NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.
"IN the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah began Omri to reign over Israel, twelve years;" the fiftieth year of the divided kingdom, B. C. 925. This date marks the commencement of his possession of the whole kingdom, four years after his first election as king (1 Kings 16:16, 21, 22). Omri was the sixth king of Israel, and the founder of the third dynasty, which lasted for three generations and four kings. His father's name and tribe are unknown. He was the commanding general of the Israelite army. For four years he held a contested reign with Tibni, whom half the people chose for their king. But Omri had possession of the capital and the army, and at length Tibni died and Omri reigned. TIRZAH, or delight. This city was only a few miles distant from Shechem, but its exact site is unknown. Jeroboam at first selected Shechem for his capital; but, after a few years, removed his residence to Tirzah, which from that time until the reign of Omri continued to be the royal city. It probably owed its name to the natural beauties of its situation, as well as to the magnificence of its buildings. When the palace was burned by Zimri, the beauty of the place must have been injured; and, as it was necessary to erect a new palace, the king determined to select a new site, probably from the experienced impossibility of fortifying Tirzah so as to enable it to stand a siege. "AND he bought the hill Samaria." As Constantine's sagacity is fixed by his choice of Constantinople, so is that of Omri by his choice of Samaria. Six miles from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley, here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet accessible sides, and a long, level top. This was the mountain of Samaria, so named after its owner, Shemer, who there lived in state, and who sold it to the king for the great sum of two talents of silver. It combined, in a union not elsewhere found in Palestine, strength, beauty, and fertility. It commanded a full view of the sea and the plain of Sharon on the one hand, and of the vale of Shechem on the other. It stood amidst a circle of hills, commanding a view of its streets and slopes, itself the crown and glory of the whole scene. "OMRI wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all." Of Omri it is said that in the eyes of the Lord his conduct on the throne was worse than that of all the kings before him. The particulars are not in the history directly stated further than that he carried out with vigor the fatal and ruinous policy of Jeroboam. But if we refer to the prophecy of Micah (6:16), we find this remarkable verse: "For the statutes of Omri are kept." We cannot doubt that these "statutes of Omri" were measures adopted for more completely isolating the people of Israel from the services of the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, and of perpetuating—perhaps of increasing—their idolatrous practices. His encouragement of idolatry is incidentally confirmed by the fact that he brought about a marriage between Ahab, his son and heir, and Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre.