KING OF ISRAEL · TWO KINGDOMS

Omri. Twelve years; the founder of Samaria.

REIGNEDi

12 years c. 885–874 BC (dates vary)

CAPITAL

Samaria

HOUSE

House of Omri 6th of 19 in Israel

VERDICT

✕ Did evil “Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him”

PROPHETS

Micah

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS JEROBOAM I → HOSHEA

ACCESSION

How Omri came to power

  • When Zimri killed Elah, “all Israel made Omri, the captain of the host, king over Israel that day in the camp” at Gibbethon. 1 Kings 16:16
  • The people then split: half followed Tibni son of Ginath, half followed Omri; Omri's side prevailed, “so Tibni died, and Omri reigned”. 1 Kings 16:21–22

SUCCESSION

The two kingdoms

THE VERDICT

How Scripture judges the reign

“Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him”

1 Kings 16:25 (KJV) →

“he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat”

1 Kings 16:26 (KJV) →

BUT ALSO

  • Micah later names his rule as a pattern: “the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab”. Micah 6:16

ISRAEL (THE NORTH): 19 RULERS

✓ Did right ✕ Did evil ◐ Mixed ● No verdict formula

THE KINGDOM

Samaria and the places of the reign

Israel (the north). Only places Scripture names are shown, each where the Atlas puts it.

EVENTS

Wars, works and turning points

Each mark sits at the year of the reign the Bible gives for it.

UNDATED IN SCRIPTURE

THE NATION

What the nation did

  • He walked in all the way of Jeroboam, provoking the LORD “with their vanities”. 1 Kings 16:26

PROPHETS

Prophets of the reign

  • Mi Micah Names “the statutes of Omri” as the pattern Judah kept.

ON THE WORLD STAGE

The powers of the day

MOAB

Mesha

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · ABOUT 840 BC; FOUND AT DIBON IN 1868

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone), Louvre

OUTSIDE THE BIBLE · MID-9TH TO 8TH CENTURY BC

Assyrian name for Israel: “the land of Omri”

DATES DIFFER

When was it?

THIELE, AS REVISED BY MCFALL AND YOUNG

c. 885–874 BC[1]

Shared rule with Tibni (rival king), 885–880 BC

Rival king from 885/884 BC, sole king from 880, died 874/873

ALBRIGHT (1945)

c. 876–869 BC[24]

Printed form: c. 876–869 (p. 20); 8 years against the Hebrew text's 12 (last digit partly lost in the scan's gutter, read from the next reign's start).

TRADITIONAL (USSHER, 1658)

929–918 BC[2]

Shared rule with Tibni (rival king), 929–925 BC

Chosen by the army in the year of the world 3075; reigns alone from 3079 (925 BC); dies 3086 (Annals, p. 45)

From the camp at Gibbethon, with a rival reign

R. C. Young's tables (Thiele as revised)

Young counts Omri from 885/884 BC, when the army made him king, with Tibni as a rival until 880; Asa's thirty-first year (1 Kings 16:23) then marks the start of his sole reign.[1]

From the camp, sole rule four years later

James Ussher, Annals of the World (1658), p. 45

Ussher has Omri chosen in the year of the world 3075 (929 BC) and beginning “to reign over Israel alone in the 31 year of king Asa”, 925 BC, after Tibni.[2]

IN SCRIPTURE

Every passage

CHAPTERS · 4

1 Kings 16 2 Kings 8 2 Chronicles 22 Micah 6

PASSAGES · 4

1 Kings 16:15–28 2 Kings 8:26 2 Chronicles 22:2 Micah 6:16

WHAT SCRIPTURE DOES NOT SAY

  • Scripture names no father, tribe or mother for Omri, and says nothing of his wars.
  • Kings mentions “his might that he shewed” but leaves the details to “the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel”.
  • The Bible does not mention his conquest of Moab; that comes from the Mesha Stele.

IDENTIFICATIONS THIS PAGE RELIES ON

  • “Omri, the captain of the host” — Scripture names no father or tribe for him. 1 Kings 16:16

SOURCES

Where this page comes from

  • Rodger C. Young, Chronological tables: Table 1, Chronology of the Kings of Israel; Table 3, Synchronisms, Israel to Judah (Thiele's system as revised by McFall and Young; dates cited as facts only) (undated web tables, read 2026-10-07), Tables 1 and 3.
  • James Ussher, The Annals of the World (English translation of the Annales) (1658), The fifth Age of the World, pp. 40–69 (read from the page scans).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §594 (the Monolith Inscription from Kurkh) and §611, p. 223.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §553 (the Black Obelisk) and §590, p. 211.
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §672, p. 243 (annals, 18th year).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§732, 739–740, pp. 260–263 (Adad-nirari III: reign dates; the slab from Calah).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §772, p. 276 (Tiglath-pileser III, annals).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §779, pp. 279–280 (Tiglath-pileser III).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 1 (Shalmaneser III to Tiglath-pileser III) (1926), §§815–816, p. 293 (Tiglath-pileser III, fragmentary annals text).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §4, p. 2 (Sargon's annals, year 1).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §55, p. 26 (Sargon's display inscription).
  • D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2 (Sargon onward) (1927), §1198, p. 437 (eponym list with notes, years 727–723).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 296 (Monolith, Qarqar).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 304 (Black Obelisk, with Rogers's note 2 on “mar Humri”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 308 (Tiglath-pileser and “Pulu”).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), p. 316 (Tiglath-pileser's annals, line 150).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 319–321 (Tiglath-pileser on Pekah and Hoshea).
  • R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (1912), pp. 323, 326 and 331 (Sargon and the fall of Samaria).
  • S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel (Appendix: the Inscription of Mesha) (1890), pp. lxxxvii–lxxxviii (translation), lxxxix and xciv.
  • A. H. Sayce, “Moabite Stone”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 3 (1915), p. 2072 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • Edward Mack, “Chronology of the Old Testament”, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1 (1915), pp. 639–640 (checked against the 1915 scan).
  • A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, Chronicle 1 (facts only; copyrighted, read in Livius's reproduction) (1975), Chronicle 1, column i, lines 27–28.
  • A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan” (1993) and “The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment” (1995), Israel Exploration Journal 43 and 45 (facts only; copyrighted) (1993, 1995), IEJ 43 (1993) 81–98; IEJ 45 (1995) 1–18.
  • W. F. Albright, "The Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 100 (facts only) (1945), Chronological table, pp. 20–22.

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