2 Kings 9:30

And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it,.... And of what he had done to Joram: and she painted her face; or put "stibium" on her eyes; a sort of paint, to make them look beautiful

And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window.

Either hoping that by her majestic dress and carriage she might strike Jehu or his followers with such an awe, that they should not offer any injury to her person; or rather, because perceiving her case to be desperate, and that she could not live, was resolved to die with honour and gallantry.

2 Kings 9:30 And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard [of it]; and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window.Ver. 30. And she painted her face.] Heb., She put her eyes in painting, τιγ, φυκος, fucus. This she did ad conciliandum regiam maiestatem, to show herself to Jehu in majesty and royal brightness; for she was extremely proud and arrogant to her very last, and now she would show what a brave spirit she had in this her desperate condition: and that if she must die, she would die in her gaiety. Peter Martyr here compareth the Pope of Rome to Jezebel in sundry particulars. And besides Pope Joan, an arrant whore, Pope Sylvester and others of them, great magicians; we read of Pope Paulus Venetus, that, Jezebel-like, he painted himself, desired to seem a woman, and was called the goddess Cybele. It was, therefore, a witty answer of a certain painter, who, when he was asked by a cardinal why he coloured the visages of Peter and Paul so red, tartly he replied, I paint them so, as blushing at the lives of their successors. Inunge oculos tuos non stibio diabolico, sed collyrio Christi. - Cypr. Ad animositatem ostentandam. - A Lap. Plut., in Vit. Adrian.

(30) And when Jehu was come.—Rather, And Jehu came—i.e., after the slaughter of Ahaziah, as the Hebrew construction implies. Jezebel heard of it.—Rather, Now Jezebel had heard—scil., the news of the death of the two kings. There should be a stop after Jezreel. And she painted her face.—Rather, and she set her eyes in paint—i.e., according to the still common practice of Oriental ladies, she painted her eyebrows and lashes with a pigment composed of antimony and zinc (the Arabic kohl). The dark border throws the eye into relief, and makes it appear larger (Bähr). Pliny relates that in his day this pigment (stibium) was called platyophthalmon (comp. Jeremiah 4:30), because it dilates the eye (Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 34). Tired.—An old English word, meaning adorned with a tire or head-dress. (Comp. Isaiah 3:18.) Tire might seem to be the Persian tiara, but is much more probably connected with the German zier and zieren. (See Skea�s Etym. Dict., s.v) Jezebel put on her royal apparel in order to die as a queen. Comp. the similar behaviour of Cleopatra:— “Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch My best attires. I am again tor Cydnus, To meet Marc Antony . . . Bring our crown, and all. * * * * * Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.” Antony and Cleop., Acts 5, scene 2. A window.—The window, looking down upon the square within the city gate. Others think of a window looking down into the courtyard of the palace. Ewald’s notion (after Ephrem Syrus), that Jezebel thought to captivate the conqueror by her charms, is negatived by the consideration that she was the grandmother of Ahaziah, who was twenty-two years old when Jehu slew him, and the fact that Oriental women fade early.

Verse 30. She painted her face, and tired her head] She endeavoured to improve the appearance of her complexion by paint, and the general effect of her countenance by a tiara or turban head-dress. Jonathan, the Chaldee Targumist, so often quoted, translates this וכחלת בצדידא עינהא vechachalath bitsdida eynaha: "She stained her eyes with stibium or antimony." This is a custom in Astatic countries to the present day. From a late traveller in Persia, I borrow the following account: - "The Persians differ as much from us in their notions of beauty as they do in those of taste. A large soft, and languishing black eye, with them constitutes the perfection of beauty. It is chiefly on this account that the women use the powder of antimony, which, although it adds to the vivacity of the eye, throws a kind of voluptuous languor over it, which makes it appear, (if I may use the expression,) dissolving in bliss. The Persian women have a curious custom of making their eye-brows meet; and if this charm be denied them, they paint the forehead with a kind of preparation made for that purpose." E. S. Waring's Tour to Sheeraz, 4to., 1807, page 62. This casts light enough on Jezebel's painting, &c., and shows sufficiently with what design she did it, to conquer and disarm Jehu, and induce him to take her for wife, as Jarchi supposes. This staining of the eye with stibium and painting was a universal custom, not only in Asiatic countries, but also in all those that bordered on them, or had connections with them. The Prophet Ezekiel mentions the painting of the eyes, Ezekiel 23:40. That the Romans painted their eyes we have the most positive evidence. Pliny says, Tanta est decoris affectatio, ut tinguantur oculi quoque. Hist. Nat. lib. xi., cap. 37. "Such is their affection of ornament, that they paint their eyes also." That this painting was with stibium or antimony, is plain from these words of St. Cyprian, De Opere et Eleemosynis, Inunge aculos tuos non stibio diaboli, sed collyrio Christi, "Anoint your eyes, not with the devil's antimony, but with the eye-salve of Christ." Juvenal is plain on the same subject. Men as well as women in Rome practiced it: - Ille supercilium madida fuligine tactum Obliqua producit acu pingitque trementes Attollens oculos. SAT. ii., ver. 93. "With sooty moisture one his eye-brows dyes, And with a bodkin paints his trembling eyes." The manner in which the women in Barbary do it Dr. Russel particularly describes: - "Upon the principle of strengthening the sight, as well as an ornament, it is become a general practice among the women to black the middle of their eye-lids by applying a powder called ismed. Their method of doing it is by a cylindrical piece of silver, steel, or ivory, about two inches long, made very smooth, and about the size of a common probe.

30–37. The fate of Jezebel (Not in Chronicles) 30. when Jehu was come to Jezreel] Very little time could have elapsed between the slaying of Joram and the advance from Naboth’s vineyard to the palace. But the news of what Jehu had done had already been brought to Jezebel, for she knows that he has murdered the king her son. As queen-mother she lived in the royal city, and probably in the royal palace. On the position of the queen-mother and her influence in Eastern courts see on 1 Kings 2:19. Her action Bp Hall thinks was with the hope ‘to daunt the courage of a usurper with the sudden beams of majesty’. and she painted her face] R.V. eyes. The A.V. gives a wrong idea, though placing the literal rendering on the margin ‘put her eyes in painting’. The process is common still in the East. The preparation used is made from antimony, which gives when applied to the eyelashes and eyebrows, a dark outline, as a setting to the eyes, which while making them look larger adds also to their brilliancy. and tired her head] Putting on some ornamental diadem or insignia of royalty. As she was to die, and she could expect no less, she would look the queen to the last. and looked out at a window] Josephus (Ant. IX. 6. 4) describes her as ‘standing upon the tower’. It is clear that the building in which she was formed part of the city wall, and that the gateway by which the city was entered was close by. So the window may have been in some lofty part.

Painted her face - literally, “put her eyes in antimony “ - i. e., dyed the upper and under eyelids, a common practice in the East, even at the present day.

30. Painted her face — Better, set her eyes in paint. “The paint used by the Hebrew women was a powder producing a black colour; it was commonly prepared either from antimony, or from lead ore and