Omri was the builder of Samaria, whither his Court was transferred from Tirzah towards the close of his six years reign.  He was followed by his son Ahab, who ascended the throne “in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah....  And Ahab ... did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.”  So notorious indeed were father and son that the prophet Micah declared to the backsliders of his day, “For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsel; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing:  therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people".[446]

Ahab was evidently an ally of Sidon as well as a vassal of Damascus, for he married the notorious princess Jezebel, the daughter of the king of that city State.  He also became a worshipper of the Phoenician god Baal, to whom a temple had been erected in Samaria.  “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."[447] Obadiah, who “feared the Lord greatly”, was the governor of Ahab’s house, but the outspoken prophet Elijah, whose arch enemy was the notorious Queen Jezebel, was an outcast like the hundred prophets concealed by Obadiah in two mountain caves.[448]

Ahab became so powerful a king that Ben-hadad II of Damascus picked a quarrel with him, and marched against Samaria.  It was on this occasion that Ahab sent the famous message to Ben-hadad:  “Let not him that girdeth on his harness (armour) boast himself as he that putteth it off”.  The Israelites issued forth from Samaria and scattered the attacking force.  “And Israel pursued them:  and Ben-hadad the king of Syria escaped on a horse with the horseman.  And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter.”  Ben-hadad was made to believe afterwards by his counsellors that he owed his defeat to the fact that the gods of Israel were “gods of the hills; therefore they are stronger than we”.  They added:  “Let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they”.  In the following year Ben-hadad fought against the Israelites at Aphek, but was again defeated.  He then found it necessary to make “a covenant” with Ahab.[449]

In 854 B.C.  Shalmaneser III of Assyria was engaged in military operations against the Aramaean Syrians.  Two years previously he had broken the power of Akhuni, king of Bit-Adini in northern Mesopotamia, the leader of a strong confederacy of petty States.  Thereafter the Assyrian monarch turned towards the south-west and attacked the Hittite State of Hamath and the Aramaean State of Damascus.  The various rival kingdoms of Syria united against him, and an army of 70,000 allies attempted to thwart his progress at Qarqar on the Orontes.  Although Shalmaneser claimed a victory on this occasion, it was of no great advantage to him, for he was unable to follow it up.  Among the Syrian allies were Bir-idri (Ben-hadad II) of Damascus, and Ahab of Israel ("Akhabbu of the land of the Sir’ilites").  The latter had a force of 10,000 men under his command.