Summarize

"Distant Borders and Military Might.

The court tragedy of the house of Omri is a literary classic, filled with vivid characters and theatrical scenes, in which a royal family’s crimes against their own people are paid back with a bloody demise. The memory of the reigns of Ahab and Jezebel obviously remained vivid for centuries, as we can see from their inclusion in such a prominent way in the Deuteronomistic History—compiled over two hundred years after their deaths. Nonetheless, the biblical narrative is so thoroughly filled with inconsistencies and anachronisms, and so obviously influenced by the theology of the seventh century BCE writers, that it must be considered more of a historical novel than an accurate historical chronicle. Among other inconsistencies, the reported  invasion of Samaria by Ben-hadad of Damascus did not take place during the reign of Ahab but later in the history of the northern kingdom. The mention of an alliance of Israel with an unnamed king of Edom is also an anachronism, for there is no evidence of monarchy in Edom until more than a century after the time of the Omrides. In fact, when one takes out the anachronisms and the stories of threats issued and prophecies fulfilled, there is very little verifiable historical material left in the biblical account, except for the sequence of Israelite kings, some of their most famous building projects, and the general areas of military activity.

Fortunately there are—-for the first time in the history of Israel—-some important external sources of historical information that allow us to see the Omrides from a different perspective: as the militarily powerful rulers of one of the strongest states in the Near East. The key to this new understanding is the sudden appearance of monumental inscriptions that directly refer to the kingdom of Israel. The first mention of the northern kingdom in the time of the Omrides is not accidental. The westward advance of the Assyrian empire from its Mesopotamian heartland—with its fully developed bureaucracy and long tradition of recording its rulers’ acts in public declarations—profoundly influenced the culture of crystallizing states like Israel, Aram, and Moab. Beginning in the ninth century BCE, in the records of the Assyrians themselves and those of smaller powers of the Near East, we at last gain some firsthand testimony on events and personalities described in the biblical text.

In the time of David and Solomon, political organization in the region had not yet reached the stage where extensive bureaucracies and monumental inscriptions existed. By the time of the Omrides a century later, internal economic processes and external political pressures had brought about the rise of fully developed territorial, national states in the Levant. In an anthropological sense, fully developed implies a territory governed by a complex bureaucratic organization that is capable of organizing major building projects, maintaining a standing army, and developing organized trade connections with neighboring regions. It is capable of keeping records of its actions in archives and in monumental inscriptions open to public view. In the ninth century and after, major political events were recorded in monumental writing, from the perspective of each king. These inscriptions are crucial for establishing precise dates for events and personalities mentioned in the Bible. And for anyone who knows the Bibles version, they offer an unexpected picture of the extent and power of the kingdom of Israel.

One of the most important is the Mesha stele, found in 1868 on the surface of the remote mound of Dhiban in southern Jordan, east of the Dead Sea—the site of biblical Dibon, the capital of the kingdom of Moab. This monumental inscription was badly damaged in the wrangling between rival European explorers and the local bedouin, but its surviving fragments have been pieced together to offer what is still the longest extrabiblical text ever found in the Levant. It is written in the Moabite language, which is closely related to biblical Hebrew, and it records the achievements of King Mesha, who conquered the territories of northern Moab and established his capital in Dibon. The discovery of this inscription caused great excitement in the nineteenth century because Mesha is mentioned in 2 Kings 3 as a rebellious vassal of the northern kingdom of Israel,

Here for the first time was the other side of the story, the first nonbiblical description of the Omrides ever found. The events recorded in the inscription took place in the ninth century BCE, when, according to its fragmentary text, “Omri [was] king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days. . . . And his son succeeded him, and he too said: ‘I will humble Moab.’ In my days, he spoke thus. . . . And Omri had taken possession of the land of Medeba. And he dwelt in it his days and the sum of the days of ,his sons: forty years.”

The inscription goes on to relate how Mesha gradually expanded his territory in rebellion against Israel, destroying the main settlements of the Israelites east of the Jordan, while fortifying and embellishing his own capital. Though Mesha barely disguises his contempt for Omri and his son Ahab, we nonetheless learn from his triumphal inscription that the kingdom of Israel reached far east and south of its earlier heartland in the central hill country.

Likewise we hear about the conflicts with Aram-Damascus from the “House of David” inscription discovered at the biblical city of Dan in 1993. Although the name of the monarch who erected it w r as not found on the fragments that have so far been recovered, there is little doubt, from the overall context, that this was the mighty Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus. He is mentioned several times in the Bible, in particular as God’s instrument to humble the House of Omri. From the inscription, it seems that Hazael captured the city of Dan and erected a triumphal stele there around 835 BCE. The inscription records the words of the victorious Hazael in his angry accusation that “the king of Israel entered previously in my father’s land.” Since the inscription apparently mentioned the name of Ahab’s son and successor, Jehoram, the implication is clear. The kingdom of Israel under the Omrides stretched from the vicinity of Damascus throughout the central highlands and valleys of Israel, all the way to the southern territory of Moab, ruling over considerable populations of non-Israelites.

This Omride “empire,” we also learn, possessed a mighty military force. Though, the biblical account of the Omride dynasty stresses repeated military disasters—and makes no mention whatsoever of a threat from Assyria-—there is some dramatic evidence of the Omrides’ power from Assyria itself. Shalmaneser III, one of the greatest Assyrian kings, who ruled in the years 858-824 bce, offers perhaps the clearest (if entirely unintentional) praise for the power of the Omride dynasty. In the year 853 BCE, Shalmaneser led a major Assyrian invasion force westward to intimidate and possibly conquer the smaller states of Syria, Phoenicia, and Israel. His advancing armies were confronted by an anti-Assyrian coalition near Qarqar on the river Orontes in western Syria. Shalmaneser boasted of his great victory in an important ancient text known as the Monolith Inscription, found in the 1840s by the English explorer Austen Henry Layard at the ancient Assyrian site of Nimrud. The dark stone monument, thickly inscribed with cuneiform characters, proudly recorded the forces ranged against Shalmaneser: “1,2,00 chariots, 1,200 cavalry men, 20,000 foot soldiers of Hadadezer of Damascus, 700 chariots, 700 cavalrymen, to,000 foot soldiers of Irhuleni from Hamath, 2,000 chariots, 10,000 foot soldiers of Ahab, the Israelite, 500 soldiers from Que, 1,000 soldiers from Musri, 10 chariots, 10,000 soldiers from Irqanata. ...”

Not only is this the earliest nonbiblical evidence of a king of Israel, it is clear from the mention of the “heavy arms” (chariots) that Ahab was the strongest member of the anti-Assyrian coalition. And although the great Shalmaneser claimed victory, the practical outcome of this confrontation spoke much louder than royal boasts. Shalmaneser quickly returned to Assyria, and at least for a while the Assyrian march to the west was blocked.

Thus we learn from three ancient inscriptions (ironically from three of Israel's bitterest enemies) information that dramatically supplements the biblical account. Though the Bible speaks of an Aramean army besieging Samaria, Omri and his successors were in fact powerful kings who expanded the territory of their kingdom and maintained what was certainly one of the largest standing armies in the region. And they were deeply involved in international power politics (at a time when the kingdom of Judah was passed over in silence in Shalmaneser’s inscription) in a continuing effort to maintain their independence against regional rivals and the looming threat of the Assyrian Empire."