Omri
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(servant, or disciple, of Jehovah) (1 Kings 16:16) — a commander in the army of Israel. He was besieging the Philistine city of Gibbethon at the time news reached him that Zimri, another commander in the army, had killed Elah, king of Israel, and had made himself king in his place. The army unanimously proclaimed Omri king, and, abandoning the siege of Gibbethon, marched with their chosen king to besiege the city of Tirzah, where Zimri resided, and took it. Zimri, seeing that the city was taken, went into the innermost chamber of the royal palace, set the palace on fire around himself, and perished in the flames.
The Israelites thereby divided into two factions; but after a brief struggle, Omri’s faction triumphed, and he occupied the royal throne, which he afterward, during his twelve-year reign, defiled with various iniquities and impiety. “Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the Lord,” notes the sacred writer of him, “and did worse than all that were before him” (v. 25). He built Samaria, a city that afterward became the capital of the ten tribes.