2 Kings 11:1-16 - Homiletics

Athaliah and Jezebel, the wicked daughter and the wicked mother.

It has often been noted that, while women are, as a general rule, better than men, in the cases where they enter upon evil courses their wickedness exceeds that of their male associates. The character of Lady Macbeth is true to nature. Wicked women are more thorough-going than wicked men, more bloody, more daring, more unscrupulous. In Athatiah we have a sort of repetition of Jezebel—a second picture on the same lines—the picture of a fierce, ambitious, utterly unscrupulous woman, occupying much the same station as her mother, equally powerful, equally unsparing, and equally remorseless. Both women are represented as—

I. DEVOTEES OF THE SAME SENSUOUS AND IMMORAL CULT . Jezebel introduces the Baal and Ashtoreth worship into Israel; Athaliah into Judah. Each defiles the capital of her adopted country with a temple to Baal—a temple where images of Baal are set up, altars erected to him, and sacrifices offered to him. Each brings with her into her new home the Baal priesthood, and installs it in power.

II. OPEN ANTAGONISTS OF JEHOVAH . Jezebel persecutes the Jehovistic prophets, slaying as many as she can, and threatening the life even of Elijah ( 1 Kings 18:4 ; 1 Kings 19:2 ). Athaliah stops the temple-worship at Jerusalem, has breaches made in the temple walls, and gives to Baal the offerings which properly belong to Jehovah ( 2 Chronicles 24:7 ).

III. MURDERESSES . Jezebel, of Naboth ( 1 Kings 21:8-14 ) and of the Jehovistic prophets ( 1 Kings 18:4 ); Athaliah, of "all the seed royal of the house of Judah" ( 2 Chronicles 22:10 ).

IV. EAGER TO GRASP AND WIELD SOVEREIGN POWER . Jezebel governs Ahab ( 1 Kings 21:25 ), uses his signet ( 1 Kings 21:8 ), orders executions ( 1 Kings 18:4 ; 1 Kings 21:10 ), and the like. Athaliah governs Jehoram ( 2 Kings 8:18 ) and Ahaziah ( 2 Chronicles 22:3 ), and then seizes the royal power, and actually rules Judaea ( 2 Kings 11:3 ). Athaliah is, on the whole, the bolder of the two, and the more unscrupulous; since to destroy the entire seed royal, including several of her own grandchildren, was a more atrocious and unnatural deed than any committed by Jezebel; and the actual assumption of the royal name and power, in spite of her sex, was a more audacious proceeding than any on which her mother ventured. But her audacity verged on rashness, which cannot be said of Jezebel She brought her fate upon herself; Jezebel succumbed to an inevitable stroke of adverse fortune. There was weakness in Athaliah's half-measures after she became queen, in her suffering Jehoiada to retain so much liberty and so much power, and still greater weakness in her unsuspiciousness. We cannot imagine Jezebel, if she had ever been actual queen, allowing herself to be put down in the way that Athaliah was. She would at least have made a fight for her life, instead of walking straight into a trap, which was what Athaliah did. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat is an old saying. Athaliah's folly at the last can only be accounted for by an infatuation, which may have been a Divine judgment on her.