Judah and Israel 189
of his lectures for the next two months, demonstrating all the time that Jezebel was the instigator of Ahab's sins.*8 Her misdeeds are told in the Scriptures. To those there re- counted must be added her practice of attaching unchaste images to Ahab's chariot for the purpose of stimulating his carnal desires. Therefore those parts of his chariot were spattered with his blood when he fell at the hand of the enemy." She had her husband weighed every day, and the increase of his weight in gold she sacrificed to the idol."* Jezebel was not only the daughter and the wife of a king, she was also co-regent with her husband, the only reigning queen in Jewish history except Athaliah."
Hardened sinner though Jezebel was, even she had good qualities. One of them was her capacity for sympathy with others in joy and sorrow. Whenever a funeral cortege passed the royal palace, Jezebel would descend and join the ranks of the mourners, and, also, when a marriage proces- sion went by, she took part in the merry-making in honor of the bridal couple. By way of reward the limbs and or- gans with which she had executed these good deeds were left intact by the horses that trampled her to death in the portion of Jezreel."*
Joram of Israel
Of Joram, the son of Ahab, it can only be said that he had his father's faults without his father's virtues. Ahab was liberal, Joram miserly, nay, he even indulged in usurious practices. From Obadiah, the pious protector of the proph- ets in hiding, he exacted a high rate of interest on the money needed for their support. As a consequence, at his
