2 Kings 9:30 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jezebel heard of it, &c. She had heard that Jehu had slain her son, and slain him for her murders, idolatries, and other crimes, and thrown his dead body into the portion of Naboth, according to the word of the Lord; and now she learned he was come to Jezreel, where she could not but dread falling herself next a sacrifice to his revenging sword. Here we see how she meets her fate. She painted her face Rendered in the margin, put her eyes in painting. The word פוךְ, puch, translated painting, signifies a mineral substance, stibium, otherwise called plumbago, or black- lead, a kind of ochre of very fine and loose parts. The word occurs again, Jeremiah 4:30, and both there and here is mentioned as somewhat with which women coloured their eyes. It made them look black, and also larger, by dilating their eye-brows; both which circumstances were thought to give them additional beauty. At this day the women, in many parts of the East, tinge their eyes with black to heighten their beauty. And tired her head That is, dressed and adorned it, as the word תישׂב, theteb, here used, signifies. These things she did, hoping that, by her majestic dress and demeanour, she should strike Jehu and his followers with such awe, that they would be intimidated, and thereby prevented from offering her any personal injury; or rather, because, perceiving her case to be desperate, and that she would not be suffered to live, she was resolved to die with honour and gallantry. And looked out at a window She placed herself at a window at the entering of the gate of the king's palace, to affront Jehu, and set him at defiance.