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by Charlie Wolcott

Today, I am going to examine the backstories of four kings all in one go. All four of these kings of the Northern Kingdom of Israel ruled for a grand total of 14 years, most of which were Omri, and about half of that he split with Tibni. Elah lasted two years, Zimri for seven days, and then Tibni and Omri split the reign for four years before Omri took full control for another eight years. All four of these men were full adults during their reigns. The only indication of Elah’s age is his tendency to get drunk, which is what Zimri used to assassinate him. Zimri and Omri were high-ranked military officials, so they were not spring chickens. Tibni is one we know the least about, but he had to have enough clout to draw half the northern kingdom to follow him as well.

All four of them would have at the very least spent a large part of their younger years under Baasha’s reign and had time with their rivals in Judah, under King Asa. Most likely lived long enough to be under Jeroboam’s reign as well. Zimri was a commander of half of Elah’s chariots, and Omri was the overall commander of the army. We don’t know who Tibni was other than half the northern kingdom followed him after Zimri’s coup. But the fact that both Tibni and Omri only reigned a few years before they died indicates they were not young men. Katie Erickson summarizes the rules of these four kings here, but let’s take a look at what set up this chaos.

Elah was Baasha’s son, and Zimri and Omri were military captains and generals for the kingdom. Omri would have led several of the battles against Asa under Baasha’s rule, and Zimri would have also led some of the charioteers in those battles. Elah only lasted about a year and a half, and he was marked for drunkenness. It was in such a drunken stupor that Zimri came in and assassinated him and then went to wipe out the entire line of Baasha, just as Baasha had done to Jeroboam: to leave no heirs to the throne. I will point out that of all the dynasty purging, only Jehu did it in obedience to the Lord. All the other purges were purely for political security, even though God had prophesied it would happen. Zimri did not kill Elah with the intention of being obedient to God. Zimri simply went in and killed Elah and slaughtered Baasha’s family.

But Omri was not in favor of this move and considered it treason. He was the army commander and moved to reclaim Tirzah from Zimri and in just seven days, Zimri set the palace on fire and died within it. As commander of the army, Omri was made king, but a number of people supported Tibni, who we do not know any ranking or influence. But when Tibni died, Omri took full reign over Israel and moved the capital from Tirzah to Samaria; Samaria would be known throughout the Bible as either a center of idolatry or compromise.

Omri had something marked to him that the other kings had not: he was more wicked than the five kings before him. There were less than 50 years between Solomon’s death and Omri’s reign, and Omri was more wicked than all the others. It was not enough that Omri walked in Jeroboam’s sins and worshiped the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. He engaged in other idolatrous worship as well. We don’t know much about the wives of the kings between Jeroboam and Omri, but we do know that Omri’s son, Ahab, married the worst possible woman he could have – Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon, who was also a chief priest for Baal. In those days, marriages were arranged by the parents if they were still alive, and especially for royalty, they would be for political or economic reasons. Omri arranged for Ahab to marry Jezebel, and it only went from bad to worse.

There really isn’t much else to say because so little information is given about these four kings. But one theme that keeps showing up is that idolatry leads to unstable positions. Each of these kings were idolators, and none of them had security for the throne. They all had someone vying for the throne. The only dynasty that remained safe for some time was Jehu’s, and that was because Jehu was the only king who at least partly walked in God’s ways. These four kings each had the throne as their idol, and they always had to be watching their backs for someone to assassinate them. Don’t we do the same when we have idols in our lives? Are we always watching our backs because someone might come in and steal it? If we worship God and God alone, we know that no one can steal God from us, but if we grip too tightly the things of this world, they can be ripped from us in an instant. And sometimes, it might be our very lives ripped from us.

These four kings showcase a sequence of power-hungry thugs who want total dominion, and God is not going to let that slide for long. The reign of Omri to Ahab is marked among the worst of all the kings of Israel and Judah combined. Even though Ahab was the worst of them all, Ahab is the only one of the wicked kings whom God still reached out to for salvation. We’ll look at his reign next week.

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