Samaria
Capital of the northern kingdom of Israel from the reign of Omri until the Assyrians took it. Its name passed to the surrounding region and to the Samaritans of the New Testament.
Omri bought the hill from Shemer for two talents of silver, built a city on it and named it Samaria (1 Kings 16:24). It remained the capital of Israel’s kings. Ahab built a temple of Baal there, which Jehu destroyed (1 Kings 16:32; 2 Kings 10:25–27), and the prophets Amos and Isaiah speak of it as the head of the northern kingdom (Amos 6:1; Isaiah 7:9). The king of Assyria took the city after a three-year siege, deported its people and settled others in their place (2 Kings 17:5–6, 24); see the Fall of Samaria.
In the New Testament the name is used for the region between Judaea and Galilee, through which Jesus travelled (John 4:3–9) and where Philip preached (Acts 8:5).
What happened here
- about 860 BC, traditional dateElijah on Mount Carmel
During a long drought the prophet Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal, whom King Ahab and Queen Jezebel support, to a contest on Mount Carmel. Kings tells of fire from heaven, the people’s return to the Lord, and Elijah’s flight to Horeb.
- 841 BC, firm dateJehu’s Revolt and Tribute to Assyria
The army commander Jehu, anointed at Elisha’s word, kills the kings of Israel and Judah, Jezebel and the house of Ahab, and destroys the temple of Baal in Samaria. In the same year Assyrian records show him paying tribute to Shalmaneser III.
- about 755 BC, estimated dateAmos and Hosea Prophesy to Israel
In the prosperous years of Jeroboam II, Amos, a herdsman from Judah, denounces injustice and worship without righteousness at Bethel. Hosea makes his own marriage a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness and of a love that will not give it up.
- 722/721 BC, estimated dateThe Fall of Samaria
After a siege of three years the Assyrians take Samaria, deport its people and settle others in their place. The northern kingdom of Israel comes to an end. Kings, a Babylonian chronicle and the inscriptions of Sargon II all record it.
- about AD 34, estimated dateThe Gospel Reaches Samaria and an Ethiopian Official
Acts tells how Philip, driven from Jerusalem by persecution, preaches in Samaria, where Peter and John follow him, and then baptises an official of the Ethiopian queen on the road to Gaza. In Acts the message here first passes beyond Judea.