* 1 Kings xvi. 8-22; Joram is not mentioned in the
Massoretic text, but his name appears in the Septuagint.
Two dynasties had thus arisen in Israel, and had been swept away by revolutionary outbursts, while at Jerusalem the descendants of David followed one another in unbroken succession. Asa outlived Nadab by eleven years, and we hear nothing of his relations with the neighbouring states during the latter part of his reign. We are merely told that his zeal in the service of the Lord was greater than had been shown by any of his predecessors. He threw down the idols, expelled their priests, and persecuted all those who practised the ancient religions. His grandmother Maacah “had made an abominable image for an asherah;” he cut it down, and burnt it in the valley of the Kedron, and deposed her from the supremacy in the royal household which she had held for three generations. He is, therefore, the first of the kings to receive favourable mention from the orthodox chroniclers of later times, and it is stated that he “did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father.” * Omri proved a warlike monarch, and his reign, though not a long one, was signalised by a decisive crisis in the fortunes of Israel.** The northern tribes had, so far, possessed no settled capital, Shechem, Penuel, and Tirzah having served in turn as residences for the successors of Jeroboam and Baasha. Latterly Tirzah had been accorded a preference over its rivals; but Zimri had burnt the castle there, and the ease with which it had been taken and retaken was not calculated to reassure the head of the new dynasty. Omri turned his attention to a site lying a little to the north-west of Shechem and Mount Ebal, and at that time partly covered by the hamlet of Shomerôn or Shimrôn—our modern Samaria.***
* 1 Kings xv. 11; cf. 2 Ohron. xiv. 2. It is admitted,
however, though without any blame being attached to him,
that “the high places were not taken away” (1 Kings xv. 14;
cf. 2 Chron. xv. 17).
** The Hebrew writer gives the length of his reign as twelve
years (1 Kings xvi. 23). Several historians consider this
period too brief, and wish to extend it to twenty-four
years; I cannot, however, see that there is, so far, any
good reason for doubting the approximate accuracy of the
Bible figures.
*** According to the tradition preserved in 1 Kings xvi. 24,
the name of the city comes from Shomer, the man from whom
Ahab bought the site.
His choice was a wise and judicious one, as the rapid development of the city soon proved. It lay on the brow of a rounded hill, which rose in the centre of a wide and deep depression, and was connected by a narrow ridge with the surrounding mountains. The valley round it is fertile and well watered, and the mountains are cultivated up to their summits; throughout the whole of Ephraim it would have been difficult to find a site which could compare with it in strength or attractiveness. Omri surrounded his city with substantial ramparts; he built a palace for himself, and a temple in which was enthroned a golden calf similar to those at Dan and Bethel.* A population drawn from other nations besides the Israelites flocked into this well-defended stronghold, and Samaria soon came to be for Israel what Jerusalem already was for Judah, an almost impregnable fortress, in which the sovereign entrenched himself, and round which the nation could rally in times of danger. His contemporaries fully realised the importance of this move on Omri’s part; his name became inseparably connected in their minds with that of Israel. Samaria and the house of Joseph were for them, henceforth, the house of Omri, Bît-Omri, and the name still clung to them long after Omri had died and his family had become extinct.**
* Amos viii. 14, where the sin of Samaria, coupled as it is
with the life of the god of Dan and the way of Beersheba,
can, as Wellhausen points out, only refer to the image of
the calf worshipped at Samaria.
** Shalmaneser II. even goes so far as to describe Jehu, who
exterminated the family of Omri, as Jaua ahal Khumri,
“Jehu, son of Omri.”
He gained the supremacy over Judah, and forced several of the south-western provinces, which had been in a state of independence since the days of Solomon, to acknowledge his rule; he conquered the country of Medeba, vanquished Kamoshgad, King of Moab, and imposed on him a heavy tribute in sheep and wool.* Against Benhadad in the north-west he was less fortunate. He was forced to surrender to him several of the cities of Gilead—among others Bamoth-gilead, which commanded the fords over the Jabbok and Jordan.**
* Inscription of Meslia, 11. 5-7; cf. 2 Kings iii. 4.
** 1 Kings xx. 34. No names are given in the text, but
external evidence proves that they were cities of Persea,
and that Ramoth-gilead was one of them.
Drawn by Boudier, from photograph No. 2G of the Palestine
Exploration Fund.