Summary Outline
The governing principle of all ancient peoples .... said you worship
your national deity or patron deity, but also side by side, other gods.
The writers of the Hebrew Bible were against that principle.
hat was going on in the kingdom of Israel, to the north, while all
the things that we have been looking at in Jerusalem were going
on in Judah? After the 10 northern tribes broke away from Judah
and formed their own kingdom, eventually, Samaria became its capital, only
35 miles from Jerusalem. With these two kingdoms and their capitals in such
close proximity, you can imagine that tension and
rivalry developed between them.
The writers of the Hebrew Bible were pro-Judah/pro-south and
anti-Israel/anti-north. They maintained that the Jerusalem temple was
the only place where the God of Israel could be worshiped. And they
denounced Jeroboam, founder of the northern kingdom, for setting up
golden calves in the northern and southern extremities of his kingdom,
at Bethel and Dan. At Tel Dan, excavations have brought to light a cultic
place that at the very least was the site of some sort of shrine or temple.
The House of Jeroboam is the dynasty that initially ruled over the
northern kingdom. Later, Omri established himself as king; the most
notorious of the northern kings of Israel was his son, Ahab, who ruled
from 872-851 B.C. Ahab is infamous for, among other things, his marriage
to the daughter of the king of Tyre, Jezebel, who was blamed for inducing
Ahab to build a temple to the Phoenician deity Baal.
Excavations in Ahab’s palace at Samaria have brought to light a wealth of
ivories that are carved in the Phoenician style. It’s not surprising to find
these ivories in Samaria, given the close connections between Ahab and
his Phoenician neighbors to the north. In fact, the Hebrew Bible refers to
Ahab’s “ivory house,” probably indicating the numerous inlays of carved
ivory that were used to decorate pieces of furniture in the palace, the
sort of ivories that were found in the excavations.
We should also touch on the House of Omri’s relationship with the
kingdom of Moab, on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. After Omri
established his dynasty, he annexed Moab. Several decades later, the
king of Moab, Mesha, rebelled. Not only does the Hebrew Bible report
this event, but we also have a large inscribed stone called the Mesha
Stone, or Mesha stele, which celebrates King Mesha’s victory; the stone
dates to roughly 840 B.C.
Eventually, the northern kingdom came to an end. In 722 B.C., the
Assyrians took Samaria, forcing the inhabitants of Israel to leave their
land and go into exile in Assyria. The kingdom of Judah was invaded
20 years later by the Assyrians, but Judah survived this invasion under
Hezekiah. In the next lecture, we’ll explore daily life in Israel and Judah.
Important Terms
Baal: National deity of the Canaanites/Phoenicians.
Mesha stele: Inscribed stone found in Jordan that records Mesha’s revolt
against one of the Omride kings in the mid-9th century.
Phoenicians: The Iron Age inhabitants of modern Lebanon, descendants of
the Bronze Age Canaanites.
Samaria: Capital of the northern kingdom of Israel and, later, the name of
the surrounding district, as well.
Questions to Consider
1. What are the biases of the writers of the Hebrew Bible, and what do
these biases tell us about the writers?
2. What do we learn from the Hebrew Bible about the adoption of foreign
religious and cultic practices by the inhabitants of the northern kingdom
of Israel?
Lecture 6-Transcript
Samaria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel
We’ve been talking about biblical Jerusalem for a while, and in this lecture
what I’d like to do is turn to look at the northern kingdom of Israel because
Jerusalem of course was in Judah in the south. What was going on in the
kingdom of Israel in the north while all of the things that we were looking at
in Jerusalem were going on in Judah?
What I’d like to do first of all is set up this dichotomy between north and
south. There actually was tension between the northern tribes and the southern
tribes, and it was this tension that led to the split of the United Kingdom,
the United Monarchy, after the death of Solomon. So after Solomon died in
about 930 the United Kingdom split into two halves, the northern kingdom
becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel. Eventually its capital is at a city
called Samaria, and the southern kingdom becomes known as the Kingdom
of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem. In theory at least, Jerusalem continued
to be the religious center of both kingdoms with the temple built by Solomon
on the Temple Mount.
In order to get an impression of how close these kingdoms were together,
even though they’re split apart, let’s look at the distance between Samaria,
the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem, the capital
of the Kingdom of Judah. The distance between these two capital cities is
approximately 35 miles. These two kingdoms not only adjoin each other,
they’re not only neighboring, but their capital cities are also very close
together. As you can imagine then there developed some tension and rivalry
between these two kingdoms after Solomon’s death.
One of the problems that develops between these two kingdoms is how
to worship the God of Israel, Yahweh. This is a difference between two
principles, inclusive Yahwism or exclusive Yahwism, something that we see
actually expressed by the writers of the Hebrew Bible.
What exactly were the biases of the writers of the Hebrew Bible and what
do these biases tell us about these writers? First of all we can see that the
writers of the Hebrew Bible were pro-Judah, pro-south, and anti-Israel, anti-
north. We can also see that they favored exclusive Yahwism, not inclusive
Yahwism. What does that mean? Exclusive Yahwism says that the only
God that the people of Israel may worship is the God of Israel, no other
gods alongside him. That is the god to whom the temple in Jerusalem
was dedicated.
Whereas inclusive Yahwism says that you worship the God of Israel as
your national deity, as your patron, but side by side with that you may also
worship other gods. This in fact was the common picture in the ancient
world. Ancient peoples, ancient cities had patron deities or national deities
who they worshiped, for example Athena, the patron deity of Athens. But
side by side with those national or patron deities they worshiped other gods.
So inclusive Yahwism is the principle that basically was the governing
principle of all ancient peoples in antiquity which said you worship your
national deity or patron deity, but also side by side other gods. The writers of
the Hebrew Bible were against that principle.
The writers of the Hebrew Bible favored the centralization of the cult over
decentralization. What does this mean? It means that the only place where
you may worship the God of Israel is in the Jerusalem temple. You may not
construct other temples, sanctuaries, or shrines outside of Jerusalem around
the country dedicated to the worship of the God of Israel. The Jerusalem
temple is the only place where the God of Israel may be worshiped.
What do these biases tell us about the biblical writers? Well for one thing the
centralization of cult, the centralization of the cult in the Jerusalem temple,
placed religion in the control of the high priest in the Jerusalem temple,
which automatically makes you suspect that the biblical writers must’ve
been part of that group. Furthermore the high priesthood was a hereditary
of lice in the hands of a particular family called the Zadokites, the sons of
Zadok or Hebrew Zadok.
Again begins to make you wonder about where these guys are coming
from. They probably have a certain interest in expressing this point of
view, exclusive Yahwism, centralization of the cult in the Jerusalem temple.
Furthermore, exclusive Yahwism then concentrated power in the hands of the
Jerusalem high priesthood. That is if you are not allowed to worship anyone
but the God of Israel, then it means that all of the power is concentrated in
the hands of the priesthood of the God of Israel, because no other gods are
being worshipped therefore there are no other priests.
Centralization of the cult privileged Judah over Israel automatically because
the Jerusalem temple was located in Judah, not in Israel. So it gave the
Judeans, the people of Judah control and specifically the priesthood control
over the Jerusalem temple, and meant that the northern kingdom, Israel, had
no control over the cult if the only place where you can worship the God
of Israel is in Jerusalem automatically. There are no temples, shrines, or
sanctuaries located outside of Jerusalem.
So it is not surprising then when we take all of this into account. When we
read the Hebrew Bible we see that the biblical writers generally express a
very negative attitude towards the northern kingdom of Israel, towards
its rulers, and towards the various kinds of things that they did. Generally
speaking it was in the north that you find people favoring the idea of inclusive
Yahwism, versus exclusive Yahwism, this idea that you can worship other
gods alongside the God of Israel.
Also in the north we find the principle acceptable of establishing alternative
temples or sanctuaries dedicated to the God of Israel outside of Jerusalem,
because of course in Israeli would’ve wanted to do that because Jerusalem
was in Judah, was in the other kingdom. The biblical writers there for almost
universally condemn the practices of the northern kings of Israel. We see this
reflected for example in this biblical passage from l Kings condemning one
of the northern kings. “So the king,” in this case is Jeroboam, “took counsel
and made two calves of gold, and said to the people, ‘You have gone up
to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, o Israel, who brought you up
from the land of Egypt! So he set up the one in Bethel and the other he put in
Dan; and this thing became a sin to Israel.”
Notice several things about this. Jeroboam makes two golden calves, he
says you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough, we don’t want people
continuing to go to Jerusalem. We can have our own sanctuaries here in the
Kingdom of Israel, and he sets up one in Bethel and on in Dan which are
the two points, the two outer most points of the northern kingdom, Bethel in
the south and Dan in the north, so one at each end. The biblical writers then
condemned this as a sin to Israel.
Archeology actually bears out some of this because at Tel Dan, which was
located in the very northern part of the country excavations brought to light
a cultic place that may’ve been the very site where the golden calf was set
up or at the very least it was the site of some sort of an alternative shrine or a
temple. The excavator Avraharn Biran described this as a high place. What is
a high place? This is a term actually that we get from the Hebrew Bible.
Here we have a passage from l Kings:
After this episode Jeroboam did not turn Hom his evil way, butA couple of interesting things to note about this, so first of all it describes
made again from among all sorts of people priests of the high
places. Whomsoever he would, he installed to be the priests of the
high places, and this thing became a sin to the house of Jeroboam,
even to cut it off and destroy it from the face of the earth.
Jeroboam appointing priests of things called high places. A high place
apparently is an elevated platform either for some sort of temple or a shrine
or possibly for cult statues such as a golden calf that’s described in the
passage that we read previously.
What we have here at Tel Dan actually conforms with this description of a
high place, an elevated place, for sanctuary and in point of fact the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem would’ve qualified as a high place in the sense that it
was a natural high point where the temple was located. He appoints priests
to serve in this high place and this is then condemned by the biblical writers
who condemn it as a sin to the House of Jeroboam. What is the House of
Jeroboam? The House of Jeroboam is analogous to a phrase that we saw in
an inscription in our last lecture that referred to the House of David.
When we hear this term House of Jeroboam, House of David, House of Omri,
it refers to a royal dynasty. So the House of Jeroboam is the dynasty that was
established by Jeroboam that rules over the northern Kingdom of Israel.
Perhaps the most notorious of the northern kings of Israel is Ahab who was
King of Israel Hom 872 to 851. Ahab is notorious among other things because
of his marriage to a woman named Jezebel. Biblical Jezebel, or in Hebrew
Izabel, who was the daughter of a Phoenician king. This is actually very
interesting too because here we see Ahab forming a political alliance with
his Phoenician neighbors to the north in the very same way that Solomon
had done. But whereas the biblical writers do not condemn Solomon, they do
condemn Ahab and they really hated Jezebel.
Another interesting thing to notice, Jezebel was the daughter of a king named
Itobaal or in biblical Hebrew Ethbaal, who was the king of Tyre. Notice both
Jezebel’s name and her father’s name have an interesting element, the name
Bel or Baal. Bel or Baal was the name of the national god, the patron god
of the Canaanites and the Phoenicians, just as the God of Israel was the
national god of the tribes of Israel and the god Dagon was the national god as
described in the Hebrew Bible at least was the national god of the Philistines.
The national god of the Canaanites or Phoenicians was Baal or Bel.
This name of the god then, the national god, forms part of the name of Jezebel
and also her father. It’s very common in antiquity for names to be theophoric,
that is for names to incorporate the name of the chief deity, and that’s what
we see here with Jezebel. Why did the biblical writers hate Jezebel so much?
Because of what she allegedly caused her husband to do, and let’s read the
relevant biblical passage.
Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years.First of all the biblical writers condemn Ahab for taking as a wife Jezebel,
[Notice we’ll come back to this that Ahab’s father was named
Omri.] But Ahab, the son of Omri, did that which was evil in the
sight of the Lord above all who were before him. He took as wife
Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went
and served the Baal and worshiped him. Then he erected an altar for
Baal in the House of the Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab
did more to provoke the jealousy of the Lord, the God of Israel,
than all of the kings of Israel who were before him.
the daughter of this king of the Phoenicians, and then he erects an altar for
Baal in a temple to Baal, House of the Baal is a temple for Baal, which
he builds in Samaria in the capital city. This then according to the biblical
writers provokes the jealousy of the God of Israel. The God of Israel was
a jealous god according to the biblical writers who would not tolerate the
worship of any other gods alongside him.
In the acropolis at Samaria we have remains of the palace of Ahab. All of this
episode with the palace of Ahab at Samaria and Jezebel becoming Ahab’s
wife and the biblical description of the House of Baal and the altar of Baal
also bring to mind another famous biblical episode and that is connected with
the prophet Elijah, because of course the prophet of Elijah who’s wandering
around the northern kingdom at this time, condemns Ahab and Jezebel for
introducing the worship of Baal into the northern kingdom.
There’s a lot of lighting that goes on back and forth between Elijah on the one
hand and Ahab and Jezebel on the other. Just to read one passage here from 1
Kings, “When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, ‘Is it you, you troubler of
Israel‘?’ ” So from Ahab’s point of view, Elijah is just this troublemaker. “He
answered, [Elijah answered,] ‘I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and
your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the
Lord and followed the Baals.’ ” Clearly Elijah is an exclusive Yahwist and he
is then condemning Ahab who is an inclusive Yahwist.
Excavations at Samaria have brought to light remains associated with that
palace. Among them some monumental remains, such as carved capitals
which once stood atop columns, capitals that are sort of in an almost early
Greek kind of a style called proto-Aeolic capitals, and also a wealth of ivories
that are carved in Phoenician style. It’s not actually surprising to find carved
ivories in a Phoenician style in Samaria given the close connections between
Ahab and his Phoenician neighbors to the north.
In fact, the Bible refers to the many ivories in Ahab’s palace in a passage in
l Kings and I quote, “Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did,
and the ivory house that he built, and all the cities that he built, are they not
written in the Book of the Armals of the Kings of Israel?” Well what is the
ivory house? The ivory house is apparently referring to the palace with all
of its ivories. It’s not referring to a palace that is built out of ivory; what it’s
referring to is the numerous inlays of carved ivory that were used to decorate
pieces of furniture in the palace, and those are the sorts of ivories that we’re
looking at that were found in the excavations.
The biblical writers really did not like Jezebel and they present her in an
extremely negative light. Again the reason for this is because Jezebel, Hom
their point of view, was responsible for introducing the worship of Baal into
Samaria and caused her husband then to sin. They present Jezebe1’s end also
in a very negative way. She comes to a horrible end, and from the point of
view of the biblical writers, she comes to an end that she deserves. What
happens at the end with Jezebel’s death? This is how the biblical account
describes it.
“When Jehu came to Jezreel,” Jehu by the way was an officer in the army
who is responsible for a coup and he’s the one actually responsible for killing
Jezebel, Jezreel by the way is the place where one of the royal palaces was
located, it’s a site located in the north of the country, “Jezebel heard of it,
and she painted her eyelashes and adorned her head and peered out at the
window.” So Jezebel hears that Jehu as arrived, Jehu by the way had just
killed the king, Jezebel hears that he has arrived and she puts on makeup and
she looks out the window. Very interesting, among the carved ivories that we
have is an ivory that actually shows a woman standing and looking out of a
window. We have to imagine something like this.
As Jehu was entering the gate, she said, “Is it well, you Zimri, yourSo Jehu actually has Jezebel thrown out of the window of the palace.
master’s murderer‘?” [Because he had killed the king already.] But
he raised his eyes to the window, he Jehu raised his eyes to the
window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” At that two or three
eunuchs peered out at him. “Let her drop,” he said. So they let her
drop, [so they throw her out the window] so that some of her blood
spattered on the wall and on the horses, and he drove over her. And
he went in and ate and drank.
She splats down onto the pavement below and then he’s in a horse with a
chariot and he drives over her, over her body and then he goes in and he eats
and drinks.
“Take care now of this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is aJezebel meets her end by being dropped out of the window, Jehu drives
king’s daughter,” he said. He says okay she’s a king’s daughter
we have to bury her. But when they Went to bLu'y her, they found
no more other than the skull, the feet, and the palms of the hands.
When, therefore, they returned and told him, he said, “This is the
word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant, Elijah the Tishbite,
saying, ‘In the territory of Jezreel shall the dogs eat the flesh of
Jezebel, and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the
field in the territory of Jezreel.’ ”
his chariot over her, and then so much of her is eaten by dogs, that there’s
nothing left to bury. And according to Jehu, as reported by the biblical
writers, Jezebel then meets the end that she deserved and that was predicted
for her by Elijah the prophet.
Ahab was the son of Omri. Omri was the one who established a dynasty
that ruled over the northern Kingdom of Israel. This dynasty therefore is the
Omride Dynasty. Ahab was a member of the Omride Dynasty. This dynasty
was established by Omri in the first half of the 9th century.
One of the things that Omri did after he established this dynasty was to
annex Moab. Moab remember is the territory on the eastern side of the Dead
Sea. It was its own independent kingdom. Omri annexes the kingdom of
Moab. Several decades later the king of Moab, who is being ruled by the
Omride Dynasty and has to pay an annual tribute, rebelled against one of the
Omrides, one of the kings of Israel, one of the successors of King Omri.
This episode is reported in the Hebrew Bible as follows. “Now Mesha, king
of Moab, who raised sheep, used to pay the king of Israel as tribute a hundred
thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams. But when Ahab
died, the king of Moab had rebelled against the king of Israel.” So at some
point in the 8* century the king of Moab who at this point is named Mesha
rebels against the rule of the Omride Dynasty.
What is so interesting about this is this episode is on the one hand reported
in the Hebrew Bible, but we also have archaeological evidence that confirms
the story. This archaeological evidence takes the form of a large inscribed
stone, or stele, called the Mesha Stone or the Mesha Stele. We’ve already
talked about these big inscribed stones several times. We talked for example
about the Merneptah Stele. We saw the remains of a stele that was found at
Tel Dan that refers to the House of David.
What’s the story with these big stele, with these big inscribed stones? They’re
basically the billboards of antiquity. There was no mass media in antiquity,
so if you were a king and you wanted to broadcast your victory, you wanted
to commemorate your victory, you would take a big stone slab and incise an
inscription on it that recorded your victory. So the Mesha Stele is a victory
stele recording Mesha’s victory in this rebellion against the King of Israel.
The Mesha Stone was discovered in 1868 by a missionary who was wandering
around in Jordan specifically at a site called Dibon, which is an ancient site.
If you look at the stone you can see that it looks like it’s in pieces, and in fact
originally the stone was complete when it was found, but the local villagers
thinking that gold was hidden inside smashed it. Fortunately before the stone
was smashed by the villagers a squeeze had been made.
What’s a squeeze? A squeeze is when you take a piece of paper and pound
it over the inscription with water and you pull it up and you have the letters
of the inscription then impressed into the piece of paper. So a squeeze had
already been made, so we actually had the complete inscription even though
the stone was smashed. The pieces of the stone were collected, put back
together, and were taken to the Louvre in Paris where the stone is still on
display today.
The stone is carved with a 34-line inscription that describes King Mesha’s
victory over the King of Israel and it dates to the middle of the 9“‘ centtuy
B.C., roughly 840 BC. The inscription describes how Moab was oppressed
by the King of Israel and then Mesha rebels and is victorious. It’s again one of
these kinds of victory commemorations inscribed on a stone slab. Let’s take
a look at a little bit of a relevant passage from this very important inscription.
“I am Mesha, son of Kemoshyat, the king of Moab, the Dibonite,” so from
Dibon. “My father was king of Moab thirty years, and I reigned after my
father. Omri was king of Israel and he oppressed Moab for many days
because Kemosh was angry with his land.” And his son replaced him; and
he also said, “I will oppress Moab.” Several things before we go on to
notice. Notice that it refers Omri originally annexing Moab, and now we’re
several generations later and Mesha is now king. He’s the son of a guy name
Kemoshyat, and it says that Omri was able to take Moab, was able to oppress
and annex Moab for many years because Kemosh was angry with his land.
Who’s Kemosh? Kemosh was the national god of the Moabites, the patron
deity of the Moabites, and notice that Mesha is the son of Kemoshyat. So he
is the son of somebody who has a theophoric name, a name with the national
deity as part of it.
“In my days,” that is in the days of Mesha he spoke thus. “But I was victorious
over him and in his house. And Israel suffered everlasting destruction. And
Omri had conquered the land of Madaba, and he dwelt there during his reign
and half the reign of his son, forty years. But Kemosh returned it in my
days.” So due to the favor of the god Kemosh, the Moabites are able to be
successful in their rebellion against Israel.
The Mesha Stone then provides a nice little piece of extra biblical confirmation
for an event, an episode that is referred to in the biblical account. The Mesha
Stone brings us then into the 9* century B.C. In the 9th and 8th centuries B.C.
the dominant power in the ancient Near East was Assyria. Assyria was based
in the northern part of what is today Iraq, the northern part of Mesopotamia.
As Assyria grew stronger and more powerful, they began to expand and
extend their control further and further out until finally in the 8th century B.C.
they launched a series of invasions into the area of the northern Kingdom
of Israel.
In the year 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel.
This is described as follows in the Hebrew Bible:
Then the king of Assyria came up against the whole land, and wentSo notice in 722 B.C. the Assyrians conquer the northern Kingdom of Israel.
up to Samaria and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of
Hosea, the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away
captive to Assyria. So Israel was carried away out of their own
land to Assyria, as it is to this day.
It says that they take Samaria, which is the capital of the kingdom, and they
force the inhabitants of Israel to leave their land and go into exile in Assyria.
This event, the exile of people of the northern Kingdom of Israel, is the
source of the Ten Lost Tribes. The Ten Lost Tribes are those tribes and their
descendents who were the inhabitants of the northern Kingdom of Israel who
were sent into exile by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and who we lose touch
with afterwards. We lose track of them afterwards and so then they become
according to tradition the Ten Lost Tribes.
After the Assyrian conquest of Israel, the Kingdom of Judah was then invaded
20 years later by the Assyrians. But as we saw under Hezekiah they were
able to survive the Assyrian invasion and the Kingdom of Judah continued to
exist, but the Kingdom of Israel was no more. This then sets us up now for
talking about what daily life was like in Israel and Judah.
