*** According to the tradition preserved in 1 Kings xvi. 24, the name of the city comes from Shomer, the man from whom Ahab bought the site.
His choice was a wise and judicious one, as the rapid development of the city soon proved. It lay on the brow of a rounded hill, which rose in the centre of a wide and deep depression, and was connected by a narrow ridge with the surrounding mountains. The valley round it is fertile and well watered, and the mountains are cultivated up to their summits; throughout the whole of Ephraim it would have been difficult to find a site which could compare with it in strength or attractiveness. 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. His contemporaries fully realised the importance of this move on Omris part; his name became inseparably connected in their minds with that of Israel. Samaria and the house of Joseph were for them, henceforth, the house of Omri, Bît-Omri, and the name still clung to them long after Omri had died and his family had become extinct.
* Amos viii. 14, where the sin of Samaria, coupled as it is with the life of the god of Dan and the way of Beersheba, can, as Wellhausen points out, only refer to the image of the calf worshipped at Samaria.
** Shalmaneser II. even goes so far as to describe Jehu, who exterminated the family of Omri, as _Jaua ahal Khumri_, Jehu, son of Omri.
He gained the supremacy over Judah, and forced several of the south-western provinces, which had been in a state of independence since the days of Solomon, to acknowledge his rule; he conquered the country of Medeba, vanquished Kamoshgad, King of Moab, and imposed on him a heavy tribute in sheep and wool.* Against Benhadad in the north-west he was less fortunate. He was forced to surrender to him several of the cities of Gilead--among others Bamoth-gilead, which commanded the fords over the Jabbok and Jordan.
**