Elah was at Tirzah, “drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, which was over the household;” Zimri, who was “captain of half his chariots,” left his post at the front, and assassinated him as he lay intoxicated.  The whole family of Baasha perished in the subsequent confusion, but the assassin only survived by seven days the date of his crime.  When the troops which he had left behind him in camp heard of what had occurred, they refused to accept him as king, and, choosing Omri in his place, marched against Tirzah.  Zimri, finding it was impossible either to win them over to his side or defeat them, set fire to the palace, and perished in the flames.  His death did not, however, restore peace to Israel; while one-half of the tribes approved the choice of the army, the other flocked to the standard of Tibni, son of Ginath.  War raged between the two factions for four years, and was only ended by the death—­whether natural or violent we do not know—­of Tibni and his brother Joram.*

     * 1 Kings xvi. 8-22; Joram is not mentioned in the
     Massoretic text, but his name appears in the Septuagint.

Two dynasties had thus arisen in Israel, and had been swept away by revolutionary outbursts, while at Jerusalem the descendants of David followed one another in unbroken succession.  Asa outlived Nadab by eleven years, and we hear nothing of his relations with the neighbouring states during the latter part of his reign.  We are merely told that his zeal in the service of the Lord was greater than had been shown by any of his predecessors.  He threw down the idols, expelled their priests, and persecuted all those who practised the ancient religions.  His grandmother Maacah “had made an abominable image for an asherah;” he cut it down, and burnt it in the valley of the Kedron, and deposed her from the supremacy in the royal household which she had held for three generations.  He is, therefore, the first of the kings to receive favourable mention from the orthodox chroniclers of later times, and it is stated that he “did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father."* Omri proved a warlike monarch, and his reign, though not a long one, was signalised by a decisive crisis in the fortunes of Israel.** The northern tribes had, so far, possessed no settled capital, Shechem, Penuel, and Tirzah having served in turn as residences for the successors of Jeroboam and Baasha.  Latterly Tirzah had been accorded a preference over its rivals; but Zimri had burnt the castle there, and the ease with which it had been taken and retaken was not calculated to reassure the head of the new dynasty.  Omri turned his attention to a site lying a little to the north-west of Shechem and Mount Ebal, and at that time partly covered by the hamlet of Shomeron or Shimron—­our modern Samaria.***