1 Kings 16:8-34

  1. In the northern kingdom the dynasties of Jeroboam and Baasha were utterly destroyed, as later was that of Omri (see 21:22).
    How does the story of the kingdom show that the people departed farther and farther from God until the climax was reached with Omri (verse 25) and Ahab (verse 30)?
    What can this teach us as to the self-propagating power of sin?
    Yet in Judah the royal line of David continued.
    Why this difference?
    Consider what is said in 11:36 and 15:4.
  2. What was the special sin of Ahab, by which he provoked the Lord to anger?
    How did he go beyond what previous kings of Israel had done, and what led him to do?


  1. Verse 24. Omri was an able and powerful ruler, whose name is mentioned in the ancient Assyrian records and in the Moabite stone of Mesha.
    His selection of Samaria as the capital was an important event in Israel’s history.
  2. Verses 31, 32. The calves set up by Jeroboam (see 12:28) were supposed to represent the God of Israel. Ahab’s sin was greater in the he worshipped Baal, the god of Tyre, and built in Samaria a ‘house of Baal’.