Ahab, Jezebel, and the Rise of Baal Worship

The event

Omri's son Ahab inherited the throne and, through his marriage to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, inherited a far more dangerous alliance than any treaty could offer. Jezebel arrived in Samaria as a committed devotee of Baal and Asherah, the storm-and-fertility deities of her homeland, and she had both the will and the resources to make that devotion the religion of the state itself.

Ahab built a temple to Baal in Samaria and erected an Asherah pole beside it, formal state sponsorship of Canaanite worship that went well beyond Jeroboam's golden calves. Where Jeroboam had corrupted the worship of the true God with an idolatrous image, Ahab and Jezebel introduced outright worship of a rival god, backed by royal authority and, before long, by the sword — Jezebel is soon found hunting down and killing the Lord's prophets outright.

The inspired historian's verdict is blunt: Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. It is against this darkest backdrop that God raises up one of the most dramatic prophets in all of Scripture — Elijah the Tishbite — to confront a throne that had married itself to Baal.

Dating

874 BC is Ahab's accession year in Thiele's chronology (Ahab 874-853 BC). The marriage to Jezebel was a Phoenician alliance most likely arranged by Omri before Ahab took the throne (1 Kings 16:31), so Baal worship's entry into Israel may slightly predate 874; Ahab's temple and altar of Baal in Samaria (1 Kings 16:32) belong to his early reign. Albright's lower chronology would put the accession c. 869 BC.

Scripture references

• 1 Kings 16:29-33