090. LXII. The Military Dynasties Of Northern Israel
§ LXII. THE MILITARY DYNASTIES OF NORTHERN ISRAEL
1. Nadab’s assassination (1 Kings 15:25;1 Kings 15:27-29a). And Nadab the son of Jeroboam became king in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years. And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him, and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, while Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon. So in the third year of Asa king of Judah Baasha slew him, and became king in his place. But as soon as he became king, he smote all the house of Jeroboam. He did not leave of Jeroboam’s house a single soul which he did not destroy.
2. Baasha’s condemnation and death (1 Kings 15:33;1 Kings 15:32;1 Kings 16:6;1 Kings 16:6). In the third year of Asa king of Judah Baasha the son of Ahijah became king over all Israel in Tirzah, and reigned twenty-four years. And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. Now the other acts of Baasha, and what he did and his mighty deeds, are they not recorded in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? Moreover, by the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani the word of Jehovah came against Baasha and against his house, because of the evil that he did in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger with the work of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam, and also because he smote the house of Jeroboam. And Baasha slept with his fathers and was buried in Tirzah, and Elah his son became king in his place.
3. Zimri’s conspiracy against Elah and his house (1 Kings 15:8-12a). In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah Elah the son of Baasha became king over Israel in Tirzah, and reigned two years. And his servant Zimri, commander of half his chariots, conspired against him. While he was in Tirzah drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, the royal chamberlain in Tirzah, Zimri went in and smote and killed him, in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and became king in his place. But as soon as he became king and had seated himself on the throne, he smote all the house of Baasha; he left him not a single male, either of his kinsfolks or of his friends. Thus Zimri destroyed all the house of Baasha.
4. Election of Omri king (1 Kings 15:15-18). In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah. Now the people were besieging Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines. And the people who were engaged in the siege heard the report, Zimri has conspired and has also smitten the king; therefore all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that day in the camp. So Omri went up from Gibbethon and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah. When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the castle of the royal palace, and burnt the royal palace over him. Thus he died.
5. Omri’s victory over his rival (1 Kings 15:21-23). Then the people of Israel were divided. Half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath and made him king, and the other half followed Omri. But the people with Omri were stronger than the people with Tibni the son of Ginath. So Tibni and his brother Joram died, and Omri became king. In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah Omri began to reign over Israel, and reigned twelve years; six years he reigned in Tirzah.
6. His reign (1 Kings 15:24;1 Kings 15:27-28). Then he bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill and named the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill. Now the rest of the acts of Omri, and all that he did and his mighty deeds, are they not recorded in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Ahab his son became king in his place.
7. Ahab’s marriage with Jezebel (1 Kings 15:29-30,1 Kings 15:31-33a). Now in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel; and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did that which displeased Jehovah more than all his predecessors: he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. And he erected an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab also made the asherah.
8. Rebuilding Jericho (1 Kings 15:34). In his days Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho. He laid its foundation with the loss of Abiram his eldest, and set up the gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, as Jehovah had spoken by Joshua the son of Nun.
9. Benhadad’s unreasonable demands (1 Kings 20:1-6). Then Ben-hadad the king of Aram gathered all his host together, and there were thirty-two kings with him, and horses and chariots. And he went up and besieged Samaria and fought against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city and said to him, Thus says Benhadad, ‘Your silver and your gold are mine; your wives also and your children, are mine.’ And the king of Israel answered and said, As you say, my lord, O king: I am yours with all that I have. And the messengers came again and said, Thus says Ben-hadad, ‘I sent to you, saying, “You shall deliver to me your silver and your gold and your wives and your children”; but to-morrow I will send my servants about this time and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants; and whatever is attractive to them, they shall take in their hands and bear it away.’
10. Abab’s refusal to comply (1 Kings 20:7-12). Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said, Mark, I pray, and see how this man is seeking to make trouble, for he sent to me for my wives and my children and for my silver and gold, and I did not refuse him. And all the elders and all the people said to him, Do not hearken nor consent! Therefore he said to the messengers of Ben-hadad, Tell my lord the king, ‘All that you demanded of your servant at the first I will do, but this I cannot do.’ So the messengers departed and brought him word again. Then Ben-hadad sent to him and said, Let the gods do to me what they will, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people who follow me! And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, ‘Let not him who is girding on his sword boast himself as he who is putting it off.’ Now when Ben-hadad heard this message—he was drinking together with the kings in the pavilions—he said to his servants, Set yourselves in array. And they set themselves in array against the city.
11. His victory over the Arameans (1 Kings 20:13-21). But just then a prophet came near to Ahab king of Israel and said, Thus saith Jehovah, ‘Hast thou seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into thy hand to-day, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah.’ And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus saith Jehovah, ‘By the young men under the provincial commanders.’ And he said, Who shall begin the battle? And he answered, Thou. Then he mustered the young men under the provincial commanders, and they were two hundred and thirty-two. And after them he mustered all the people, even all the Israelites—seven thousand. And at noon they made the attack, while Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, together with the thirty-two kings who had come to help him. And the young men under the provincial commanders went out first. And Ben-hadad sent out messengers and they reported to him saying, Men have come out from Samaria. And he said, Whether they have come out with peaceful intent, take them alive; or whether they have come out for war, take them alive. So these (the young men under the provincial commanders) went out of the city, and the army which followed them. And they slew each his man, so that the Arameans fled. And the Israelites pursued them, but Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, escaped on a horse with horsemen. Then the king of Israel went out and captured horses and chariots, and slew a great number of the Arameans.
12. Benhadad’s preparations for a second campaign (1 Kings 20:22-25). And the prophet came near to the king of Israel and said to him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark and see what thou wilt do, for a year from now the king of Aram will come up against thee. And the servants of the king of Aram said to him, Their gods are hill-gods, therefore they were too strong for us; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. And do this: take the kings away each from his place, and put commanders in their place, and assemble an army, like the army that you have lost, horse for horse and chariot for chariot; then we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. And he listened to their advice and did so.
13. Ahab’a second great victory (1 Kings 20:26-30). Now when the year had come around Ben-hadad mustered the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the Israelites were mustered and provided with provisions, and went against them. And the Israelites encamped before them like two small flocks of goats, while the Arameans filled the country. Then a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, Thus saith Jehovah, ‘Because the Arameans think, “Jehovah is a hill-god but not a god of the valleys,” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into thy hand, that ye may know that I am Jehovah.’ So they encamped opposite each other seven days. But on the seventh day the battle was joined; and the Israelites slew of the Arameans a hundred thousand footmen in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and the wall fell upon twenty-seven thousand of the men who were left. Ben-hadad also fled, and came into the city, into an innermost chamber.
14. Liberal terms offered to Benhadad by Ahab (1 Kings 20:31-34). And his servants said to him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings; let us therefore put sackcloth about our loins and ropes about our heads and go out to the king of Israel; perhaps he will save your life. So they girded sackcloth about their loins and put ropes about their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, Your servant Ben-hadad says, ‘Let me live.’ And he replied, Is he yet alive? He is my brother. Now the men began to divine his thought and quickly caught it up from him and said, Ben-hadad is your brother. Then he said, Go, bring him! And when Ben-hadad came out to him he took him up to himself in the chariot. And Benhadad said to him, The cities which my father took from your father, I will restore, and you may establish streets for yourself in Damascus as my father established in Samaria. And Ahab said, I will let you go with this agreement. So he made an agreement with him and let him go.
15. The acted prophecy and its application (1 Kings 20:35-43). Now a certain man of the sons of the prophets at the command of Jehovah said to his fellow, Smite me, I pray. But the man refused to smite him. Then he said to him, Since you have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah, as soon as you have gone away from me, a lion shall slay you. Accordingly, as soon as he had gone away from him, a lion found him and slew him. Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray. And the man smote him so as to wound him. Then the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way and disguised himself with a covering over his eyes. And as the king was passing by, he cried to the king and said, Your servant had gone out into the midst of the battle, when suddenly a man turned aside, and brought a man to me and said, ‘Watch this man; if by any means he be missing, then must your life be for his life, or else you must pay a talent of silver!’ And as your servant was looking here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said to him, Such is your verdict: you yourself have decided it. Then he quickly took the covering away from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized that he was one of the prophets. And he said to him, Thus saith Jehovah, ‘Because thou hast let go out of thy hand the man whom I had condemned to destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life and thy people for his people.’ And the king of Israel went homeward in ill-humor and sullen, and came to Samaria.
I. The Dynasty of Baasha. After the death of Jeroboam the instability of the kingship in Northern Israel was speedily demonstrated. Nadab, the son of Jeroboam I, after a reign of only two years, fell a prey to a conspiracy led by Baasha. Baasha is one of the two or three men mentioned in Israelite history who came from the central tribe of Issachar. The prophetic historian has little to say about this dynasty, which was founded by bloodshed and maintained by the sword. The chief event was the war with Judah. Asa, the king of the southern realm, was so closely pressed that he appealed for help to Damascus. Thus was inaugurated that protracted series of wars between the Israelites and Arameans which drained the resources of both kingdoms and prepared the way for the later Assyrian conquests. The history of Baasha’s dynasty well illustrates the truth that “they who take the sword shall perish by the sword.” Elah, his son, after a brief reign, was slain in a drunken debauch by one of his military commanders, and all the members of the royal family shared his fate.
II. Omri’s Accession. The Hebrew army in the field forthwith proclaimed their commander, Omri, king, and marched against the capital, which was then at Tirzah, a little to the northeast of Shechem. Omri quickly overthrew the forces of the assassin; but his position on the throne of Israel was not firmly established until he had vanquished another rival, Tibni, the son of Ginath. Northern Israel was thus torn by civil war, until finally the strong hand of Omri united all the rival factions and inaugurated a new era of prosperity and strength for the greater Hebrew kingdom. In certain respects Omri was the David of Northern Israel. Following the example of the founder of the Hebrew empire, he secured a fertile hill, northwest of Shechem, named it Samaria, and made it his capital. Its strength, like that of Jerusalem, depended not upon its elevation but upon its being surrounded by deep valleys and therefore capable of easy defence. On the top of the hill was ample room for a large and strong city. The fact that the inhabitants of Samaria were later able for three years to defy successfully the highly organized army of Assyria amply confirms the wisdom of Omri’s choice.
III. Omri’s Foreign Policy. The Old Testament says nothing of Omri’s military achievements; but in the famous Moabite stone, discovered in 1868 at Dibon in the territory of ancient Moab, Ahab’s contemporary, Mesha, king of Moab, tells of his wars with Israel. He states in his inscription, which he set up to commemorate his victory over the Hebrews, that “Omri was king of Israel and he afflicted Moab many days because Chemosh (the god of Moab) was angry with his land. Omri took possession of the land of Medeba and he occupied it during half of his sons’ days, forty years.” From this contemporary evidence it is clear that Omri reasserted the rule of Israel over at least the northern part of Moab. He also was the first of Israel’s rulers to pay tribute to the new power, Assyria, which, under its conquering king, Asurnaçirpal III, in 876 B.C., carried its arms into Northern Syria as far as the Mediterranean Sea. It is also significant that even in the days of Jehu, the rebel who overthrew Omri’s dynasty, Northern Israel was still known to the Assyrians as “the House of Omri.” Omri further established the strength of his kingdom through an alliance with Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians. By this act he opened the way for commerce between Northern Israel and the civilized peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. Thus, under the strong leadership of Omri, the northern Hebrew kingdom began to emerge from its period of anarchy and wasting warfare, and to assume a commanding position among the nations of southwestern Asia. In the Arameans to the northeast, Omri met a foe before whom he was obliged to bow. Following in the wake of the ancient Hittites, the Arameans had come down and strongly intrenched themselves among the Lebanons, and at Damascus, on the border line between the agricultural territory of the eastern Mediterranean and the Arabian desert, they had built up a strong and prosperous capital. Damascus itself is a fertile oasis fed by the waters which break through the eastern Lebanons and which, by an elaborate system of irrigation, transform the sands of the desert into a series of fruitful gardens. To the Arameans, Omri ceded certain territory, probably east of the Jordan, and also certain streets or quarters in his new capital, Samaria, for the use of Aramean merchants. He also probably paid heavy tribute to insure immunity from Aramean attack.
IV. Ahab’s War of Independence. Omri laid the foundations of a strong kingdom; but to his son Ahab he left the task of shaking off the Aramean yoke. At first Ahab appears to have paid tribute and to have been ready to yield to any reasonable demand imposed by his Aramean overlords. When, however, Ben-hadad, king of Aram, demanded the privilege of pillaging without restriction Ahab’s capital and palace, the Hebrew king naturally refused. Encouraged by the advice of a prophet, Ahab met the vainglorious boast of the Aramean king with active and successful resistence. A year later another Aramean army was vanquished near Aphek, east of the sea of Chinnereth. The numbers possibly have been magnified in transmission, but many Arameans were slain and, most significant of all, Ben-hadad himself was captured. Instead of slaying his rival, Ahab set him free on condition that the captured Israelite cities should be restored and that certain streets should be set aside in Damascus for Israelite merchants and settlers, even as Omri had granted like concessions in Samaria to the Arameans. The narrative itself suggests that Ahab’s motive in giving Ben-hadad his freedom was to establish close commercial relations between the two countries. By land the Arameans commanded the trade of the east and northeast, even as the Phœnicians by sea controlled that of the Mediterranean. The records also indicate that one of Ahab’s ambitions was to build up a magnificent court and kingdom like that of Solomon. To realize this ambition, close commercial relations with the surrounding nations were essential. Ben-hadad’s liberation may also have been due to Ahab’s recognition of the fact that both he and his rival were confronted by a common foe, Assyria, and that the only hope of escape was by uniting their forces. At least, in 854 B.C., according to the annals of Shalmaneser II, both Aram and Israel fought together against the Assyrian invader. To the prophets of Israel, Ahab’s action in freeing Ben-hadad seemed inexcusable. By means of a dramatic symbolism, which appears to have been characteristic of these early prophets, a certain unknown son of the prophets declared to the king that he had proved himself a traitor to the God of his race in setting free his heathen foe, and that for this act disaster would overtake Israel and its king.
There appears to have been much that was fanatical in the aims and methods of these early sons of the prophets. Their fanaticism was, at the same time, their strength as well as their weakness. Their zeal for Jehovah made them a strong power in the life of the nation; but that same zeal also blinded them to the political and commercial issues of the hour.
V. Ahab’s Character and Policy. By the majority of Ahab’s contemporaries he was undoubtedly regarded as an able and successful warrior, a patriotic ruler, and a wise statesman. Northern Israel, with its broad and productive fields, could enjoy in return for its products the best that the older and higher civilizations could furnish, provided an open market could be secured for its grain and other products. Alliances with the Phœnicians and Arameans were therefore exceedingly desirable. Ahab also secured peace with the southern Hebrew kingdom by means of an alliance, sealed by the marriage of his daughter Athaliah with Ahaziah of the house of Judah. Thus, by his military skill and diplomacy in carrying out the policy instituted by his father Omri, Ahab not only threw off the Aramean yoke and established the supremacy of Northern Israel among the states of eastern Mediterranean, but also opened wide the gates of commerce which brought to his people the culture and products of the ancient Semitic world. In many ways he was the greatest king of Northern Israel.
VI. The Dangers of Ahab’s Policy. If Israel’s highest ideal had been the attainment of material splendor and strength, Ahab’s policy would doubtless have passed unchallenged. There was, however, hid in the heart of the nation from the first a nobler ideal, which Ahab’s policy was fast obscuring. As has been shown, that ideal was brought by the ancestors of the Hebrews from the desert and was probably first formulated by Moses. It was that Israel should give its entire loyalty to Jehovah, since he would tolerate no rival god. Solomon had ignored this fundamental tenet of Israel’s faith and the division of the kingdom had been the result. In the luxurious, enervating, urban life of Northern Israel, the majority of the Hebrews had lost sight of the old desert ideal and doubtless sympathized with Ahab in accepting the inevitable consequences of a Semitic alliance, and in tolerating within the bounds of Israel the worship of the gods of the allies. The crisis was intensified by the fact that the Tyrian queen, Jezebel, who came to Ahab’s court to seal the Phœnician alliance, was not an ordinary oriental woman. Her father, Ethbaal, was a former priest of Baal, who had mounted the Tyrian throne by assassinating the reigning king. Jezebel thus inherited unusual ability and energy, a strong religious zeal and those oriental despotic ideals which hesitated at no crime in attaining personal ends. As queen she had the right to establish at the Hebrew court a temple and priesthood for the worship of her native God, Baal Melkart. It was also easy for a woman of her ability gradually to increase the number of the priests and the splendor of the ritual at the Baal temple, until they overshadowed those of the older native sanctuaries. To an agricultural people, the worship of Baal, the native Canaanite god of fertility, also offered many strong attractions; and its licentious rites appealed powerfully to their baser instincts. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that in such an atmosphere and under royal patronage, this kindred worship should flourish and attract many followers.
There is no evidence that Ahab contemplated abandoning the worship of Jehovah for that of Baal. The names of four of his children contain the shortened form (Jah or Jo) of the divine name Jehovah or Yahweh. To the close of his reign the king was surrounded by a group of prophetic advisers who spoke in the name of Israel’s God; but with the more zealous prophets, who demanded that he banish from his realm all vestiges of the alien religion, he had no sympathy. In the light of Semitic custom, such an act would mean the severing of all alliances with their neighbors and a complete abandonment of the constructive policy which had brought peace and prosperity to Israel. The situation called for some one able clearly to define the issue and to appeal to the nation to choose between its material and spiritual ideals.