Samaria #43

Samaria is the name of both a city and a region in the central hill country of ancient Israel. The city was founded by King Omri as the capital of the northern kingdom, and the name later came to describe the surrounding territory. It is prominent in the books of Kings, in the warnings of the prophets, and in the New Testament, where the region’s people, the Samaritans, stand at a complicated distance from the Jews.

Biblical Significance

Omri bought the hill from a man named Shemer for two talents of silver, fortified it, and named the city after its former owner (1 Kings 16:23-24). His son Ahab built a temple to Baal there for his wife Jezebel (1 Kings 16:32-33) and a palace decorated with ivory (1 Kings 22:39). In the days of the prophet Elisha, the city endured a Syrian siege so severe that famine gripped it until God brought a sudden deliverance (2 Kings 6:24-7:20). The prophets condemned its luxury and injustice, Amos addressing the wealthy women of Samaria who oppressed the poor (Amos 4:1) and Micah foretelling its ruin (Micah 1:6).

After a siege of three years, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried the Israelites into exile, an event traditionally dated to about 722 to 721 BC (2 Kings 17:5-6; 18:9-12). The Assyrians then settled peoples from other lands in the territory (2 Kings 17:24), and the mixed population that resulted lies behind the strained relations between Jews and Samaritans in later centuries.

In the Gospels, Jesus deliberately passes through Samaria and speaks with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and many Samaritans in the area believe in him (John 4:4-9, 39-42). Just before his ascension, he tells the disciples they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Philip preaches in Samaria, and Peter and John follow to pray for the new believers (Acts 8:5-8, 14-17).

Today

The site of the ancient city lies beside the village of Sebastia in the West Bank, northwest of Nablus. The name Sebastia recalls Sebaste, the Greek name Herod the Great gave the rebuilt city in honor of Augustus. Excavations in the early twentieth century and afterward have uncovered the royal acropolis of the Israelite period, a large collection of carved ivory fragments, and administrative inscriptions on pottery fragments. The ruins also include a Roman-era forum, theatre, and temple remains. A long-standing Christian tradition places the burial of John the Baptist at Sebastia, though this is a tradition and not something the New Testament states.