Ahab in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

1. Son of Omri; seventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel, second of his dynasty; reigned 28 years, from 919 to 897 B.C. Having occasional good impulses (1 Kings 21:27), but weak and misled by his bad wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, i.e. Phoenicia in general. The Tyrian historians, Dius and Menander, mention Eithobalus as priest of Ashtoreth. Having murdered Pheles, he became king of Tyre. Menander mentions a drought in Phoenicia; compare 1 Kings 17. He makes him sixth king after Hiram of Tyre, the interval being 50 years, and Eithobalus' reign 32; thus he would be exactly contemporary with Ahab (Josephus c. Apion, 1:18.) Ahab, under Jezebel's influence, introduced the impure worship of the sun-god Baal, adding other gods besides Jehovah, a violation of the first commandment, an awful addition to Jeroboam's sin of the golden calves, which at Dan and Bethel (like Aaron's calves) were designed (for state policy) as images of the one true God, in violation of the second commandment; compare 2 Kings 17:9; "the children of Israel did secretly things Hebrew covered words that were not right Hebrew so against the Lord," i.e., veiled their real idolatry with flimsy pretexts, as the church of Rome does in its image veneration...