Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 2:20

"But I have [this] against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess; and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols." — Revelation 2:20 (ASV)

A few things.—The Sinaitic Manuscript has “I have much against you”; but the reading, I have against you that you tolerate, etc., is preferable.

Jezebel.—Some adopt the reading, “your wife Jezebel.” From these words, it has been thought that there was some personal influence at work for evil in Thyatira. Whether in the household of the “angel” or not is at least doubtful. The sin alleged against her is the same for which the Nicolaitanes are condemned: fornication and the eating of things sacrificed to idols.

If the above view is right, the leader of the exorcists is a woman—regarded by her followers as a prophetess, as one with a real message from God; but viewed by the Lord of the churches as a true Jezebel, teaching and seducing the servants of God. For tolerating her, for being timid, for paying too much deference to her spiritual pretensions, and for failing to see and to show that the so-called “deep things” of these teachers were depths of Satan, the chief minister is rebuked.

A large number of respectable critics regard Jezebel as a name applied to a faction, not as belonging to an individual. It seems best to view the name as symbolic, always remembering that the Jezebel spirit of proud, self-constituted authority, boastful claims of superior holiness or higher knowledge, linked with a disregard of—and perhaps a proud contempt for—“legalism,” and followed by open immorality, has repeatedly run riot in the churches of God.