Commentary on 1 Kings 16:23–24 (Summary)

Omri was king for twelve years, which is relatively long if you compare it with Elah (two years) and Zimri (seven days).

1 Kings 16:23 presents the reader with what some scholars have seen as a problem of the book’s dating. It concerns the beginning of Omri’s reign over Israel. Zimri took the throne in the twenty‑seventh year of the reign of Asa over Judah. He reigned for only one week, and yet Omri is said to have begun his reign in the thirty‑first year of Asa. How are we to account for the missing three to four years?

The most straightforward answer is that there was a period of civil war during which no one ruled the whole of Israel. Some scholars object to this solution because it does not satisfy sceptical assumptions about the biblical text. But this assumes that the unbelief of critical scholars is a standard we must meet before we can deal with questions that arise in Scripture.

This way of proceeding may seem rather harmless when it comes to biblical dating, and we can assign the errors to the men who copied the Scriptures. What, however, do we do when the matter of unbelief has to do with matters like Jesus’ virgin birth or his resurrection? Sceptics also see these matters as untrue; shall we bow to their unbelief on these points?

We therefore suggest that 1 Kings 16:23 gives the year in which Omri became the undisputed king of Israel. Israel's history shows that there is a difference between someone being proclaimed king and actually taking the throne. Absalom was proclaimed king, but he is not counted as king in the biblical record; the same could be said of Adonijah, whose sad history is recorded in 1 Kings 1:1–53. Omri's situation fits this pattern: he was proclaimed king earlier, but his official regnal years begin only when Tibni died and the kingdom was united under him.

This dating issue also raises the question of what the writer means when he says that Omri reigned in Tirzah for six years. Does this refer to six years of ruling all Israel, or does it include the years in which he ruled only part of the kingdom? When we consider that Ahab began to reign in the thirty‑eighth year of Asa, it suggests that the time of partial rule was included, and that Omri’s twelve years were calculated from the deaths of Elah and Zimri.

From the point of view of the writer of 1 Kings, the most significant act of Omri’s reign—apart from the very negative ethical evaluation of his rule—was his building of a new capital, Samaria. He wanted a different capital than Tirzah, and so he purchased the hill of Shemer and built a fortified city upon it. The fact that the city retained the name of the former owner suggests that the hill was sold voluntarily rather than seized by royal authority.

Despite the overwhelming evil of Omri’s reign, we should not overlook this achievement. Recall the establishing of a new capital for Brazil, Brasília. It was a massive undertaking. Omri’s project would likewise have been significant. The choice of a hilltop location was probably an improvement in terms of military defence. Omri would have been aware of Tirzah’s shortcomings from the ease with which he captured it during Zimri’s brief rule.

Today Samaria's remains can be found in or near the present-day Palestinian city of Sebastia in the Nablus region. The name Samaria means something like guard post. A hill is a prominent point in a landscape, from which you have a distant view. This location will have appealed to the military Omri.

Omri is the only king of Israel and Judah mentioned on the Stone of Mesha, a memorial from the time when neighbouring Moab and Israel regularly fought each other, and which records the great deeds of Moab’s kings.