2 Kings 8:16-27 - Homiletics

The power of bad women for evil.

All the evil wrought, all the irreligion, all the licentiousness and depravity, and almost all the misery suffered during the reigns of Ahab, Ahaziah, and Jehoram in Israel, and of Jehoram and Ahaziah in Judah, were caused by the machinations and influence of two wicked women—Jezebel and her daughter Athaliah. Jezebel, a proud imperious woman, born in the purple, a "king's daughter;" and extraordinarily strong-minded and unscrupulous, obtained a complete ascendancy over the weak and unstable Ahab, and must be viewed as the instigator of all his wicked actions. With Ahab's connivance, she "slew the prophets of the Lord," persecuted the faithful, set up the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth in Samaria, introduced into Israel the unchaste rites of the Dea Syra and of Adonis, threatened the life of Elijah and drove him into banishment, contrived the judicial murder of Naboth, and imparted to Ahab's reign that character of licentiousness and bloody cruelty which gives it its sad pre-eminence above all others in the black list of Israel's monarchs. Nor did Jezebel's evil influence stop her. She outlived her husband by some thirteen years, and during that period was the evil genius of her two sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram. Ahaziah she completely perverted ( 2 Kings 22:1-20 :52, 53). Over Jehoram she had less influence; but to her we must ascribe it that during his reign the Baal-worship continued in the capital ( 2 Kings 10:25-27 ) and in the country districts ( 2 Kings 10:21 ), though he himself took no part in it ( 2 Kings 3:2 ). Athaliah, though without the strength of mind and will which characterized her mother, resembled her, as a faint replica resembles a strongly painted portrait. Married to Jehoram of Israel, a weak prince, she had little difficulty in establishing her ascendancy over him, and becoming his chief adviser and counselor ( 2 Kings 8:18 ). It was under her direction that Jehoram "made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto" ( 2 Chronicles 21:11 ), or, in other words, established the Baal-worship in Judah and Jerusalem, and forced the inhabitants to embrace it. Over Ahaziah, her son, who was but two and twenty at his accession, her influence was naturally greater. He seems to have been a mere puppet in her hands ( 2 Chronicles 22:3-5 ). With a boldness worthy of her mother, Athaliah, on the death of her son Ahaziah, murdered all his half-brothers, and seized the sovereign power, which she held for six years—a unique feature in the history of the Jews. The Baal-worship was now made to supersede the worship of Jehovah in the temple on Mount Zion, and Mattan, the chief of Baal, was installed in the place previously occupied by the Aaronic high priest ( 2 Chronicles 23:17 ). Jehovah-worship was forbidden, persecuted, and probably ceased, except in secret; and the kingdom of Judah was, so far as appearances went, apostate. Such were the evils wrought by these two ambitious and wicked women. The history of the world, though it can furnish no exact parallels, has many cases more or less similar. Semiramis may be a myth, but Queen Hatasu in Egypt, Queens Atossa and Parysatis in Persia, Olympia in Greece, Messalina and Poppaea Sabina in Rome, Catharine de Medici, and Catherine Empress of Russia, in modern Europe, were women equally imperious, equally determined, and the prolific causes of equal mischief. It would seem that, in the female nature, where the natural impulses are so largely towards good, if these are perverted and Satan allowed the mastery, there is no longer any let or restraint; the passions become ungovernable, the will as iron, the heart hard and unrelenting; evil has unresisted sway, and the result is something even more fearful and terrible than the wickedness of the worst man. Corruptio optimi pessima . Woman's function in the world is to be soft and tender, to smooth down man's roughnesses, to pacify and soothe and mitigate; if she abnegates these functions, and assumes the man's duties of ruling and repressing and bending to her will the stubborn necks of others, she runs counter to her proper nature, and becomes a monstrosity. There is no saying to what lengths of profligacy, cruelty, and other wickedness she may not go. She is worse than a wild beast, and may do infinitely more evil. She may utterly corrupt a society, or she may deluge with blood a continent. She may ruin the country to which she belongs and bring its fairest provinces to desolation. She may stir up hatreds, set class against class , and cause a civil war that shall cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. The only security against all this mischief is for woman not to desert her sphere, but to remain within it, working for God, and doing the good which she was designed to do.