Page:Light and truth.djvu/180

178 Baasha followed in the wicked ways of Jeroboam, and was visited with the most fearful judgments of God. The warning he received of the consequences of his conduct (1 Kings xvi. 1—9) did not induce him to forsake his evil course. His reign was filled with war and treachery, and his family and relatives were cut off, according to the prediction. (1 Kings xvi. 9. 11.)

. (1 Kings xvi 6.) Son and successor of Baasha king of Israel. As he was revelling at a friend's house, was assassinated by Zimri, one of the officers of his army. He reigned only two years.

, who slew Elah, king of Israel, and who, when he found that the people had made Omri king, set fire to the palace, and perished in the flames. Omri. (1 Kings xvi. 16.) An officer in the army of Israel. He was engaged in the siege of Gibbethon, a Philistine city, when he received intelligence that Zimri, another officer of the army, had assassinated the king, and had usurped the throne. The army, by general acclamation, made Omri king, and raising the siege of Gibbethon, they forthwith marched to Tirzah, where Zimri resided, and captured it. Zimri set fire to the house he occupied, and was consumed. The Israelites were then divided into two parties; but, after a short struggle, Omri prevailed, and took the throne, which he polluted and disgraced through a reign of twelve years. Omri built Samaria, which thereafter became the capital of the ten tribes.

. (1 Kings xvi. 29.) The son of Omri, and his successor as king of Israel. He reigned twenty-two years, and the seat of his kingdom was at Samaria. He married Jezebel, a Zidonian woman of proverbially wicked character. She was a gross idolater, and Ahab followed her in all her idolatrous practices; became at once a worshipper of Baal, and even made a grove and built an altar for this abominable service. At a very early period of his history, the sacred historian says of him, that he did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

, (1 Kings xxii. 40,) was the son and successor of Ahab king of Israel. So wicked was he, that when Jehoshaphat king of Judea had joined with him to build