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Samaria - location profile

Location and Setting

• The city of Samaria is located on hill that rises three hundred feet above the valleys that surround it. The steep slopes on all sides of the hill provide a strong defensible position for this capital of the Northern Kingdom.
• The surface area on the top of the hill covers twenty acres. As many as 40,000 people may have lived in the city at the peak of its influence.
• The one major deficiency of its location was the lack of springs or other water resources on the hill. This made it necessary for the inhabitants to depend on   cisterns. These cisterns proved to be crucial in enabling the city to survive during the many sieges that were laid against it.
• Although Samaria was not situated on a main highway, routes following the valleys of the Samaritan hill country did connect it with Shechem, seven miles to the east, Dothan, and the Jezreel Valley ten miles to the north and the International Coastal Highway on the west.
• The fertile land in the valleys and in the nearby Plain of Dothan supported a productive agricultural economy based on the production of wheat, barley, olives and grapes.

Historical and Biblical Significance

• Omri, the sixth monarch of the Northern Kingdom, bought the hill from Shemer (hence the name, Samaria) about 880 B.C. for the price of two talents (125-150 pounds) of silver. He built a city on the hill and moved his capital there from Tirzah, nine miles to the east (1 Kgs 16:23-24).
• When Omri died, his son Ahab became king and ruled the Northern Kingdom for twenty-two years. He was more evil than any of his predecessors. His marriage to Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon probably involved a peace treaty with the Phoenicians. Ahab climaxed his apostasy by building a temple for Baal and setting up an Asherah pole within the walls of Samaria (1 Kgs 16:29-33). This king also built a luxurious palace for himself in Samaria, a residence the prophet Amos referred to as "an ivory house" (1 Kgs 22:39; Amos 3:15).
• About 855 B.C., Ben-hadad, king of Syria, joined by thirty-two kings of various Syrian city-states, traveled by chariots and horses the 120 miles from Damascus to lay siege to Samaria. Encouraged by the prophecy that Israel would defeat Syria, despite being grossly overmatched, Ahab sent his small army of 7,000 out from the protection of his walled city to face the chariots of the Syrian army. The chariots, designed to be used on flat terrain, were quickly overpowered in the mountains that surrounded Samaria. Israel routed the Syrians, inflicting heavy losses on their forces (1 Kgs 20:1-22).
• Ahab was later killed in a battle with the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead. His body was brought back to Jezreel, where dogs licked his blood from the floor of the chariot, in fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy (1 Kgs 21:19).
• On another occasion, the Syrians had penetrated Israel as far as Dothan, a town ten miles north of Samaria. There the prophet Elisha prayed and the Syrians were struck with blindness. Elisha proceeded to lead the blinded Syrians into the city of Samaria where, instead of killing them, he prepared a great feast for them and sent them home (2 Kgs 6:8-23).
• During the reign of Jehoram (Joram), the Syrians besieged Samaria a second time. The prolonged siege brought such severe food shortages that some residents of Samaria resorted to cannibalism. Elisha’s prediction that the siege would be lifted within twenty-four hours was fulfilled when the Syrian army heard the sound of chariots and a great army in the night. They fled their camp, leaving a large store of food that was soon discovered by lepers who had left the city in desperation (2 Kgs 6:24-7:20).
• As capital of the idolatrous Northern Kingdom, Samaria was the subject of frequent rebukes and condemnations by several of the prophets. Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Micah warned the city of impending judgment because of her idolatry and wicked behavior.
• God brought judgment on the house of Ahab through Jehu, an officer in the army whom Elisha anointed as king. In fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy, Jehu killed Jezebel, Ahab’s Baal-worshiping wife. Dogs ate her body. Jehu went on to kill the seventy sons of Ahab and slaughtered the prophets of Baal, tricking them to gather in the temple of Baal that Ahab had built in Samaria (2 Kgs 9:1-10:27).
• By the middle of the eighth century B.C., the Assyrians controlled Syria. In 722 B.C., they took Samaria after a three year siege, thus bringing to an end the Northern Kingdom. The residents of Samaria, together with many others, were deported to Assyria and lands it had conquered (2 Kgs 17:3-6).

Bibliography

1. Bimson, John J., ed. Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Places. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1995.
2. DeVries, LaMoine F. Cities of the Biblical World. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.
3. Kelso, J. "Samaria, City of" The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Ed. Merrill C. Tenney. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.
4. Monson, James M. Regions on the Run. Rockford: Biblical Backgrounds, Inc., 1998.