[571] 2 Kings ix. 31.
[572] R.V., "the _castle_ of the king's house."
[573] Justin, _Hist._, i. 3; cf. Herod., i. 176, vii. 107; Liv., xxi. 14. Ewald elaborates out of his own consciousness an extraordinary romance about Zimri and the queen-mother.
[574] Josephus (_Antt._, VIII. xii. 5) says that Tibni was assassinated, as does the Rabbinic _Seder Olam Rabba_, chap. xvii. LXX., καὶ ἀπέθανε Θαβνὶ καὶ Ἰωρὰμ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ.
[575] Athaliah is called "the daughter of Omri."
[576] The Aramæans have come to be incorrectly called Syrians because the Greeks confused them with the Assyrians.
[577] 1 Kings xx. 34.
[578] 2 Kings iii. 4.
[579] 1 Kings xvi. 25.
[580] Micah vi. 16.
[581] Isa. xxviii. 1-4.
[582] Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 242.
[583] 1 Kings xx. 1; 2 Kings vi. 24.
[584] Josephus, _Antt._, XV. vii. 7. One of the few instances in Palestine where the ancient name has been superseded by a more modern one. The early Assyrians call it Beth-Khumri, "House of Omri"; but the name Sammerin occurs in the monument of Tiglath-Pileser II.
[585] About £800 of our money.
[586] LXX., Σκοπία; שָׁמַר, "to watch."
[587] Meyer, _Gesch. d. Alt._, 331; Kittel, ii. 221; Schrader, _Keilinschr._, i. 165.
[588] נְבוּרָתֹו (1 Kings xvi. 27).
"Besides what that grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said." LYCIDAS.
1 KINGS xvi. 29-34.
Omri was succeeded by his son Ahab, whose eventful reign of upwards of twenty years[589] occupies so large a space even in these fragmentary records. His name means "brother-father," and has probably some sacred reference. He is stigmatised by the historians as a king more wicked than his father, though Omri had "done worse than all who were before him.". That he was a brave warrior, and showed some great qualities during a long and on the whole prosperous career; that he built cities, and added to Israel yet another royal residence; that he advanced the wealth and prosperity of his subjects; that he was highly successful in some of his wars against Syria, and died in battle against those dangerous enemies of his country; that he maintained unbroken, and strengthened by yet closer affinity, the recent alliance with the Southern Kingdom,--all this goes for nothing with the prophetic annalists. They have no word of eulogy for the king who added Baal-worship to the sin of Jeroboam. The prominence of Ahab in their record is only due to the fact that he came into dreadful collision with the prophetic order, and with Elijah, the greatest prophet who had yet arisen. The glory and the sins of the warrior-king interested the young prophets of the schools solely because they were interwoven with the grand and sombre traditions of their mightiest reformer.
The historian traces all his ignominy and ruin to a disastrous alliance. The kings of Judah had followed the bad example of David and had been polygamists. Up to this time the kings of Israel seem to have been contented with a single wife. The wealth and power of Ahab led him to adopt the costly luxury of a harem, and he had seventy sons.[590] This, however, would have been regarded in those days as a venial offence, or as no offence at all; but just as the growing power of Solomon had been enhanced by marriage with a princess of Egypt, so Ahab was now of sufficient importance to wed a daughter of the King of Tyre. "As though it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Zidonians."
It was an act of policy in which religious considerations went for nothing. There is little doubt that it flattered his pride and the pride of his people, and that Jezebel brought riches with her and pomp and the prestige of luxurious royalty.[591] The Phœnicians were of the old race of Canaan, with whom all affinity was so strongly forbidden. Ethbaal--more accurately, perhaps, Itto-baal (Baal is with him)[592]--though he ruled all Phœnicia, both Tyre and Sidon, was a usurper, and had been the high priest of the great Temple of Ashtoreth in Tyre. Hiram, the friend of Solomon, had now been dead for half a century. The last king of his dynasty was the fratricide Phelles, whom in his turn his brother Ethbaal slew. He reigned for thirty-two years, and founded a dynasty which lasted for sixty-two years more. He was the seventh successor to the throne of Tyre in the fifty years which had elapsed since the death of Hiram. Menander of Ephesus, as quoted by Josephus, shows us that in the history of this family we find an interesting point of contact between sacred and classic history. Jezebel was the aunt of Virgil's Belus, and great-aunt of Pygmalion, and of Dido, the famous foundress of Carthage.[593]