A Divine Showdown

This reflection is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Haftorah Series. The rest of the content can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Haftorah-Series .

The 9th century was a period of tremendous turmoil for the Northern Kingdom; A period of both civil and divine war as two gods were vying for the sole devotion of the Israelites, both with the most fanatical of supporters.

On one hand there was YHWH, to Whom Solomon's Temple in the south, as well as the northern sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel, would be solely and uncompromisingly dedicated. On the other hand there was the Phoenecian and Canaanite-native deity Baal, the storm god.

When King Ahab of the Omride dynasty took the Phoenecian princess Jezebel for his wife, the tide seemed to turn in Baal's favor:

the Temple of Baal in Palmyra, Syria, dating back to the 3rd millenium BCE!!!

While the narrator voices his displeasure with King Ahab and blames him explicitly for building the altars to Baal, note that this is stated directly after we learn of King Ahab's marriage to Jezebel. And as the narrative continues, it becomes ever clearer that Jezebel is the driving force behind King Ahab's dedication to Baal.

Her zealousness is one of the TaNaKh's most extreme instances of religious fanaticism. As a demonstration of its extent, here is how the narrator of Kings speaks favorably of Obadiah, one of her servants:

Obadiah hiding the prophets

While when we first meet Jezebel, we are not given any explicit reason as to why she would be so singularly and uncompromisingly devoted to Baal, we do have a clue if we read between the lines.

Note Jezebel's father's name: Ethbaal, or "with-Baal," a name similar in construct to Emmanuel, or "with-us-is-El" (Isaiah 7:14).

We don't learn anything more about Ethbaal from the TaNaKh, but there are two passages from the 1st century historical writings of Josephus which together fill in some details:

Even without these texts, we see from Ethbaal's name alone that he, and by extension Jezebel, come from a family devoted to Baal.

We then get more from these passages of Josephus, in which he is relying on the work of Menander of Ephesus, a 2nd-century BCE historian who specialized in Ancient Phoenecia and the Kings of Tyre.

In the first of these passages we see Ethbaal acting as priest and offering supplications during a time of drought; and having his prayers answered. While it does not say which god he offered his supplications to, logic would dictate that it was Baal, known throughout the ancient near-east as the Storm-god of rain and fertility, also known as He-who-rides-on-the-clouds (an epithet which would later be commandeered by YHWH Himself; see for example, Deuteronomy 33:26.)

In the second of the two, we see that Ethbaal was, in fact, a priest even before he was a king! While its true that he served as a priest to a goddess named Astarte, she in turn was but a lesser goddess in a pantheon ruled by Baal, the supreme Phoenecian deity. Servants of Astarte were no less servants of Baal.

more about this can be found in Baal's entry in the Brittannica encyclopedia online: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baal-ancient-deity

the Phoenicians are in purple

What little background we now have goes a long way towards helping us understand the root of Jezebel's zeal, which - without suggesting that having clergy for parents results in fanaticism, of course! - we can speculate she inherited this from her family.

In previous Haftorah Limmuds, we learned about the "radical monotheists," of which Elijah was one of the greatest champions. (see The Nazirites.) How interesting that it is only just after we meet Jezebel that Elijah enters the scene.

Here are the verses above, but with just a bit more context on the end:

Like the name Ethbaal, the name "Elijah" is deeply symbolic, speaking to the role Elijah would play moving forward - "my-god-is-YA(WH).

What follows is one of the most dramatic showdowns in the TaNaKh, which evokes ancient epics in which one people's hero issues a brazen and open challenge to the opposition.

Recall, for example, how the stage was set for David's take-down of Goliath:

below: Baal statue, in the Hecht museum in Haifa

In the case of Elijah, he certainly knows how to one-up Goliath. While it was customary, as Goliath did, for one champion to challenge the best of what the enemy can produce, Elijah declared that in representing YHWH, he can single-handedly take on all that those with loyalty to Baal can throw at him:

Elijah then proceeds to taunt the hundreds of prophets of Baal every single step of the way, making both them and their god, the mighty King of the Phoenecian and Canaanite divine pantheon, seeming utterly foolish, as they pitifully beg Baal to accept their offering while nothing happens.

And then finally, when the representative of Baal collapse due to exhaustion and blood-loss, Elijah steps forward:

Remember what Jezebel had done to the prophets of YHWH? Well at this moment, with popular opinion on his side, Elijah seizes the opportunity and returns the favor:

I imagine that this must have been a terrifying time for the northern Israelites. From one day to the next, you could never know which god you would be sentenced to death for serving! For a short while, it seemed like Jezebel and Ahab brought finality to this question. But then suddenly, Elijah, the long-haired wild-man, emerges from the desert and challenges their dominance; and in one fell swoop, the prophets of Baal are being publicly executed by the hundreds.

Our Haftorah is the aftermath of this showdown at Mount Camel. Ahab reports to Jezebel what had transpired, and she sends a message of fury to Elijah saying that he will pay for his life.

All of this seems to have taken an enormous toll on Elijah, who flees all the way to Beersheva (!!!), and seems intent to starve himself due to a combination of fatigue and frustration. It seems that as long as Jezebel and Ahab reigns, he will be hunted, and the people will continuously be pulled back towards Baal. When God asks him why he's in Beersheva, we get a sense of the depth of his exhaustion in his response:

below: Elijah's route when fleeing Jezebel, starting from Mt. Carmel towards the top-left. The location of Mt. Horeb is pure speculation; we really have no idea where it is.

Elijah has been such a fierce warrior for the Almighty; But he is now showing that he has reached his limit. And so he is tasked with appointing his successor, who will continue the same struggle when Elijah moves on, as well as a new Israelite king to replace the disaster that is the Omride-dynasty:

While Elijah does not get around to anointing King Jehu, he does almost immediately appoint Elisha, and it is Elisha who will arrange for the anointing of Jehu. Elisha and Jehu then initiate what might be the bloodiest purge throughout the TaNaKh, in which they try to bring the Baal and YHWH struggle to an end, once and for all; a feat that could not be done without deceit and tremendous bloodshed.

below: Jezebel looking down her window at Jehu and his attendants, moments before her death

These were certainly dark and violent times, when champions on both sides felt like the very soul of the nation was at stake.

As fate, chance, or indomitable will (you decide) would have it, our god YHWH would win the day. As far as I know, there has not been a single person devoted to Baal in thousands of years, and Elijah is considered one of our greatest heroes of old, of whom we sing, invite to our celebrations, and anticipate his coming back to herald the next Davidic King.

Personally, as someone who believes that by virtue of being an Israelite I have a personal relationship with YHWH Whom I try to fear, to love, and constantly pester with my prayers daily, I cannot help but look back with pride on His having been able to overcome divine obstacles and ultimately wrest our devotion away from Baal.

But of course, the cost was high. And we have no way of knowing when our ancient heroes were truly doing His will, or when they either misunderstood, or maybe hastily reacted in a way that He never actually sanctioned.

And so here's the question I'll leave you with; In light of how things played out in the TaNaKh, does it seem like the bloodshed that was done in the name of YHWH, at least during the days of Elijah and Elisha, was inevitable? Or, could His champions have reasonably pursued the goal of winning over the Israelites by other means?

Of course none of us can know the answer. We are conjecturing about the ancient near east, which compared to our world today, may as well have been a whole different universe! But I find that the thought-experiments that such questions evoke can oftentimes be deeply meaningful and worthwhile.