1 Kings 19:2

" Then Jezebel sent a messenger ." Not, as we might have expected, to sue for forgiveness, but to threaten reprisals. "She swears and stamps at that whereat she should have trembled" (Hall). There is no hate like's woman's, no wickedness like hers. They never do things by halves.

"Men differ at most as heaven and earth,

But women, best and worst, as heaven and hell."

This woman will not be persuaded though one rose from the dead ( Luke 16:1 ). The fiery sign was lost upon her ("Faith cometh by hearing, not by apparitions"). Ahab witnessed the execution of the priests and was too much awed to prevent it. Jezebel only hears of it, and straightway vows vengeance against its author. "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" ( 1 Timothy 2:14 ).

"The gods do so," etc. This is like much of the profane swearing that we hear, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It costs very little to invoke factitious deities. "The gods she sware by could do her no harm." They had not been able to save their own prophets. Cf. 6:31 .

" If I make not thy life, " etc. The enemies of God's Church and prophets are always chained, and sometimes are infatuate too. They cannot "go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more" ( Numbers 22:18 ). "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord he turneth it whithersoever he will" ( Proverbs 21:1 ). "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" ( 1 Corinthians 3:19 ), and turns the counsel of an Ahithophel into foolishness ( 2 Samuel 15:31 ). The wrath of man is made to praise Him ( Psalms 76:10 ). "Her threat preserved him whom she meant to kill." "It were no living for godly men if the hands of tyrants were allowed to be as bloody as their hearts" (Hall).