'In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign
over Israel, twelve years: six years reigned he in Tirzah. 24. And he
bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built
on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the
name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria. 25. But Omri wrought evil
in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all that were before him.
26. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in
his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the Lord God of
Israel to anger with their vanities. 27. Now the rest of the acts of
Omri which he did, and his might that he shewed, are they not written
in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? 28. So Omri slept
with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria: and Ahab his son reigned
in his stead. 29. And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of
Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son
of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. 30. And
Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that
were before him. 31. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light
thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he
took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethibaal king of the Zidonians,
and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. 32. And he reared up an
altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. 33.
And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of
Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.'-1
KINGS xvi. 23-33.
Jeroboam's son and successor was killed by Baasha, Baasha's son and
successor was killed by Zimri, who reigned for a week, and then burned
the palace and died in the flames. A struggle for the throne followed
between Omri, the commander-in-chief, and Tibni, 'Tibni died, and Omri
reigned.' So, in fifty years, the kingdom that was to relieve Israel
from oppression staggered through seas of blood, and four kings, or
would-be kings, died by violence.
Omri's dynasty lasted about as long, namely, through the reigns of four
kings, and was then swept away like the others, in blood and fire. The
text gives a meagre outline of the reigns of himself and his son Ahab,
of which perhaps the meagreness is the most significant feature. The
only fact told of the father is that he built Samaria, and his whole
reign is summed up in the damning sentence that he 'walked in the way
of Jeroboam.' We learn from the Moabite stone that he waged successful
war against that country, and that it was tributary to Israel for forty
years. In Micah vi. 16, mention is made of the statutes of Omri, as if
he had given edicts for idolatry. The reign of Ahab is similarly
summarised. His marriage with Jezebel, and the flood of Baal worship
which that let loose over the land, are told with horror, in
preparation for Elijah's appearance like a dark background that throws
up a brilliant figure.
The lessons to be drawn from these severely condensed records, cut down
to the bone, as it were, are plain. The first of them is, that when a
life is over, the one thing which lasts, or is worth thinking about, is
the man's relation to God and His will. Here are twelve years' reign in
the one case, and twenty-two in the other, all boiled down, so to
speak, into half a dozen sentences, and estimated according to one
standard only. What has become of all the eager strife, the joys and
sorrows, the hopes and fears, that burned so fiercely for awhile? All
died down into a handful of grey ashes. And what lies in them like a
lump of solid metal that has been melted out of the huge heap of days
and deeds that fed the fire? The man's relation to God. That abides;
that is recorded; that determines everything else about him. Waving
forests that once had sunshine pouring down on their green fronds are
represented in a thin seam of coal. Our lives will all come down to
this at last. How did he stand towards God and His will is the final
question that will be asked about each of us, and the answer to it is
the only thing that concerns the dead--or the living either. Men write
voluminous biographies of each other. How little their judgments matter
to the dead men! Praise or blame are equally indifferent to them. But
what matters is, whether God will have to record of us what is recorded
of these two wretched kings, or whether He will recognise that the main
drift of our poor lives was to serve Him and do His will. He was a
great scholar; he made a huge fortune; he rose to be a peer; she was a
noted beauty, a leader of fashion, a queen of society--what will all
such epitaphs be worth, if God's finger carves silently below them, 'He
did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord'?
Another lesson from these two reigns is the certain widening of the
smallest departure from God. Jeroboam professed to retain the worship
of Jehovah, and to introduce only a small alteration in setting up a
symbol of Him. He would vehemently have asserted that he was no
idolater, and would have shuddered at the very notion of bowing down to
the gods of the nations, but in less than fifty years a temple to the
Sidonian Baal rose in Samaria, and his worship, with its foul
sensuality, was corrupting all Israel. However acute the angle of
departure, the line has only to be prolonged, and the distance between
it and that from which it diverged will be the distance between heaven
and hell, Let no one say: 'Thus far and no farther will I go.' There is
no stopping at will on that course, any more than a man sliding down a
steeply sloping sheet of smooth ice can pull himself up before he
plunges over the edge into the abyss below. That is true as to all
departures from God and His law, but it is eminently true as to every
tampering with the spirituality of worship. Jeroboam's symbolism led
straight to Ahab's unblushing pagan worship of the hideous Sidonian
Baal. The craving for symbolical and sensuous accessories of worship,
which is strong in most Churches in this aesthetic generation, is
perilous. Material aids to worship there must be, so long as we are in
the flesh, but the fewer and simpler they are the better, for they are
aids which very swiftly become hindrances.
Another lesson from Ahab's reign is the need of detachment from
entangling alliances, if we would keep ourselves right with God. It was
Israel's calling to be separate from the nations. It was Israel's
temptation either to mix with them, or to keep aloof from them in
contempt and hatred. Ahab's marriage with Jezebel was, no doubt,
thought by his father a clever stroke of policy, assuring them of an
ally. But it flooded the nation with the cruel and lustful cult of
Baal, and that finally ruined Ahab and his house. God's servants can
never mingle themselves with His enemies without harm, unless they
mingle with them for the purpose of turning them into His servants. If
we prefer the company of those who do not love Jesus, our love to Him
must be faint, and will soon be fainter. If Ahab takes Jezebel for his
wife, Ahab will soon take Jezebel's foul god for his god.