Samaria
Capital · Samaria → Sebastia, West Bank
Omri bought this hill and built the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
People
- Omri
- Ahab
- Jezebel
- Elijah
- Elisha
- Jehu
At a glance
- Realm
- Israel (the Northern Kingdom)
- Role
- Royal capital of the northern kingdom
- Peoples
- Israel, then resettled peoples
- First mention
- 1 Kings 16 (Omri builds it)
The story
Omri bought the hill of Shemer for two talents of silver and built Samaria to be the capital of the northern kingdom. His son Ahab crowned it with an ivory palace and raised a temple of Baal there for Jezebel his queen.
Here Elijah stood against the house of Ahab and Elisha counselled its kings, and here a fearful siege and famine broke overnight when the LORD sent the Arameans fleeing. Jehu cut off Ahab’s line, yet the city held to its sins, and in time Assyria besieged and took it, carrying Israel away and settling strangers in the land.
Through the eras
- The Patriarchs · absent from the map.
- Conquest & Judges · absent from the map.
- The United Kingdom · absent from the map.
- Divided Kingdoms · at its height. Omri’s hill, capital of the northern kingdom; it fell in 722 BC after three years of siege, begun by Shalmaneser and claimed by Sargon.
- The Exile · standing. Rebuilt as an Assyrian provincial seat; peoples from the east were settled on its hill.
- The Return · standing. Seat of the Persian province; its governor Sanballat opposed Nehemiah’s wall.