Samaria

The Name.

City of Palestine; capital of the kingdom of Israel. It was built by Omri, in the seventh year of his reign, on the mountain Shomeron (Samaria); he had bought this mountain for two talents of silver from Shemer, after whom he named the city Shomeron (1 Kings 16:23-24). The fact that the mountain was called Shomeron when Omri bought it leads one to think that the correctness of the foregoing passage is questionable. The real etymology of the name may be "watch mountain" (see Stade in his "Zeitschrift," 5:165 et seq.). In the earlier cuneiform inscriptions Samaria is designated under the name of "Bet Ḥumri" (= "the house of Omri"); but in those of Tiglathpileser III. and later it is called Samirin, after its Aramaic name (comp. Rawlinson, "Historical Evidences," p. 321).

The topography of Samaria is not indicated in the Bible; the mountains of Samaria are mentioned several times (Amos 3:9; Jeremiah 31:5; and elsewhere) and "the field of Samaria" once (Ob. 19). Through recent investigations it has become known that the mountain of Samaria is one situated in a basin surrounded by hills, six miles from Shechem, and almost on the edge of the maritime plain. Owing to its fertility, which is alluded to in Isaiah 28:1, Omri selected it as the site of his residence; and it continued to be the capital of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes for a space of two centuries, till it was destroyed by the Assyrian king (1 Kings 16:29 et passim; 2 Kings 1:3, 3:1, et passim). Isaiah called Samaria "the head of Ephraim" (Isaiah 7:9), and Ezekiel speaks of "Samaria and her daughters" (Ezekiel 16:53). That the city was strongly fortified is evident from the fruitless sieges which it sustained (see below; comp. Josephus, "Ant." 8:14, § 1). Ahab built there a temple for Baal with an altar for the cult of that divinity (1 Kings 16:32); and perhaps the ivory palace (ib. 22:39) was also at or near Samaria. The king's palace was independently fortified (2 Kings 15:25), and it had aroof-chamber (ib. 1:2). The city gate of Samaria is often mentioned (1 Kings 22:10; 2 Kings 7:1,18,20; 2 Chronicles 18:9); and there is a single reference to "the pool of Samaria" (1 Kings 22:38). Still during the lifetime of Omri, Samaria was required by the father of Ben-hadad to lay out streets for the Syrians (1 Kings 20:34); but it is not stated whether Samaria was directly besieged by the Syrian king or whether Omri, being defeated in one of his battles, was obliged to make concessions in Samaria (see OMRI). Samaria successfully sustained two sieges by the Syrians under Ben-hadad, the first of which was in the time of Ahab (901 B.C.; 1 Kings 20:1 et seq.), and the second, nine years later, in the time of Joram, Ahab's son (2 Kings 6:24-7:7). In the first siege Samaria was afflicted by a famine caused by drought (1 Kings 18:2), but more terrible was the famine caused by the second siege, when women ate their children and an ass's head was sold for eighty pieces of silver (2 Kings 6:25 et seq.). The miraculous rout of the Syrian army caused an extraordinary cheapness of provisions in Samaria (ib. 7:16).