vi. 2-6.

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 accorde