I. Name

Daughter of Eth.-Baal, king of Sidon, and wife of Ahab, king of Northern Israel.

She was an active propagator of the Baal cult (1 Kgs. 16.29–33; 1 Kgs. 18.19; 1 Kgs. 19.1–2; 1 Kgs. 21.25; 2 Kgs. 9.30–37), who persecuted the Yahweh prophets (1 Kgs. 18.4). The meaning of her Phoenician name is disputed; mostly interpreted as ‘where is the Prince’, ‘Prince’ being an epithet of Baal (Heb. ʾîzebel, pause form ʾîzābel; LXX-NT: Ιεζαβελ; Josephus: Ιεζαβελη, variant reading Ιεζαβηλα).