The Tanach tells us much about Omri’s son Ahab, as he had dealings with Eliyahu. But what about Omri himself?

The Tanach (Kings I, 16) is very brief:

• It does not give his tribe or his father’s name. But it does tell the unusual story of how he—a military officer—was able to achieve the throne. (Briefly, there was someone named Zimri who had assassinated the prior king and reigned for seven days. At the time, Omri was on the field of battle, fighting the Philistines. Omri and his supporters were able to defeat Zimri and then they defeated another competitor for the throne, Tivni.)
• When it describes Omri’s reign, the Tanach makes only the following points:

1. He reigned 12 years in total: six years in the former capital Tirzah, before he built his new capital city (see below).
2. He bought a hill from a man named “Shemer” and built a city there that he called “Shomron,” named after this Shemer. (This is mentioned because Shomron served as the capital city of the northern kingdom as long as this kingdom existed.)
3. He did evil in the eyes of God and was worse than all the kings that preceded him. He followed the sinful path of Yerovam, son of Nevat.

Then verse 16:27 summarizes: “The rest of the acts of Omi which he did, ‘ugevurato asher asah,’ are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”

Verse 16:27 is a typical summary line in the book of Kings, except for that phrase: “ugevurato asher asah” (the might that he showed). What could this refer to?

Based on the “Mesha Stele,” discovered in Jordan in 1868, we now have some idea! This inscription is our major source for Moabite writing and language. Because the writing and language is close to the Hebrew of the time, scholars were able to decipher it. The stele is about one meter tall and had an inscription of 34 lines, most of which have survived. The stele is an inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab. (Mesha is mentioned one time in Tanach, at Kings II 3:4.) In the stele, Mesha tells how Moab was initially subjugated to Israel. But then the Moabite god, Kemosh, enabled Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. The stele dates to around 830 BCE.

Here are the first few lines of the stele: “I am Mesha, son of Kemosh-gad, king of Moab … My father reigned over Moab for 30 years, and I have reigned after my father. And I have built this sanctuary for Kemosh in Karchah, a sanctuary of salvation, for he saved me from all aggressors, and made me look upon all mine enemies with contempt. Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Kemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab … Now Omri took the land of Madeba, and occupied it in his day, and in the days of his son, 40 years … ” The stele continues with the next developments: the subsequent victories of Mesha over Israel. For our purposes, we see that Omri was able to rule over some portion of the land of Moab for an extended period.

Note that there is a slight contradiction between the stele and Tanach. In Tanach, we are told that Mesha’s revolt began after Ahab’s death, while the stele implies that it began while Ahab is still alive.

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The last few lines of the stele are badly damaged. In 1994, French epigraphers suggested that it had the phrase ביתדוד. (This name is already found in an inscription from Tel Dan, also from the 9th century BCE. So this would be the second such occurrence of a reference to the Davidic dynasty.) However, a recent article disputes this suggestion. But it is willing to propose the reading בלק instead! See the article in Tel Aviv, volume 46 (2019).

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There are other references to Omri in archaeology, but as a region, the equivalent of Samaria. One is in the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (mid-9th century BCE), discovered in Iraq in 1846. Aside from the main inscription about the king and his military campaigns, this obelisk has 20 reliefs. These depict five different subdued kings, bringing tribute. The relevant relief tells us that Shalmaneser III received the tribute of “iaua” son of “huumri.” The tribute is then described: silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase with pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin and a staff for a king and spears.

The identification of the Israelite king “iaua” is disputed. It might be “Yehu” or “Yehoram.” Since neither was the son of Omri, a widespread understanding of the inscription is “son of (the people of the land of) Omri.” This is reasonable because there are several Assyrian inscriptions that refer to the northern kingdom, not as “Yisrael,” but as “Bit Humri” (Beit Omri). This is even after the death of Omri and his descendants. (See Encyclopaedia Judaica 12:1390.) The above relief also features an image of this subdued king “iaua.” This is the only portrayal in ancient Near Eastern archaeology of an Israelite or Judean monarch.

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1. The Mesha stele has a fascinating background story. After it was discovered, a “squeeze” (an impression) was made by a local Arab at the request of a French archaeologist. A year later, the original stele was smashed into several fragments by an Arab tribe—as an act of defiance against the Ottoman authorities, who were pressuring this tribe to hand over the stele so it could be given to Germany. But the French archaeologist managed to acquire the fragments and piece them together based on the squeeze impression. The stele is presently in the Louvre in Paris. (Jordan has demanded its return!)
2. There are brief references to Omri in Tanach at Michah 6:16 and Kings 2, 8:26 (and the parallel to the latter at Chronicles 2, 22:2).
3. The Mesha stele mentions the name “Israel.” (But we have a much earlier
   reference to “Israel” in a stele of the Egyptian king Merneptah, circa 1200 BCE.) The Mesha stele also mentions the tribe of Gad. This is the only extra-biblical reference that we know of to any of the biblical tribes. (“Judah” is mentioned as a kingdom, but not as a tribe.)
4. We see from Kings I, chapter 16 that “Shomron” was initially only the name of a city. Perhaps the name began being used for the entire Israelite kingdom not long after the city had become Israel’s capital. But its broader use is first documented only after its conquest by Sargon II (late 8th century BCE). Sargon II turned the kingdom into a province with an Akkadian name similar to “Shomron.”
5. The Moabite god, Kemosh, is mentioned at Numbers 21:29 and several more times in Nach.

Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. None of his five books have been smashed as acts of defiance by angry readers (at least, to his knowledge).