And Jezebel hurls insults out a window before being hurled out herself. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! HWSS Livestream Signup 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you register, not for the conference because you can't do that because it's sold out, but you can register for the live stream. You want to get that conference streaming on your tablet, on your cell phone, on your laptop. You want to do that Apple Play and throw it on your smart TV, dim the lights, feel like you're right there at the conference. You know, turn the surround sound way up.

You know, get as full a conference experience as you possibly can. You can do all of that for free just by clicking the link that says live stream. And you just throw your email address in there, and we will send you a link. It costs you nothing. There's also a link in the show notes. It'll say HWSS live stream. Just click on that, and you get taken care of. chad we ended last week in second kings chapter nine uh we have uh we have a new king yeah yeah

we've got a we've got a new king while we still have an old king we have two kings yeah which is never good yeah you're not gonna have two kings very i don't care what the situation is if you have two kings you will not have two kings for long because one is gonna one of them is no longer going to be a king because he's going to be dead two kings seems like no king until one of those kings dies yeah pretty much yeah that's that's that's all not in the way it works in the bible but uh in history in history as well that's what that you know heads uh if you have two heads one gets chopped off that's right i mean they even they even say this in sports it's a very common saying in football uh when there's a quarterback controversy and they can't decide who the

quarterback is and they say oh we're going to just kind of play them both and stuff and analysts will say if a team has two quarterbacks they have no quarterback there you go until until you until you pick one like you don't actually have one yeah same applies here so from the divine perspective of course you only have one king because uh yahoo just got anointed as uh the the prophet instructed and as the prophet was instructed by god but uh the other king doesn't realize that but he's about to find out the the hard way the fatal way we might say so uh yahoo yahoo however you want to say his name j-e-h-u is our guy he uh he has been a military leader up to this point and he has just been anointed by a a servant of elisha the prophet who is referred to

as a madman you know the prophets they did kind of have this reputation for for not being your ordinary kind of folks so he goes up to where yahoo's at with his with his comrades calls yahoo away from anybody else anoints him and then skedaddles takes off runs runs away because presumably he knows things are about to to happen that he does not want to be present for and then when yahoo comes back in he tries to kind of blow the the visit off like it's no big deal but his comrades are like no no no what happened and he tells them and that's the moment of decision for them are they going to rally around him are they going to rally around their other king and oppose yahoo well they rally around their friend and they put their garments down blow the trumpet

and say yahoo is king so now we have to see what what happens afterward so 914 second kings 914 kind of rehearses everything that has just happened it says thus yahoo the son of jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. So, Joram is the second king, and as we pointed out before, Joram is also called Jehoram. They're just alternative spellings for the same person. Now, Joram, with all Israel, had been on guard at Ramoth Gilead against Haziel, king of Syria, but King Joram had returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that the Syrians had given him when he fought with Haziel, king of Syria. All that's kind of in parentheses in your Bible. This is a way of, as it were, recapping everything that just happened.

So the king of the north is Joram or Jehoram. He's been at this battle with the Syrians. He gets wounded in his chariot. And so he is healing of his wounds in a place called Jezreel. And now we're going to pick up the story to see what Yehu says to everybody else. He says, well, if this is your decision, if this is what you want to do, then here's what I am asking of you don't let anybody slip out of the city to go and tell the news in Jezreel in other words if you're actually going to support me as king in this coup that I'm

about to begin then don't let anybody out of the city because if they do could they could go of course and warn Joram before we get there so Yehu gets in his chariot and he heads to Jezreel where Joram the second king is healing of his wounds and then we're also told in verse 16 reminded in verse 16, about the king from the south. So the king of Judah, a guy named Ahaziah, he is also there as well. These guys were going to battle together against the Syrians. So everybody's coming together. You've got Yehu, who is the newly appointed king, the one who's going to be the sword of the Lord. You've got the erstwhile king of the north, Jehoram, who's wounded and healing, and you have Ahaziah. So you have three kings, basically. You have two kings in the north,

you have the king of the south. They're all coming to this same place. Now, verse 17 introduces us to what happens when Yehu and his party of soldiers are approaching from the distance toward Jezreel. There's a guy in a watchtower, a watchman in a watchtower, and he sees this company of soldiers coming. So he hollers down and says, hey, I see a company coming. And the king, Joram, says, well, take a horseman and go out and meet him and basically ask if everything's okay. Literally, is it peace? Is it shalom? That's just a typical idiomatic phrase in Hebrew that it means, is everything okay? So is it shalom? Is everything okay? Is it peace? So in other words, there's no suspicion of this point that this party that's coming up there is a war party.

There's certainly no suspicion that Yehu is heading this group that's about to initiate a whole bloodbath. They're just asking, is everything okay? So this horseman goes out there, meets him and says, hey, the king wants to know if everything is okay. Is it peace? Yehu responds, what do you have to do with peace turn around and ride behind me this you can pick it up in english you can pick it up in hebrew as well there's there's a very uh there's a sharp edge to the tone here he's kind of like peace what are you talking about shut up get behind me that's kind of the it's kind of the whole tone of this so the guy on the horse is like uh-oh i i guess looks like i better uh i better choose sides here so i'm gonna i'm gonna get on yahoo's side

And that's exactly what he does. So the watchman reported, hey, the messenger reached these guys, but he's not coming back. So verse 19 tells us that he sent out a second horseman. And this, by the way, is that we see this pattern all over the Bible, not just in the Bible, but in other literature as well, where you'll have three things happening or three people experiencing something. And the first two people or the first two happenings

are basically carbon copies one another. And it's the third where you have things change up. So same thing that's going to happen here. When the second horseman gets out there, we have a repeat of the exact same thing that happened the first time. So he gets there, he says, hey, the king wants to know if everything's okay.

And Yahoo answers basically the same thing. what do you have to do with peace turn around and ride behind me and sure enough that's exactly what happens uh and the watchman who's watching all this go down says he reached them but he's not coming back either and then he adds this detail so throughout this narrative we feel like we're kind of getting to know yahoo a little bit better well we're about to we're going to learn a little bit more about his driving personality there because the watchman adds after the second horseman doesn't come back he says oh and by the way the driving is like the driving of yahoo the son of nimshi because he drives furiously in hebrew by the way this is this word translated

furiously is the same word translated earlier as madman like the prophet who came to anoint him uh they're like what's that madman all about so you could also translate this that the watchman says from what i can tell it's yahoo because i can tell by the way he's driving he's driving like a madman so that's got to be that's got to be who this is it's very aggressive uh with the driving huh yeah it must have been yeah aggressive uh you know driving really uh crazily fast whatever it was you could tell by the way he drove his chariot as to uh what his identity was so uh this kind of leads us up to the the third so the first two situations are basically the same the messenger gets there yahoo says what he says the messenger get joins the group so joram the

king says make ready and so they made his chariot ready so the king himself is going to go out there fate on the stake of course so joram the king of israel and he wasn't by himself ahaziah the king of judah each of these guys each of these two kings one from the north one from the south they each mount their chariots and together they go out to meet yahoo and then we have this geographical detail added which of course is theologically pregnant because it says they met him where not just on the field not just outside the city but they met him at the property of naboth the jezreelite

so why is that why is that full of meaning because of course if you have been listening for a while you remember that naboth the jezreelite is the Naboth that owned the vineyard that Ahab coveted and that he wanted to buy. And Naboth says, no, I can't give up the property of my ancestors. And so what does Jezebel do, Ahab's wife? Jezebel arranges this whole scenario where Naboth is accused of blaspheming God and the king. Naboth is subsequently stoned to death, and then his property is seized by the crown. So that's where this is all going down.

And the reason this is important is because then the prophet showed up and he announced a curse that was to befall the house of Ahab because of what they had done to Naboth. So if you know all that background, you know the fact that they're meeting at that very property where the blood of Naboth, the murdered victim, has soaked into the ground and where this curse, impending curse was pronounced, you know that something big is about to happen. It's interesting, too, that it still refers to—I mean, Naboth is dead. I mean, he was stoned to death. But the author here still refers to this as his property. Oh, yeah, that's a great point. That's right. It doesn't say the property of the king. It's the property of Naboth. As far as God is concerned, this property belongs to Naboth.

yeah yeah reminds me of uh uh back in back in second samuel in the whole david bathsheba uriah thing at some point like after uriah is dead uh bathsheba is still called the wife of uriah the hittite is does matthew one say that does matthew one call call uh bathsheba the the wife of the wife of uriah i think that's right i think it does you're wrong about that yeah yeah david oh yeah okay yeah and to david was born solomon uh by her the wife of uriah yeah even even after all that time that's still how how she is she's referred to so uh yeah similar similar uh situation here so we know uh things are about to get crazy here because of everybody coming together at the place where they do come together so verse 22 says that when joram saw yahoo he said kind of the same

thing as is the messenger said is it peace yahoo is everything okay it's not it's not peace dude like the uh this response is like this it's not this i mean this burns bad in a uh i mean if you're gonna say it in less less words like no it's definitely not peace but he says it differently than that this is much more creatively it does yeah he could have just simply said nope nope And then killed him. But that will not suffice for Yehu. He's got a response. He's got a pretty cutting response.

This is one of those extremely memorable responses that we have in the Old Testament. So Joram comes out. And just by way of reminder, Joram is the son of Ahab and Jezebel. So he comes out and says, Is it Pishah? Is everything cool between us? Everything all right? And Yehu answers him,

what peace can there be so long as the whorings and sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many. Oh, wow. I mean, I don't care when you live, where you live. I don't care about any of the details. If somebody calls your mom, both a whore and a sorceress to your face. Yeah. That's a, that's, that's, that's pretty sharp. um now so many whorings and sorceries so yeah in the plural right whorings and sorceries of your mother jezebel are so many how can there be peace what peace can there be so long as your mom

is uh doing her whorings and her sorceries now uh as readers of the old testament realize uh jezebel was not actually running a brothel the whorings that are referred to here are the all of the idolatries which uh were were assisted by jezebel which were promulgated by jezebel i mean she grew up as a worshiper of baal and asherah that was just what her people did uh and so when she married into the israelite family when she married ahab she just brought all that with her just like all the wives of solomon did so she brings this in and so you know as we know from many narratives i mean she was she was fierce she was a zealous advocate for baal and asherah she's one who wanted to kill Elijah. That's the reason he fled all the way down to Horeb. She made that

vow to end his life after he took out her prophets of Baal. So that's the whorings that she's been doing, all of this rampant idolatry in the land. Sorceries is often connected with idolatry. If you go to Nahum chapter 3 verse 4, there's a reference to both those things being used there. isaiah twice and then micah also mentioned sorcery as a connection with idolatry uh no details are given as to how this worked but the basic idea is there you're you're you're already enmeshed in the dark forces when you're engaged in idolatry all these dark forces of evil would use idols as their front and so sorceries would just kind of you know just throw in that as well along with your with your idolatry well you know i mean when you're talking about actual

idols, not like we all have idols, but when you're talking about idols that are gods with other names, I mean, Paul will expressly say, this is the worship of demons, right? That sounds like sorcery. Yeah, yeah, precisely. Yeah, it's different, right? I mean, if you think of money as an idol, okay, money is an idol, yeah, but if you're worshiping Baal, Asherah, Hamesh I mean all of these other idols of the ancient ancient world then what you're looking at is basically a mask

for the demons well there are accidental idols and by accident I don't mean that you're without guilt for worshipping them because to worship them you have not you know loved and feared and trusted God above all things

but you would that's different than than actually carving something up, naming it a god, and then bowing down to worship and saying outright, like, this is my god. Most people that worship money won't tell you that, and they're not trying to convert people to it. I mean, of course, we can identify things in our own lives

and other people and say, this seems to be their god. they wouldn't say that but Jezebel has no problem saying that these are her gods yeah this is not only explicit but it is willful this is exactly what she wants to do yes

I don't know what kind of reputation Jehu has as a guy I'm not exactly sure I'm assuming he has a reputation of someone who is not to be messed with because typically when someone insults your

mother in this way, if you're just dealing with some guy, then you have to go and defend your mother's honor and all this kind of stuff, and this is the queen, so maybe these two guys need to get off their chariots and have it out right here. Not so. Joram

is totally freaked out. Yeah. He knows exactly what's happening. I mean, these words leave J. Hugh's lips and he is like on the run he's on the run yeah it says he he reigned about so of course he's in his chariot so he uh he turns that chariot around as fast as he can takes off yelling all the while he's doing this to the other king to his eye treachery oh hey isaiah so in other words you

better get out of here because i know this guy he has the reputation and uh violent things are just are about to happen right now so if you if you aren't if you if you like life you better get out of here as quick as possible turn your chariot around to whip it around get out of there it's not it's not in other words it's not peace not peace yeah not not shalom that's happening here and uh are they going to get away i guess we'll find out verse 24 says that yahoo drew his bow with his full strength and shot Jorah between the shoulders so that the arrow pierced his heart and he sank in his chariot. So he shot him in the back.

There was nothing chivalrous about this. There's nothing like, you know, they're going to have a good old-fashioned gentleman's duel here after he's insulted his mom. And Jehu is out there to take him out, period. And so he shoots him in the back. The guy falls down into his chariot, uh either dies immediately or dies uh shortly thereafter so yahoo says to one of his sidekicks

a guy named bidkar kind of a cool name bidkar he said to bidkar his aid take him up and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to naboth the jezreelite so of course this is the naboth we were just talking about. So get his body. Evidently, his horse stopped, and they went to his chariot, picked up his body, and Bidkar is going to just toss him on this plot of ground. But Yehu has something else to add. This is a detail to which we were not privy. It was kind of, you know, it was saved for this moment, in fact. And once we hear this, we're like, oh, see another little side here of Yehu's history. Because Yehu goes on to say to Bidkar, Remember, remember when you and I rode side by side behind Ahab, his father, and how the Lord made this pronouncement against him.

That word pronouncement could also be translated oracle. So this is an official oracle, the pronouncement that the Lord made. That Yehu and Bidkar both heard when they were with Ahab. and he quotes as surely as i saw the blood of naboth and the blood of his sons declares the lord i will repay you on this plot of ground so that's what he reckoned that's what he remembers hearing and then he then he goes on to say to bidkar so take him up throw him on the plot of ground in accordance with the word of the lord so way back when uh when ahab of course with the help of jezebel she's really the one who orchestrated the whole thing but when all this

happened it turns out that yahoo and bidkar were around they saw this happen they knew what they knew what ahab did to naboth they heard what the prophet said to to the king and now they're seeing the the that prophecy come come to pass and so they're going to they're going to leave his body unburied which of course was a not only a grave insult in the uh in the ancient world but of course, would be a grave insult today, just to kind of leave a body to rot on the ground. But that's what they're going to do. Now, another interesting detail that we have not heard before is when he says, quoting God, he says, as surely as I saw yesterday, the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. Now, there was no mention whatsoever of the bloodshed of Naboth's sons

back when this was recorded so either they're kind of handing up the story or uh things happened that we were not told about not only naboth died but the sons as well yeah perhaps uh naboth you know what they were like well perhaps they said we got to take out naboth but we got to take out those who would inherit this land as well they just take out everybody yeah yeah it's the old the parable of the tenants, right? Yeah. There's the son. Look, there's the son.

Let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours. Yeah, if you're going to steal an inheritance, you better make sure that you take out all the heirs as well. So it would make sense. I mean, if they're going to kill one guy in cold blood, then why would they not also kill several people in cold blood if they were going to go that way? You're also trying to limit any potential retaliation for such a thing too.

Yeah, yeah. And we'll see in the next chapter that Yehu does the same thing with any possible connection that somebody has to the house of Ahab. If you have that, chances are you're going to be dead pretty quick because Yehu is going to either personally take you out or get somebody else to do that. But remember, back in this whole situation that's happening here, that you have another king. you've got Yehu the new king the usurper not really usurper he's the one that God sent to do this so he's the new divinely appointed king and Joram Jehoram is now dead his body's disposed but you had another king of the king of the south Ahaziah what's going to happen to him well he's not going to get away either because Ahaziah when he sees all this happening he he he takes off he turns his chariot in the direction of a place called Beth Hagan, the house of Hagan. And Yehu pursued

him and says, shoot him too. And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent of Gur, which is by Iblium. He fled to Megiddo, so he didn't, he was just wounded, but he's able to make it to Megiddo. Megiddo is in the same area. So you had the Valley of Jezreel, which stretches from uh east to west it connects to mediterranean coast to uh to the jordan valley uh the most fertile part of israel and in the valley of jezreel you have the city of jezreel but you also have megiddo so they're i mean they're just a few miles apart so he he leaves from jezreel and he's wounded along the way makes it all the way to megiddo but his wound was serious enough to where once he got to megiddo he died perished from his uh his uh his wound and so he at least

had a proper burial we're told that his servants carried him in a chariot back south east to jerusalem and there they buried him in the tomb with his fathers in the city of david so unlike his northern counterpart at least ahaziah had a proper proper burial then we have this odd ending to the to this section in the 11th year of joram the son of ahab ahaziah began to reign over judah it seems like the verse seems kind of weirdly out of place because these are the guys we just talked about. It's like they forgot to put that part in

so they throw it on the end there. Should have opened with that. We'll end with it. Yeah, well, there's a little space left on the scroll, so we'll just add it at this point. So, at this point anyway, Yehu has taken out

two kings. He's on a roll here. He's taking out the king of the north, taking out the king of the south now why would he take out the king of the south well probably because this guy was uh teamed up with uh with the northern king and uh they were they were they were going to battle together they're both related one to another uh and the king of the king of the south by participating with this idolaters idolaters king in the north is also then going to face the same penalty that the king in the north also faced so if you have any connection whatsoever to Ahab's family, then your life's in danger. That's the general thrust of

this whole narrative. Okay, now we're at verse 30, and we're going to hear about what happens to everybody's favorite female character in the Bible, Jezebel. So, Yehu comes to Jezreel, and Jezebel hears about it. We don't know everything that she's heard, but she has certainly heard enough well this interesting detail added to we're told that she she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window as yahoo is pulling up in his chariot most commentators uh will say and i think i have to agree at this point that the narrator adds this point as a way of kind of throwing even more shade on Jezebel, because the act of painting her eyes is used elsewhere in the Old Testament for what a prostitute would do. So it kind of, of course,

it fits with the accusation that Yehu made earlier when he talked about the whorings and the sorceries of Jezebel. And so here, true to that, she paints her eyes and adorned her head when she looked out the window at Yehu. And she's got her own little salty speech here. If Yehu had some sharp words to say about her, well, she's not at a loss for words herself. Yehu entered the gate, and as he goes into the city, she's looking down from her window.

And by the way, this had to have been an upper story window, as we're going to find out in just a minute. This is not like she's on the bottom floor and she's opened a window and she sees him. She's, I'm guessing, at least third floor up. This has to be a tall building because of what we'll hear in a moment. So she's looking down. As soon as Yehu comes in, she says, is it peace? She used that same word there.

Is it peace? Then she has this, you Zimri, murderer of your master. now you know like any insult if you don't know the context uh or if it's a certain idiom of a language then you might not quite get it but zimri you may recall or may not this is way back in first kings chapter 16 so a few episodes ago but zimri was uh what one commentator calls the seven day wonder so zimri was uh zimri staged a coup he he killed the king and then uh he reigned as king himself for a whopping seven days before he himself was was killed taken out by uh by omri omri being the very founder of the dynasty of which jezebel is now a part so when she calls

him a zimri uh she's saying uh is it peace you you seven day wonder you you're a murderer just like just like zimri is and of course by implication she's also saying and your reign will last just as long as emery's did seven days yeah you know you're you're someone special when your name just becomes an insult by itself yeah yeah yeah you're you have reached the level of infamy uh when when your name becomes prop a proper insult to give to someone so is it peace you, Zimri? Murderer of your master? And Yehu just, he doesn't

even respond directly to that. He looks up. Ceaser there at the window. And he says, who's on my side? Who? By the way, this is such a confident move

to make. This is Makhutzpah here. This is some brazen confidence. Did you just know everything is going to go the way I want it to go so that you get this, you know, she comes out with this big burn insult on you and this is as good of a response if it works out for you as you could possibly have. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody up there on my side, anybody, who, anybody else?

And then we're told that two or three eunuchs looked out at him. Eunuchs were very commonly in the ancient world court officials. So these are probably, you know, they're close to Jezebel, so obviously they're in the service of the crown. And you can see this whole scene. She's way up there, you know, she's taking this whole look about her, and she's giving Yehu this tongue lashing. And all of a sudden, two or three other heads pop out. There's a face, there's a couple other faces. So you get two or three eunuchs that hear Yahoo and they look down at him.

And his response is three words, throw her down. It's more confidence, right? Throw her down. And that is exactly what they did. So these two or three eunuchs who were looking down threw her down, grabbed her and tossed her out the window. uh not not an uh not an unknown historical thing to happen i for the life of me now i'm forgetting the the situation but uh there's a situation in history where the same thing happened to uh to

another official so they throw throw him down and this is the reason i said it had to be farther up than the first or second floor because we're told that when she hit some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses and they they trampled on her so uh gruesome gruesome death uh and her body is treated with basic contempt just laying there in the street so that the horses trample on her well and you see this contempt and just dude jehu is just really feeling his oats here too because that happens and then i mean verse 34 is just then he went in and ate and drank yeah just doesn't care just goes right in sits down and uh starts to have his have his meal then and some time i guess passes and uh verse 35 says uh that uh or verse 34 says

he said uh it's like he just kind of he's like oh yeah yeah i just remembered what happened to jezebel he so he says to some of his servants seen out of this this cursed woman and bury her for she's a king's daughter now that uh is an odd thing to say only because he knows what exactly has been prophesied of her so he it's like he forgets temporarily what is actually to befall her body but anyway that's what he says uh see to this cursed woman bury her because after all i mean she does uh she does come from royalty she is a king's daughter well verse 35 says they went out to to find her and to bury her uh but they didn't find much to bury they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands it's not much left and they go back

inside and they they tell yahoo what what happened and he said oh this is the word of the lord which he spoke by his servant elijah the tishbite in the territory quote in the territory of jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field and the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, this is Jezebel. That last phrase, no one can say this is Jezebel, probably means that, you know, there can't be any, there can't be, there's not gonna be like a grave or tomb of Jezebel, where perhaps those who are still loyal to that line can, as it were, use it as a rallying point. This, by the way, is not uncommon either. Back when the last czar, when his family was murdered, the Bolsheviks

destroyed the bodies so that they couldn't be found. And then if you read about the martyr Polycarp in the early church, the Romans destroyed his body, burned his body, specifically so that they could not have his body and bury his body and have that grave as a meeting place to the Christians. So the total demolition of bodies and removal of them so they can't be buried is something that has happened probably many other times. And that's kind of what happens here with Jezebel. It's an insult to her. It's divine punishment that befalls her because of everything that she that she has done so that in the end even her body is not buried but instead gets consumed by the the wild dogs that roam the the streets back then yeah you have to assume that

it was it was been laying there for a second yeah yeah for that either that or i don't know how many dogs there are and how hungry they are but it must have been quite the pack yeah yeah it's a as everyone realizes this is a this is a gruesome gruesome part of the story um but it's it's also the fulfillment of prophecy it's a gruesome end often comes to those who uh engaged in gruesome acts during their life and jezebel certainly did i mean that's a reason that when uh still today you know if someone thinks of even if they don't know the bible they know that jezebel is not a good name right jezebel has it's it that too unlike zimri who was known back then nobody knows who zimri is today but people still do know who jezebel is today and she becomes so uh

proverbial proverbially evil that uh revelation mentions the jezebel right uh so yeah this is uh this is one of those characters that is larger than life in a in a very negative sort of way Yeah, I mean, Jezebel is now, as much as, I mean, I suppose, you know, you look at this and you say Zimri is an insult just by saying the name. Jezebel says that to Jehu, but throughout history, Zimri, that one's been forgotten. But her name is an insult to this day. Yeah. Yeah, and I think, again, if people don't know the biblical story and they think about a Jezebel, most people associate that with someone who is sexually promiscuous. And that's interesting also changed, too, because, of course, in the biblical story, there's never any indication that the Jezebel herself is an adulteress or sexually promiscuous or anything like that.

Instead, what you have, of course, is her engaging in and promulgating spiritual adultery. by leading the Israelites into the worship of Baal and Asherah. Yeah, she's a hyper-idolater. Yeah, that's right. That's a great way to think about it. She's a hyper-idolater who not only engaged in idolatry. I mean, of course, that's bad enough. But did everything.

She's one of those few characters who, I mean, we have a lot of people who engage in idolatry in the Old Testament who are rulers, kings and queens. But she takes things to the utmost extreme by also wanting to completely destroy any chance that someone has to be a worshiper of Yahweh. Yeah, I think what sets her apart is not the fact that she worships false gods, which, of course, tons and tons of people do, but her opposition to God. Some of these other kings are like, we're going to worship the Baals and stuff. I mean, if you want to worship Yahweh, whatever.

They're sort of this indifferent, and they just sort of have this pantheon of gods. They're just kind of letting whoever do whatever they want. Jezebel is diametrically opposed to Yahweh. Yeah. Yeah. She's kind of like the, she would be the counterpart to someone who was like, well, she's kind of a counterpart to Yehu actually, because, you know, he's a, he's kind of, he's got this zeal, right? Zeal for the Lord. Well, she has zeal too. She has zeal for Baal. She has zeal for Asherah. So, I mean, I suppose you could call her as someone engaged in syncretism, but it's a very selective syncretism because she does not want Yahweh to be worshipped whatsoever. She destroys his prophets, she destroys his altars, she does everything that she can to annihilate that. And because of that, she ranks up there with the worst of the worst in the Old Testament,

not because of sexual promiscuity, but because of theological promiscuity, as well as persecution and murder of the Lord's prophets. Yeah, that's right. And we will leave it right there. We are out of time. We will be back next week. J.U.'s not done with his lack of peace. There's going to have to be a lot more bloodshed before maybe someone gets some peace around here. So we will be back next week to discuss that.

Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then. I can't take it