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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - 1 Kings 16:23 - 16:34
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The Rule of Omri and of Ahab
v. 23. In the thirty and first year of Asa, king of Judah, began Omri to reign over Israel, the intervening years having been spent in civil war, twelve years, during eight of which he was the sole ruler. Six years reigned he in Tirzah, so long he retained this city as his residence.
v. 24. And he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer, at that time its owner, for two talents of silver (between three and four thousand dollars), and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria. This city was located east of Tirzah, northeast of Shechem, on a "beautiful round mountain, covered with splendid trees, and lying in a valley or basin enclosed with mountains, commanding a glorious prospect of the fruitful valley and the heights and villages surrounding it. " "The hill on which Samaria was situated rose some three hundred feet above the surrounding valley on all sides except the east, and when fortified, presented such an impregnable front that it took even an Assyrian army three years to capture it. " 2)
v. 25. But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him, he went farther in the open practice of idolatry than all his predecessors.
v. 26. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger with their vanities, the idolatry and the calf-worship being continued with increased vigor.
v. 27. Now, the rest of the acts of Omri which he did, those which are not connected with his relation to the covenant of Jehovah, and his might that he showed, his military prowess, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
v. 28. So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria; and Ahab, his son, reigned in his stead.
v. 29. And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab, the son of Omri, to reign over Israel. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. His accession to the throne introduced a period of Israel's history noted for its general wickedness.
v. 30. And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil In the sight of the Lord above all that were before him, exceeding even the wickedness of his father.
v. 31. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the horror of the situation being brought out still more strongly by a parenthetical question in the Hebrew text, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, worthy daughter of a father who was a false priest and an assassin, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. Baal was the chief male god of the Phoenicians and the Canaanites, considered the source of physical life and of all propagation in nature.
v. 32. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, in a special temple erected to this idol, which he had built in Samaria.
v. 33. And Ahab made a grove, he erected a pillar to the female idol of the Canaanites, Astarte, whose worship was connected with immoral practices; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.
v. 34. In his days, as an example of the utter disregard of God's will which then prevailed, did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho, which was to have remained in ruins; he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram, his firstborn, who died when he began work, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub, who died at the completion of the work, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua, the son of Nun, Jos_6:26. False worship, false doctrine, will not be confined to just one point of wickedness, but will soon extend beyond all bounds and result in gross idolatry. If a person repudiates one point of Christian doctrine, the chances are that he will soon be led into unbelief and denial of God's truth