Omrah

“ The favourite did not disgrace his freedom, but rose rapidly into favour, until at length was conferred upon him the distinguished title of Ameer-ool-Omrah, chief of the nobles. He became now the first man in Khorassan, and was finally placed at the head of Aluptugeen’s armies. He brought them to a state of the highest order and discipline, led them on to conquest, and was the idol of the troops. The enemies of his master were awed into submission by the superior genius of his general, and peace and prosperity prevailed throughout the empire. ”

“ Omri belonged to the city of Jezreel, in the inheritance of Issachar; but he built Samaria in the midst of Ephraim, between the two hills of blessing and of cursing, and this town becoming the capital, gave its name to the whole kingdom. In 918, Omri left his crown to his son Ahab, who allied himself with the rich Phoenicians, and took the Zidonian princess Jezebel for his wife; the most unfortunate marriage in the whole Israelitish history. Sinful as had been the calf-worship, it was still meant for adoration of the true God ”

“ From an inscription of the Moabite king Mesha, we learn that Omri subjugated the lands east of the Jordan (see also 2 Kings i. 1; iii. 4 ff.) , and it is probable that his conquests were pushed to the north-east into Syria; the Assyrian kings long after his death [110] call Israel the "house of Omri." But the long and brilliantly successful reign of a king who in religion followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel before him, "golden calves" and all, obviously could not be made to exemplify the doctrine that such sins are regularly visited by condign judgment in national disaster. ”

“ If they refuse, expel them from the city. I am the Roaring Lion of the desert, and will devour them up.’ ‘The Lord destroy thee!’ cried Omar; and Hobâb returned the words. The altercation gaining in heat and bitterness, Abu Bekr saw that it must be stopped at any risk; so stepping forward he said: ‘Ye see these two’—and he pointed to Omar and Abu Obeida—‘Choose ye now whichever of them ye will, and salute him as your Chief.’ ‘Nay,’ cried both at once, ‘Thou hast already, at the Prophet’s bidding, led the prayers; thou art our Chief. ”

“ Now Omri was no way different from those kings that reigned before him, but that he grew worse than they, for they all sought how they might turn the people away from God by their daily wicked practices; and oil that account it was that God made one of them to be slain by another, and that no one person of their families should remain. This Omri also died in Samaria and Ahab his son succeeded him. ”

“ Omar, with his native vehemence, was about to speak, when Abu Bekr bade him to be silent, and anticipated him, as Omar used in after days to say, with the same arguments he himself had thought of, and even better. ‘Every word,’ said Abu Bekr, calmly and firmly, ‘which the Citizens had uttered in their own praise was true, but in noble birth and influence the Coreish were paramount, and to none but them would Arabia yield obedience.’ ‘Then,’ cried the men of Medîna, ‘let there be one chief from amongst you and one from amongst us.’ ‘Away with you!’ exclaimed Omar; ‘two cannot stand together’ ”

“ Among the killed we meet not a few names familiar to us in the annals of the Prophet’s life. The carnage amongst the Readers—those who had the Corân by heart—was so great, as to suggest to Omar the first design of collecting the sacred text, ‘lest any part should be lost therefrom.’ At the death of his favourite brother Zeid, who had shared with him the dangers of the first battles of Islam, Omar was inconsolable. ‘Thou art returned home,’ he said to his son [46] Abdallah, ‘safe and sound; and Zeid is dead. Wherefore wast not thou slain before him? ”

“ OMRI, in the Bible, the first great king of Israel after the separation of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, who flourished in the early part of the 9th century B.C. The dynasty of Jeroboam had been exterminated by Baasha (see Asa) at a revolt when the army was besieging the Philistines at Gibbethon, an unidentified Danite site. A quarter of a century later, Baasha's son Elah, after a reign of two years, was slain by Zimri, captain of the chariots, in a drinking bout, and again the royal family were put to the sword. ”

“ Omri's innovations were of far greater import than those of Jeroboam; or, to speak in the language of the Bible, he acted yet more sinfully than his predecessors. He desired to rob the nation of its God and of its origin; he desired it to forget that it had a special nationality in contradistinction to that of the idolaters. History196 has not recorded how these changes were received. His son Ahab (922–901) was destined to continue the work,—his father's bequest, as it were. In furtherance of the latter's projects he naturally kept up the close connection with Tyre and with the king of Judah. ”

“ Zimri despaired of maintaining himself in the royal castle, and burnt himself in it. Yet Omri was not master of Israel. Half of the people joined Tibni, the son of Ginath. Omri gradually gained the upper hand, till Tibni's death decided the matter in his favour.
With the elevation of Omri (899-875 B.C.) a third dynasty ascended the throne of Israel, while in Judah the crown continued peacefully in the family of David. Like Baasha, Omri founded a new residence; he removed his seat from Tirzah to Mount Shomron, and here built the new city of that name (Samaria) . ”

“ About the same time, 'Omar appointed another early convert of singular religious merit, 'Abdallah ibn Mas'ud, who had in early days, like 'Ammar, been a slave at Mecca to a post at Al-Kufa, for which, however, he was better fitted,—the charge of the treasury. He had been the body-servant of the Prophet, who was used to call him "light in body, but weighty in faith."1 He was learned in the Kor'an, and had a "reading" of his own, to which as the best text, he held persistently against all recessions. ”

“ Thou art a vile wretch if thou hast power as a prophet, and will not use it for me, when thou seest how heavy I am of body, and how my great weight tortures me, with infernal racking and rending of every joint."
But Omri, rebuking his fellow, said:
"Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? We suffer justly for our crimes, and to-day do receive the due reward of our transgressions; but this young man hath done nothing amiss, save to preach against the wickedness of the priests, and for being holier than they. ”

“ Rats and other vermin swarmed everywhere except in the palaces of the rich; and when the soldiers came home from war, bringing with them typhus fever or cholera or the plague, the people died like flies.
The dynasty of Omri.—Among the best of the successors of David and Solomon were Omri and his son Ahab, in the north. They made peace with the southern Hebrews in Judah and renewed the old alliance with Tyre. They built as their capital the beautiful city of Samaria. Ahab especially was greatly admired as a brave warrior and as a king who on the whole tried to serve his country well. ”

“ My brain and my arm from this day forth are at the service of the rulers of my country: yourself and our common master the Khaliff."
"Ya Salaam—that is well!" cried Amru, laying his hand on Orion's shoulder. "There is but one God, and yours is ours, too, for there is none other but He! you will not have to sacrifice much in becoming a Moslem, for we, too, count your lord Jesus as one of the prophets; and even you must confess that the last and greatest of them is Mohammed, the true prophet of God. ”

“ No one of them was marked by signal ability, unless it were Omri, who built the city of Samaria on a high hill, and so strongly fortified it that it remained the capital until the fall of the kingdom. He also made a close alliance with Tyre, the great centre of commerce in that age, and one of the wealthiest cities of antiquity. To cement this political alliance, Omri married his son Ahab--the heir-apparent to the throne--to a daughter of the Tyrian king, afterward so infamous as a religious fanatic and persecutor, under the name of Jezebel,--one of the worst women in history. ”

“ Mukair Ibn Zarrarah, elderly when his sons had been born, had aged with startling suddenness since the death of Omar. He had all at once become an old man, unable to rally from the shock of his bereavement, bewailing the fate of his elder and favourite son, and trembling for the future of his beloved tribe left to the tender mercies of a man he now recognised to be more Frenchman than Arab. He exaggerated every Francophile tendency he saw in Saïd and cursed the French as heartily as ever Omar had done, forgetting that he himself was largely responsible for the inclinations he objected to. ”

“ So died Omar, next to the Prophet the greatest in the of Islam; for it was all within these ten years that, by his wisdom, patience, and vigour, the dominion was achieved over Syria, Egypt, and Persia, which Islam has ever since maintained. Abu Bekr beat down the apostate tribes; but at his death the armies of Islam had but just crossed the Syrian frontier. Omar began his reign the master only of Arabia. He died the Caliph of an empire embracing Persia, Egypt, and some of the fairest provinces of the Byzantine throne. ”

“ Omar used to say that there was no man for whom the people would more readily have laid down their life. They gave him the sobriquet of ‘the Sighing,’ because of his tender-heartedness. Excepting the solitary case in which he committed a traitor-brigand to the flames, no single act of cruelty stands against him; and for that he expressed his sorrow. It was one of the three things, he used to say, which he would wish undone. The others were, that he had pardoned Asháth, who deserved death; and that when he transferred Khâlid to Syria, he had not at the same time sent Omar to Irâc. ”

“ His choice was fixed on Omar; but willing to fortify his own conviction by the sense of others, he first consulted Abd al Rahmân, who praised Omar as the fittest man, but withal inclined to be severe.—‘Which,’ responded the dying Caliph, ‘is because he saw me soft and tender-hearted; when himself the Master, he will forego much of what thou sayest. I have watched him narrowly. If I were angry with one, he would intercede in his behalf; if over lenient, then he would be severe.’ Othmân, too, confirmed his choice. ‘What is hidden of Omar,’ he said, ‘is better than that which doth appear. ”

“ They have left a record stating, “No remains earlier than the building of Omri are to be found upon this site.” This being so, we cannot question the statement of the text that Omri was the original builder on the crest of the hill of Samaria, which fact is in itself of considerable importance to the subject of our present study. The question has been raised as to what the effect would have been on the problem of the integrity of the text of the Scripture if this site had proved to have been like the other regions excavated, and was occupied by many older and underlying ruins! ”

“ When the sun would gild the crest of Olivet and the Mount of Offence with light sharper and more brilliant in that old land than in the West, she knew Amrah would come, first to the well, then to a stone midway the well and the foot of the hill on which she had her abode, and that the good servant would there deposit the food she carried in the basket, and fill the water-jar afresh for the day. ”

“ The Jews in this country are disciples of the wise men, and obey the head of the captivity of Babylon. In five days journey you reach Omaria, where are 25,000 Israelites, and here begin the synagogues of the mountains of Haphton, which exceed one hundred in number, and in this place the country of Media begins. These Jews are of the first captivity, carried away by Salmanazar; but they speak the Chaldean language, and among them are the disciples of the wise men. The chief city is Omaria, and all this country is under the dominion of Persia, to which the inhabitants pay tribute. ”

“ To fill a vacancy requiring unusual skill, experience, and power 'Omar unwisely appointed 'Ammar, who, as a persecuted slave and confessor in the first days of Islam, was second to none in the faith; but a man of no ability, and now advanced in years.1 The citizens of Al-Kufa were not long in finding out his incapacity; and, at their desire, 'Omar transferred Abu Musa from Al-Basra to rule over them. But it was no easy work for him to curb the factious populace. ”

“ As the levies kept coming in, 'Omar sent them on, one after another, to join Sa'd. The numbers swelling rapidly, embraced the chivalry of all Arabia. Toleiha, the quondam prophet, now an exemplary believer, and 'Amr ibn Ma'dikerib, went in command of their respective tribes; and 'Omar wrote that each alone was worth a thousand men. ”

“ Nothing is said of the wars of Omri against Judah. To Benhadad of Damascus he seems to have lost some towns in the land of Gilead. [437] That he ruled with address, vigour, and a strong hand is clear from the inscription on a monument which Mesha, king of Moab, caused to be erected in his city of Dibon (east of the Dead Sea) . This tells us [Pg 239] that Omri and his son after him held Moab in subjection for 40 years; that not only was the city of Nebo garrisoned by the Israelites, but Omri even took Medabah, i. e. ”

“ Omri surrounded his city with substantial ramparts; he built a palace for himself, and a temple in which was enthroned a golden calf similar to those at Dan and Bethel.* A population drawn from other nations besides the Israelites flocked into this well-defended stronghold, and Samaria soon came to be for Israel what Jerusalem already was for Judah, an almost impregnable fortress, in which the sovereign entrenched himself, and round which the nation could rally in times of danger. ”