In 1 Kings 21:7, is Jezebel a wife that belittles or mistreats her husband or is she a wife who encourages King Ahab, her husband?
I don’t know if we can judge the tone of her voice or the tone of her comment here. Jezebel tends to be associated with a spirit of rebellion and disobedience, though. We may receive insight from Revelation 2:20. There, there’s a woman who is given the name Jezebel, associated with Queen Jezebel of the Old Testament.
She is being rebellious and teaching false teaching against the church. So this idea of the Jezebel spirit, the spirit of rebellion, is associated with Queen Jezebel. It may be that she is leading from behind, so to speak.
She may be telling her husband what to do as the king without flat-out doing it herself. In fact, she is deeply involved in gaining this field from this man. She tells her husband that she’ll get the field instead of him (1 Kings 21:7).
She is deceptive when she writes letters in her husband’s name (1 Kings 21:8). Then she makes two worthless men testify against the man who owns the field (1 Kings 21:10). In none of these actions is she helpful to her husband, probably destroying whatever reputation he had left.
She has Naboth, the owner of the vineyard her husband Ahab wanted, murdered just so she can get the field. Then she tells her husband to go and get the field. She wears the pants in this family. In none of these ways of that culture does she honor her husband, the king of Israel.
But to stop short of just blaming her, neither her nor her husband is honorable. He is a wicked king of Israel and she is the most wicked queen we know of. None of them have a good reputation. In this character assessment, I would say that she does not treat her husband with respect or help him in any way in this entire account.
