he was not the wickedest of the monarchs of Israel, nor was he insignificant as a man.  It was his misfortune to be completely under the influence of his Phoenician bride, as many stronger men than he have been enslaved by women before and since his day.  Ahab, bad as he was, was brave in battle, patriotic in his aims, and magnificent in his tastes.  To please his wife he added to his royal residences a summer retreat called Jezreel, which was of great beauty, and contained within its grounds an ivory palace of great splendor.  Amid its gardens and parks and all the luxuries then known, the youthful monarch with his queen and attendant nobles abandoned themselves to pleasure and folly, as Oriental monarchs are wont to do.  It would seem that he was unusually licentious in his habits, since he left seventy children,—­afterward to be massacred.

The ascendency of a wicked woman over this luxurious monarch has made her infamous.  She was an incarnation of pride, sensuality, and cruelty; and with all her other vices she was a religious persecutor who has had no equal.  We may perhaps give to her, as to many other tiger-like persecutors in the cause of what they call their “religion,” the meagre credit of conscientious devotion in their cruelty; for she feasted at her own table at Jezreel four hundred priests of Baal, besides four hundred and fifty others at Samaria, while she erected two great sanctuaries for the Phoenician deities, at which the officiating priests were clad in splendid vestments.  The few remaining prophets of Jehovah in the kingdom hid themselves in caves and deserts to escape the murderous fury of the idolatrous queen.  We infer that she was distinguished for her beauty, and was bewitching in her manners like Catherine de’ Medici, that Italian bigot whom her courtiers likened both to Aurora and Venus.  Jezebel, like the Florentine princess, is an illustration of the wickedness which is so often concealed by enchanting smiles, especially when armed with power.  The priests of Baal undoubtedly regarded their great protectress as one of the most fascinating women that ever adorned a royal palace, and in the blaze of her beauty and the magnificence of her bounty were blind to her innumerable sorceries and the wild license of her life.

The fearful apostasy of Israel, which had been increasing for sixty years under wicked kings, had now reached a point which called for special divine intervention.  There were only seven thousand men in the whole kingdom who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and God sent a prophet,—­a prophet such as had not appeared in Israel since Samuel; more august, more terrible even than he; indeed, the most unique and imposing character in Jewish history.