page_title: Omri
section_title: The Omride Dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: Omri / The Omride Dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Depiction of Jehu King of Israel giving tribute to King Shalmaneser III of Assyria, on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III from Nimrud (circa 827 BC) in the British Museum (London).
context_page_description: Omri was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the sixth king of Israel. He was a successful military campaigner who extended the northern kingdom of Israel. Other monarchs from the House of Omri are Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram, and Athaliah. Like his predecessor, king Zimri, who ruled for only seven days, Omri is the second king mentioned in the Bible without a statement of his tribal origin. One possibility, though unproven, is that he was of the tribe of Issachar.
  Nothing is said in Scripture about the lineage of Omri. His name may be Amorite, Arabic, or Hebrew in origin. Omri is credited with the construction of Samaria and establishing it as his capital. Although the Bible is silent about other actions taken during his reign, he is described as doing more evil than all the kings who preceded him. An alternative modern hypothesis maintains that, as founder of the House of Omri, an Israelite royal house, his kingdom formed the first state in the Land of Israel, and that the Kingdom of Judah only achieved statehood later.
context_section_description: The short-lived dynasty founded by Omri constituted a new chapter in the history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. It ended almost fifty years of constant civil war over the throne. There was peace with the Kingdom of Judah to the south, and even cooperation between the two rival states, while relations with neighboring Sidon to the north were bolstered by marriages negotiated between the two royal courts. This state of peace with two powerful neighbors enabled the Kingdom of Israel to expand its influence and even political control in Transjordan, and these factors combined brought economic prosperity to the kingdom.
  On the other hand, peace with Sidon also resulted in the penetration of Phoenician religious ideas into the kingdom and led to a kulturkampf between traditionalists (as personified by the prophet Elijah and his followers) and the aristocracy (as personified by Omri's son and heir Ahab and his consort Jezebel). In foreign affairs, this period paralleled the rise of the Kingdom of Aram based in Damascus, and Israel soon found itself at war in the northeast.  Most threatening, however, was the ascendancy of Assyria, which was beginning to expand westward from Mesopotamia: the Battle of Qarqar (853 BC), which pitted Shalmaneser III of Assyria against a coalition of local kings, including Ahab, was the first clash between Assyria and Israel. It was the first in a series of wars that would eventually lead to the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the reduction of the Kingdom of Judah to an Assyrian tributary state.
  In 841 BC, the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III campaigned along the Mediterranean coast and forced Jehu to pay tribute. Assyrian kings frequently referred to Omri's successors as belonging to the "House of Omri" (Bit Hu-um-ri-a).
caption: In a scene from the Black Obelisk Jehu, designated mIa-ú-a mar mHu-um-ri-i (Jehu of the land of people[11][12] of Omri) bows before Shalmaneser III.
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