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As Constantine's sagacity is fixed by his choice of Constantinople, so is that of Omri by his choice Foundaof Samaria. Six miles from Shechem, in the maria. same well-watered valley, here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet accessible sides, and a long level top. This was the mountain of Samaria, or, as it is called in the original, Shômeron, so named after its owner Shemer, who there lived in state, and who sold it to the King for the great sum of two talents of silver. It combined in a union not elsewhere found in Palestine, strength, beauty, and fertility. It commanded a full view of the sea and the plain of Sharon on the one hand, and of the vale of Shechem on the other. The town' sloped down from the summit of the hill; a broad wall with a terraced top 2 ran round it. Outside the gates lived a colony of unhappy lepers, such as are still to be seen under the walls of Jerusalem. In front of the gates was a wide open space or threshing-floor, where the Kings of Samaria sat on great occasions. The inferior houses were built of white brick, with rafters of sycamore; the grander of hewn stone and cedar. It stood amidst a circle of hills, commanding a view of its streets and slopes, itself the crown and glory of the whole scene." Its soft rounded oblong platform was, as it were, a vast luxurious couch, in which its nobles rested securely, "propped and cushioned up "on both sides, as in the cherished corner of a rich "divan."

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It was the only great city of Palestine created by the

1 2 Kings vi. 33. See Lecture XXXIII. p. 345.

2 2 Kings vi. 26, 30.

3 Ibid. vii. 3.

4 1 Kings xxii. 1. Possibly the

name remained after the original use had departed.

5 Isaiah ix. 9, 10.

6 Amos iii. 9.

7 Isaiah xxviii. 1.

Amos iii. 12 (Dr. Pusey's note).

sovereigns. All the others had been already consecrated by Patriarchal tradition, or previous possession. But Samaria was the choice of Omri alone. He indeed gave to the city which he had built the name of its former owner, but its especial connection with himself as its founder is proved by the designation which, it seems, Samaria bears in Assyrian inscriptions, - Beth-Khumri, -"The House, or Palace, of Omri." 1

With this change of capital, a new era opened on Israel, which was continued on the accession of

Ahab.

B. C. 919.

Jezreel.

Omri's son Ahab. New cities were built in various parts of the kingdom.2 Two especially are named, both remarkable for the beauty of their situation. One was rather a revival, than a creation. It was in the days of Ahab that a daring architect of Bethel, named Hiel, ventured to raise Jericho Jericho. from its ruins, in defiance of the curse of Joshua, which received its fulfilment in the death of the architect's eldest son at the beginning, and youngest son at the completion, of his design. The other was a new royal residence, erected by Ahab, at Jezreel, although not superseding his father's choice of Samaria. It was planted on a gentle eminence, in the very centre of the rich plain,—"the seed or sowing-place " of God," - from whence, doubtless, it derived its name; commanding the view of Carmel on the west, and the valley of the Jordan on the east. Towards this side, a high tower stood, commanding the eastern approach. The palace was built close on the city wall, above the gateway, and the windows of the seraglio looked out to the public street immediately within the gate. Within its walls, or forming a conspicuous part

1 Rawlinson, Bampt. Lect. 105; Herod. i. 465, 7.

1 Kings xxii. 39.

31 Kings xvi. 34.

42 Kings ix. 17.
5 Ibid. 30,

31.

of the royal residence, was a palace built wholly or in part of ivory, a proof that the commerce of Solomon, by which elephants' tusks were brought from India, had not yet ceased; and an example of architecture that apparently spread to the dwellings of the Israelite aristocracy.2

Jezebel.

In accordance with this growth in arts and luxury, Ahab is the first of the northern kings who appears to have practised polygamy. But over his harem presided a Queen who has thrown all her lesser rivals into the shade. For the first time the chief wife of an Israelite king was one of the old accursed Canaanite race. A new dynasty now sat on the Tyrian throne, founded by Eth-baal. He had, according to the Phoenician records, gained the crown by the murder of his brother, and he united to the royal dignity his former office of High Priest of Ashtaroth. The daughter of Eth-baal was JEZEBEL, a name of dreadful import to Israelitish ears, though in later ages it has reappeared under the innocent form of Isabella.

The marriage of Ahab with this princess was one of those turning-points in the history of families where a new influence runs like poison through all its branches, and transforms it into another being. It has been conjectured by a German critic that the 45th Psalm, usually applied to the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh, was really written for the marriage of Ahab and Jezebel. The common opinion has quite enough in its favor to render needless an application so offensive to our modern notions. Yet there are expressions which suit this event better than any 1 1 Kings xxii. 39. 4 Josephus, Ant. viii. 13, § 1; a Apion. i. 18.

2 Amos iii. 15; vi. 4.

3" Thy wives," 1 Kings xx. 5; also the seventy sons, 2 Kings x. 7.

other," the ivory palaces," "the daughter of Tyre," and the absence of any allusions to Jerusalem. And there may have been at the time no more of evil omen to overcast the hopes of the Psalmist, than in the marriage-feast of Solomon, or than in the alliance of David with Hiram. But the cloud soon began to gather. Jezebel was a woman in whom, with the reckless and licentious habits of an Oriental queen, were united the fiercest and sternest qualities inherent in the old Semitic race. Her husband, in whom generous and gentle feelings were not wanting, was yet of a weak and yielding character, which soon made him a tool in her hands. Even after his death, through the reigns of his sons, her presiding spirit was the evil genius of the dynasty. Through her daughter Athaliah — a daughter worthy of the mother her influence extended to the rival kingdom. The wild license of her life and the magical fascination of her arts or her character, became a proverb in the nation.1 Round her and from her, in different degrees of nearness, is evolved the awful drama of the most eventful crisis of this portion of the Israelite history.

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The first indication of her influence was the establishment of the Phoenician worship on a grand scale in the court of Ahab. To some extent this was the natural consequence of the depravation of the public worship of JEHOVAH, by Jeroboam; which seems under Omri to have taken a more directly idolatrous turn." But still the change from a symbolical worship of the One True God, with the innocent rites of sacrifice and prayer, to the cruel and licentious worship of the Phoenician divinities, was a prodigious step downwards, and left traces in northern Palestine which no subsequent

1 2 Kings ix. 22.

2 1 Kings xvi. 25, 26.

Two

reformations were able entirely to obliterate. sanctuaries were established; one for each of the great Phoenician deities, at each of the two new capitals of the kingdom. The sanctuary of Ashtaroth, with its accustomed grove, was under Jezebel's special sanction, at the palace of Jezreel. Four hundred priests or prophets ministered to it, and were supported at her table. A still more remarkable sanctuary was dedicated to Baal, on the hill of Samaria. It was of a size sufficient to contain all the worshippers of Baal' that the northern kingdom could furnish. Four hundred and fifty prophets frequented it. In the interior was a kind of inner fastness or adytum, in which were seated or raised on pillars the figures carved in wood of the Phoenician deities as they were seen, in vision, centuries later, by Jezebel's fellow-countryman, Hannibal, in the sanctuary of Gades. In the centre was Baal, the Sun-god; around him were the inferior divinities.1 In front of the temple, stood on a stone pillar the figure of Baal alone."

3

As far as this point of the history, the effect of the heathen worship was not greater than it had been in Jerusalem. But there soon appeared to be a more energetic spirit at work than had ever come forth from the palace of Solomon or Rehoboam. Now arose the first of a long series of like events in ecclesiastical hir tory-the first GREAT PERSECUTION- the first The Per persecution on a large scale, which the Church cution.

1 1 Kings xviii. 19; xvi 38.

2 Ibid. xvi. 32; xviii. 19, 22. For the name "Baal" was often substituted in Israelite phraseology the conemptuous bosheth, or "shame." This seems to have been the text followed by the LXX. (xviii. 19).

2 2 Kings x. 26.

4 Compare the inscriptions at Raad bec, in Robinson, Bib. Res. üi 509 521; and the vision of Harnibal in Livy, xxi. 22.

5 2 Kings x. 27; iii. 2.

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