Journal: Bible and Spade (First Run)
Volume: BSP 09:1 (Winter 1980)
Article: Israelite Kings in Assyrian Inscriptions
Author: Bryant G. Wood

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BSP 9:1 (Winter 1980) p. 11

Israelite Kings in Assyrian Inscriptions

Bryant G. Wood

In our Summer-Autumn 1979 issue we discussed five Assyrian kings named in the Bible (pages 81–96). Now we wish to examine the other side of that coin — the kings of Israel named in the Assyrian records. All told, there are nine kings of Israel and Judah mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions. References to five of these kings (Menaham, Pekah, Hosea, Ahaz, and Hezekiah) are paralleled by biblical passages and were discussed in our Summer-Autumn 1979 article. The remaining four have to do with events not mentioned in the Bible and thereby add to our knowledge of these particular Israelite kings.

Ahab the Israelite

Ahab is one of the best known of the rulers of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Some seven chapters of the Old Testament are devoted to his activities (1 Kings 16:29–22:40 and 2 Chronicles 18). Ahab was the son of Omri and seventh king of Israel after the monarchy split. He ruled for 22 years, ca. 874-853 B.C., and married the infamous Phoenician princess Jezebel who introduced the worship of the heathen gods Melkart, Baal and Ashtoreth into

BSP 9:1 (Winter 1980) p. 12

Israelite religious life. Ahab did not try to stop this alien cult and, in fact, seems to have condoned it:

He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. (1 Kings 16:32–33, R.S.V.)

Because of his association with these pagan deities, Ahab is written off in the biblical record as one who had done “more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him” (1 Kings 16:33). Elijah condemned Ahab as one who had troubled Israel, having forsaken the commandments of the Lord to follow Baal (1 Kings 18:18). It was during Ahab’s reign that the famous confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal took place on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19–40).

Ahab was evidently a great builder. We have already seen that he built a temple to Baal in his capital of Samaria (1 Kings 16:32). The concluding statement on Ahab in 1 Kings 22 is:

Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? (verse

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