We skip over some quick and dirty changes in who reigns over Israel. As noted previously, the Northern Kingdom goes through frequent dynasty changes. Where we pick up is the beginning of the Omride Dynasty.
His reign was twelve years. For half of that, he continued using the palace Jeroboam built in Tirzah. Then he went and bought a hill (along with the surrounding land) from someone named Shemer, as the new site for his royal capital. He named it after the previous owner. Samaria is the English version; in Hebrew it’s more like Shomerone. Vowel shifts are common in Hebrew, particularly when you name something after someone.
There was a tremendous building program under the Omrides, and the new capital was just the beginning. Omri and his successors also refurbished just about everything Solomon had built in the Northern Kingdom, in part to put their own mark on things. In many foreign records of this period, the term for the Northern Kingdom shows up as “House of Omri” or similar labels, and they stuck long after his dynasty ended.
But what matters to us is how he continued in Jeroboam’s footsteps in keeping the two rival shrines open in Dan and Bethel. Thus, the prophetic scribes who wrote 1 and 2 Kings noted little else.
Omri’s heir was Ahab. He continued his father’s building program, and the text notes that he also introduced more abominations. He took for his queen Jezebel, a fanatical advocate of pagan idolatry. The narrative gives us the heart of the matter, but not the complicated story of how Jehovah’s name was used for a lot things that He hated. The prophetic authors talk about Baal and Asherah because that was essentially what kind of pagan practices were observed under Ahab, despite how Jehovah’s name appeared on some of the shrines and celebrations. The rituals bore some similarities to the worship of Jehovah, but He was properly worshiped only in Jerusalem.
Foreign rulers never quite grasped the finer points of this issue. As far as they were concerned, the God of Israel was still named Jehovah. That’s because in their daily speech and correspondence, they still used derivatives of Jehovah’s name, but were often talking about pagan idolatry. It was further confused because the official names of these people still echoed with references to Jehovah.
There is a sort of footnote at the end of the chapter here about Jericho. Someone named Hiel (Hebrew Chiel), from the shrine city of Bethel, went down to the site of Jericho and proceeded to rebuild the ruins. As promised in Joshua 6:26, when his servants began this task, his firstborn son died. By the time he set the gates to finish the work, his youngest son died.
We end with just the first verse of the next chapter. We are introduced to the prophet Elijah. He hailed from middle Gilead, from the village Tishbe, about half-way down the wadi that contained the Brook Cherith. This prophet was sent to warn Ahab that his provocations justified a total drought on the Northern Kingdom. The implication of what Elijah says is that unless Ahab turns to the true God of Israel and appeals to Elijah as His prophet for relief, there would be none. None of the pagan idols Ahab worshiped could help him.
“The prophetic authors talk about Baal and Asherah because that was essentially what kind of pagan practices were observed under Ahab, despite how Jehovah’s name appeared on some of the shrines and celebrations.”
Though it takes different forms in different times, sin has been around for as long as we can collectively remember.
It gives new meaning to the phrase, “Taking the Lord’s name in vain.”