There were nineteen kings of Judah from Rehoboam to Zedekiah (1 Kings 12—2 Kings 17). Athaliah is omitted (2 Kings 11:3) because when she usurped the throne, Joash continued the lineage of the house of David to be king in the house of Jehovah. Eight of the kings were proper, doing what was right in the eyes of Jehovah. They removed the idols made by their fathers, and the high places were taken away; but the people still sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places (2 Kings 12:3; 14:3-4; 15:3-4, 34-35), except in the times of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4; 2 Chron. 31:1). They never fully returned to the unique place of God’s choice to serve God.
There were also nineteen kings of Israel from Jeroboam to Hoshea (1 Kings 12—2 Kings 17). Besides Jehu (2 Kings 10:30-31), who did the Lord’s will, but not wholeheartedly, none of the kings were good. In God’s judgment pronounced against them, over twenty times it was mentioned that they “departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin.” The sins of Jeroboam were the making of the golden calves, the high places, and the temples, the ordaining of ones who were not Levites as priests, and the establishing of his own feasts. These sins provoked God to anger and led to the destruction of the nation and captivity.
The rise and fall of the kingdom of God’s people depended on their relationship with God. When they feared God, their nation prospered, and when they departed from God, their nation declined. Whenever God perceived that the kings and the people rebelled against Him and left Him to serve the abominable Gentile idols, He was always kind and enduring. He would send His prophets to warn them in hope of their repentance and return to Himself. It was when the people failed to listen that God’s righteous judgment would come upon them.
Jezebel, who came from the Gentile land of Sidon, was the wife of Ahab the king of Israel. King Ahab allowed Jezebel to persecute those who worshipped Jehovah, lead the people to worship Baal (1 Kings 16:30-32), kill the prophets of Jehovah (1 Kings 18:13), and build the house of Baal. Ahab was also influenced by Jezebel to serve Baal and did more to provoke Jehovah, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him (1 Kings 16:33). He strongly promoted idol worship among the children of Israel, he determined to slay the Lord’s prophet Elijah, and he tolerated Jezebel’s murder of Naboth because Naboth would not give him the inheritance of his fathers. He was the head of the evils of Israel in those days. The Bible says, “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel” (1 Kings 21:25-26). God therefore sent the prophet Elijah to Ahab, saying, “I will bring evil upon thee, and will utterly sweep thee away and will cut off from Ahab every man-child, and him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel....And of Jezebel also spake Jehovah, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel” (1 Kings 21:21-23 ASV).
When Jehoram, son of Ahab, was king, Jehu smote Jehoram with an arrow, and commanded people to throw Jezebel down from the window until her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses. All the seventy sons of Ahab in Samaria and all who remained of his house were also slain, fulfilling the words of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 9:14—10:17).