Wicked as Ahab was, his wife Jezebel was incomparably worse. Indeed,
she is in great part the cause of his suffering, and Ahab realized it.
Once Rabbi Levi expounded the Scriptural verse in which the iniquity of
Ahab and the influence of his wife over him are discussed, dwelling
upon the first half for two months. Ahab visited him in a dream, and
reproached him with expatiating on the first half of the verse to the
exclusion of the latter half. Thereupon the Rabbi took the second half
of the verse as the text of his lectures for the next two months,
demonstrating all the time that Jezebel was the instigator of Ahab's
sins. (48) Her misdeed are told in the Scriptures. To those there
recounted must be added her practice of attaching unchaste images to
Ahab's chariot for the purpose of stimulating his carnal desires.
Therefore those parts of his chariot were spattered with his blood when
he fell at the hand of the enemy. (49) She had her husband weighed
every day, and the increase of his weight in gold she sacrificed to the
idol. (50) Jezebel was not only the daughter and the wife of a king,
she was also co-regent with her husband, the only reigning queen in
Jewish history except Athaliah. (51)
Hardened sinner though Jezebel was, even she had good qualities. One of
them was her capacity for sympathy with others in joy and sorrow.
Whenever a funeral cortege passed the royal palace, Jezebel would
descend and join the ranks of the mourners, and, also, when a marriage
procession went by, she took part in the merry-making in honor of the
bridal couple. By way of reward the limbs and organs with which she had
executed these good deeds were left intact by the horses that trampled
her to death in the portion of Jezreel. (52)