Helena Zlotnick, «From Jezebel to Esther: Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible», Vol. 82 (2001) 477-495

Only three royal couples in the HB are seen in direct communication. Of these, two, namely Ahab and Jezebel, Ahasuerus and Esther, contribute unique insights into the interpretative and redactional processes that cast later narratives around themes of earlier stories, and both around the figure of a queen. In this article I explore the hypothesis that the scroll of Esther was shaped as a reversible version of the Jezebel cycle. With the aid of narratives of the early Roman monarchy, a sensitive and sensible reading of the biblical texts relating to Jezebel and Esther demonstrates the constructive process of an ideology of queenship. Underlying both constructs is a condemnation of monarchy in general.

meets his death through a ruse, precisely the same type of stratagem that his wife had employed to secure his happiness.

        In Deuteronomistic narratives when kings commit crimes they are reprimanded by prophets, retract, and are duly punished by YHWH. But when the agent of the ‘crime’ is a woman, a foreigner, and a queen the story gains a twist. The king appears to lose his will and to recede into inactivity. The queen adopts royal tactics and commands the scene. Like David, Jezebel entrusts visibility to trusted brokers. Unlike David, she is never confronted directly either by YHWH or by a prophet. Such privileged mode of communication is solely the right of impious kings.

        To justify in full the elimination of a legitimate monarch (Ahab) and of his legitimate queen the Dtr narrative(s) compound(s) Jezebel’s guilt in the Naboth case with other charges. In a deadly encounter between Jehoram of Israel, Ahazia of Judaea and Jehu, the latter newly anointed by Elisha, Jezebel is accused of sorcery and prostitution (2 Kgs 9,22b). The allegation is puzzling. At redactional level it denotes the full enormity of her impiety. A comparison with Tanaquil, however, hints at a different possibility.

        ‘Expert in the interpretation of celestial signs like most Etruscans’ Tanaquil reinforces her husband’s ambitions and plans by relating tidings from the gods²⁹. Tanaquil’s supernatural gifts, the result of her particular brand of Etruscan religiosity, contribute to her exceptional standing in the palace. The gods communicate their wishes through her interpretative skills, enabling her to serve both the family and the state. Conversely, Jezebel’s ‘magical’ powers emphasize the queen’s blatant violation of Yahwist piety and royal (Dtr) ideology. What Livy construed in Tanaquil’s case as an inordinate and positive brand of religiosity is condemned in the biblical narrative as female ‘sorcery’ and ‘prostitution’³⁰.

        The negative hue firmly attached to Jezebel’s ‘sorcery’, in itself a trait that is never quite demonstrated in the narrative, is best explained within the context of her rivalry with Elijah³¹. In the Elijah sagathe prophet constantly engages in ‘sorcery’ or in miraculous demonstration