Plumbing the Depths of Evil

1 Kings 16:21-34
    21 Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king, and half followed Omri. 22 But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath. So Tibni died and Omri reigned. 23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel, and reigned twelve years. Six years he reigned in Tirzah. 24 And he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; then he built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill. 25 Omri did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all who were before him. 26 For he walked in all the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin by which he had made Israel sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their idols.
    27 Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did, and the might that he showed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?  28 So Omri rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. Then Ahab his son reigned in his place.
    29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri became king over Israel; and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. 30 Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. 31 And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. 32 Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. 33 And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. 34 In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation with Abiram his firstborn, and with his youngest son Segub he set up its gates, according to the word of the LORD, which He had spoken through Joshua the son of Nun.

Omri and Ahab were the next kings venturing deeper into sin and further away from the LORD.  Omri won the people over when Israel was split between him and a rival, and took the throne to rule for twelve years.  He did such evil in God’s estimation against Him that he is described as worse than all those before him who ruled Israel, following the horrible example of Jeroboam in false worship and disregard of God’s word.  This is the one who started Samaria by buying the hill of Shemer and naming his new city after the original owner.  That in itself became a problem later as the Samaritans were later looked down on by Israel.  The mountain was called Shemer when Omri bought it, from a root meaning of preserved, which also meant "guard" or "watch mountain.”  This is the place where Jesus later met the woman by the well who questioned whether worship should be there or in Jerusalem (John 4:5, 9, 20-21), but the trouble was solved as Jesus made it clear that true worship is to the living God from the place of a heart made right with the Father through the Son (the temple being individual believers).  The other king of Israel after him, Ahab, did even more evil than Omri!  He also sinned grievously against the LORD and led the people of God further from Him by word and deed.  He worshiped Baal and built a pagan temple, built Jericho, and sacrificed his sons to build that city as foretold with a warning after it was earlier destroyed in Joshua 6:26.  These kings led God’s people away from the first commandment and into the evil of worshiping false and lifeless deities, making them so worldly that there was no longer a distinction between them and the nations they were to wipe out when taking the promised land.  If their ancestors had listened and obeyed God in the beginning, this never would have gone so far, yet their disobedience was a result of the corruption of their nature from Adam and Eve from the Fall of mankind, only possible to undo by God’s hand of His righteousness in the Messiah, the Christ who we know as Jesus.  Reconciliation through His sacrifice of blood to die for our sins (and subsequent hope demonstrated in His resurrection for us to share in) is the only possible answer to the ever increasing evil of our hearts as we plumb the depths of evil in our rebellion and rejection of Him and His word.  This is why accepting His word of the gospel in His work by trust (faith) is the way to truth and life in Christ alone (Acts 4:12).