Death of Jezebel. - 2 Kings 9:30. When Jehu came to Jezreel and Jezebel heard of it, "she put her eyes into lead polish (i.e., painted them with it), and beautified her head and placed herself at the window." פּוּך is a very favourite eye-paint with Oriental women even to the present day. It is prepared from antimony ore (Arab. khl, Cohol or Stibium of the Arabs), which when pounded yields a black powder with a metallic brilliancy, which was laid upon the eyebrows and eyelashes either in a dry state as a black powder, or moistened generally with oil and made into an ointment, which is applied with a fine smooth eye-pencil of the thickness of an ordinary goose-quill, made either of wood, metal, or ivory. The way to use it was to hold the central portion of the pencil horizontally between the eyelids, and then draw it out between them, twisting it round all the while, so that the edges of the eyelids were blackened all round; and the object was to heighten the splendour of the dark southern eye, and give it, so to speak, a more deeply glowing fire, and to impart a youthful appearance to the whole of the eyelashes even in extreme old age. Rosellini found jars with eye-paint of this kind in the early Egyptian graves (vid., Hille, ber den Gebrauch u. die Zusammensetzung der oriental. Augenschminke: Deutsch. morg. Ztsch. v. p. 236ff.). - Jezebel did this that she might present an imposing appearance to Jehu and die as a queen; not to allure him by her charms (Ewald, after Ephr. Syr.). For (2 Kings 9:31) when Jehu entered the palace gate, she cried out to him, "Is it peace, thou Zimri, murderer of his lord?" She addressed Jehu as Zimri the murderer of the king, to point to the fate which Jehu would bring upon himself by the murder of the king, as Zimri had already done (vid., 1 Kings 16:10-18).

2 Kings 9:37 Parallel Commentaries

the carcase

Psalm 83:10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.

Ecclesiastes 6:3 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good...

Isaiah 14:18-20 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house...

Jeremiah 8:2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served...

Jeremiah 16:4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried...

Jeremiah 22:19 He shall be buried with the burial of an donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 36:20 And they went in to the king into the court, but they laid up the roll in the chamber of Elishama the scribe...

Ezekiel 32:23-30 Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword...