Ahab promotes Baal worship in Samaria
Divided Kingdom · Draft · BSB
Content revision: ce77d9e73f54c735 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Israel · Ahab’s accession and reign
Ahab succeeds Omri, marries Jezebel and establishes Baal worship in Samaria. The narrator describes his actions as a further provocation beyond Jeroboam’s practices. In the same reign, Hiel rebuilds Jericho at the cost of his sons.
This card introduces Ahab’s reign rather than following every year in sequence. Jezebel’s Sidonian origin supplies political context; the narrator’s criticism concerns worship and conduct, not a general condemnation of foreign people. Hiel’s losses are explicitly connected with Joshua’s warning.
Primary Scripture
16:29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa’s reign over Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria twenty-two years.
16:30 However, Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.
16:31 And as if it were not enough for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he even married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and he then proceeded to serve and worship Baal.
16:32 First, Ahab set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he had built in Samaria.
16:33 Then he set up an Asherah pole. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.
16:34 In Ahab’s days, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt Jericho. At the cost of Abiram his firstborn he laid its foundation, and at the cost of Segub his youngest he set up its gates, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Joshua son of Nun.
Related Scripture
The narrator explicitly recalls Joshua’s warning about rebuilding Jericho.
Location evidence
Samaria is the location of Ahab’s Baal temple; its precise position is not claimed. Jericho is shown separately as the setting of the closing notice.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.195, 32.276111]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Jericho: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.444564, 31.871719]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible · site identifications
Samaria: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.195, 32.276111]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
How does inherited wrongdoing become a starting point for further wrongdoing?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/divided-kingdom.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm