samaria Summary and Overview

a watch-mountain or a watch-tower. In the heart of the mountains of Israel, a few miles north-west of Shechem, stands the "hill of Shomeron," a solitary mountain, a great "mamelon." It is an oblong hill, with steep but not inaccessible sides, and a long flat top. Omri, the king of Israel, purchased this hill from Shemer its owner for two talents of silver, and built on its broad summit the city to which he gave the name of "Shomeron", i.e., Samaria, as the new capital of his kingdom instead of Tirzah (1 Kings 16:24). As such it possessed many advantages. Here Omri resided during the last six years of his reign. As the result of an unsuccessful war with Syria, he appears to have been obliged to grant to the Syrians the right to "make streets in Samaria", i.e., probably permission to the Syrian merchants to carry on their trade in the Israelite capital. This would imply the existence of a considerable Syrian population. "It was the only great city of Israel created by the sovereign. All the others had been already consecrated by patriarchal tradition or previous possession. But Samaria was the choice of Omri alone. He, indeed, gave to the city which he had built the name of its former owner, but its especial connection with himself as its founder is proved by the designation which it seems Samaria bears in Assyrian inscriptions, Beth-khumri ('the house or palace of Omri').", Stanley. Samaria was frequently besieged. In the days of Ahab, Benhadad II. came up against it with thirty-two vassal kings, but was defeated with a great slaughter (1 Kings 20:1-21). A second time, next year, he assailed it; but was again utterly routed, and was compelled to surrender to Ahab (20:28-34), whose army, as compared with that of Benhadad, was no more than "two little flocks of kids." In the days of Jehoram this Benhadad again laid siege to Samaria, during which the city was reduced to the direst extremities. But just when success seemed to be within their reach, they suddenly broke up the seige, alarmed by a mysterious noise of chariots and horses and a great army, and fled, leaving their camp with all its contents behind them. The famishing inhabitants of the city were soon relieved with the abundance of the spoil of the Syrian camp; and it came to pass, according to the word of Elisha, that "a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barely for a shekel, in the gates of Samaria" (2 Kings 7:1-20). Shalmaneser invaded Israel in the days of Hoshea, and reduced it to vassalage. He laid siege to Samaria (B.C. 723), which held out for three years, and was at length captured by Sargon, who completed the conquest Shalmaneser had begun (2 Kings 18:9-12; 17:3), and removed vast numbers of the tribes into captivity. (See SARGON T0003227.) This city, after passing through various vicissitudes, was given by the emperor Augustus to Herod the Great, who rebuilt it, and called it Sebaste (Gr. form of Augustus) in honour of the emperor. In the New Testament the only mention of it is in Acts 8:5-14, where it is recorded that Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached there. It is now represented by the hamlet of Sebustieh, containing about three hundred inhabitants. The ruins of the ancient town are all scattered over the hill, down the sides of which they have rolled. The shafts of about one hundred of what must have been grand Corinthian columns are still standing, and attract much attention, although nothing definite is known regarding them. (Compare Micah 1:6.) In the time of Christ, Western Israel was divided into three provinces, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Samaria occupied the centre of Israel (John 4:4). It is called in the Talmud the "land of the Cuthim," and is not regarded as a part of the Holy Land at all. It may be noticed that the distance between Samaria and Jerusalem, the respective capitals of the two kingdoms, is only 35 miles in a direct line.

(watch mountain). This city is situated 30 miles north of Jerusalem and about six miles to the northwest of Shechem, in a wide basin-shaped valley, six miles in diameter, encircled with high hills, almost on the edge of the great plain which borders upon the Mediterranean. In the centre of this basin, which is on a lower level than the valley of Shechem, rises a less elevated hill, with steep yet accessible sides and a long fiat top. This hill was chosen by Omri as the site of the capital of the kingdom of Israel. He "bought the hill of Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, after the name of the owner of the hill, Samaria." #1Ki 16:23,24| From the that of Omri's purchase, B.C. 925, Samaria retained its dignity as the capital of the ten tribes, and the name is given to the northern kingdom as well as to the city. Ahab built a temple to Baal there. #1Ki 16:32,33| It was twice besieged by the Syrians, in B.C. 901, #1Ki 20:1| and in B.C. 892, #2Ki 6:24-7, 2Ki 6:20| but on both occasions the siege was ineffectual. The possessor of Samaria was considered de facto king of Israel. #2Ki 15:13,14| In B.C. 721 Samaria was taken, after a siege of three years, by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, #2Ki 18:9,10| and the kingdom of the ten tribes was put an end to. Some years afterward the district of which Samaria was the centre was repeopled by Esarhaddon. Alexander the Great took the city, killed a large portion of the inhabitants, and suffered the remainder to set it at Shechem. He replaced them by a colony of Syro-Macedonians who occupied the city until the time of John Hyrcanus, who took it after a year's siege, and did his best to demolish it entirely. (B.C. 109.) It was rebuilt and greatly embellished by Herod the Great. He called it Sebaste=Augusta, after the name of his patron, Augustus Caesar. The wall around it was 2 1/2 miles long, and in the centre of the city was a park 900 feet square containing a magnificent temple dedicated to Caesar. In the New Testament the city itself does not appear to be mentioned; but rather a portion of the district to which, even in older times it had extended its name. #Mt 10:5; Joh 4:4,5| At this clay the city is represented by a small village retaining few vestiges of the past except its name, Sebustiyeh, an Arabic corruption of Sebaste. Some architectural remains it has, partly of Christian construction or adaptation, as the ruined church of St. John the Baptist, partly, perhaps, traces of Idumaean magnificence, St. Jerome, whose acquaintance with Israel imparts a sort of probability to the tradition which prevailed so strongly in later days, asserts that Sebaste, which he invariably identifies with Samaria was the place in which St. John the Baptist was imprisoned and suffered death. He also makes it the burial-place of the prophets Elisha and Obadiah.

SAMA'RIA (watch-post), a noted city of Central Palestine, founded by Omri, king of Israel. Situation. - The city of Samaria was 30 miles north of Jerusalem and 6 miles north-west of Shechem, and situated near the centre of a beautiful basin about 6 miles in diameter and surrounded by hills. The hill of Samaria was to the east of the centre of this basin, and about 1542 feet in height above the level of the sea. It was of an oblong form, with steep and terraced sides. The whole region about it is fertile, the site being a strong one for defence and the view from the summit very beautiful. From its top the Mediterranean Sea can be plainly seen. History. - Shemer sold the ground upon which Samaria was built to Omri, the king of Israel, for two silver talents, and the latter built a city, calling it Samaria, b.c. 925. 1 Kgs 16:23-24. It appears that previous to this Shechem had been the capital, and Tirzah the court-residence in summer. 1 Kgs 15:21, 1 Kgs 15:33; 1 Kgs 16:1-18. But Omri now made Samaria the capital of Israel - a position which it continued to hold for two hundred years, until the fall of the northern kingdom, b.c. 721. It was the seat of many idolatrous practices. Ahab erected a great temple to Baal; Jehu destroyed it, and massacred the priests. 1 Kgs 16:32-33; 2 Kgs 10:18, 2 Kgs 10:28. Twice the city was besieged by the Syrians - in the reign of Ahab, b.c. 901, and in the reign of Joram, b.c. 892. 1 Kgs 20:1. At the latter siege the people were reduced to the most terrible distress by famine, but were wonderfully delivered, in accordance with the prophecy of Elisha. 2 Kgs 6:24-33; 2 Kgs 7:1-20. About one hundred and seventy years later the city was captured by the king of Assyria, after a siege of nearly three years; the northern kingdom was destroyed, and the ten tribes carried into captivity. 2 Kgs 18:9-12. Colonists from Assyria were sent to repeople the country. 2 Kgs 17:24; Ezr 4:9-10. The city of Samaria continued to be a place of some importance. It was captured by Alexander the Great, who peopled it with Syro-Macedonians; it was again taken by John Hyrcanus, after a year's siege, and razed to the ground, b.c. 109. It was rebuilt and adorned by Herod the Great, who named it Sebaste in honor of Augustus, who gave it to him, and settled a colony of six thousand persons there, composed of veteran soldiers and peasants. He enlarged the city, and surrounded it with a wall and colonnade. In N.T. times, Philip preached the gospel in Samaria, Acts 8:5, Gal 1:9, and the place became an episcopal see. Septimius Severus planted a Roman colony there in the third century of the Christian era, but politically it was secondary to Caesarea. The city was Ruins of the Colonnade of Samaria. also surpassed in prosperity by Neapolis (Sichem). During the siege of Jerusalem, Samaria fell into the hands of the Muslims, but the Crusaders established a Latin bishop there, thus reviving the old episcopal see. In a.d. 1184, Saladin marched through the city; and notices of the place occur in the accounts of travellers from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Present Condition. - The ancient city of Samaria is now represented by the modern village Sebastiyeh (from "Sebaste"), situated upon the slope of the hill, having houses built of stones taken from the ancient remains. In and among the houses are scattered many fragments of ancient buildings, such as hewn blocks, shafts of columns, capitals, and portions of entablatures. Vines grow luxuriantly around the bases of broken shafts, grain is planted amid shattered columns, sculptured blocks of limestone are embedded in the rude terraces of the vineyards. The most imposing ancient building is the half-ruined church of John the Baptist, now turned into a mosque. Tradition states that John the Baptist was buried here. The church stands in a conspicuous position on the brow of a hill, the present edifice being the work of the Crusaders of the twelfth century. On the round hill above the village, to the west, are the remains of the palace erected by Herod the Great in honor of Augustus. On the terrace to the south runs the famous colonnade, about 2000 feet in length, of which one hundred columns still remain, some standing, some overthrown or buried beneath the soil. Besides the tomb of John the Baptist, tradition points out the resting-place of Obadiah and Elisha under a stone slab near the ruined church. The prophet declares, "I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof." Mic 1:6. This prophecy has been literally fulfilled.

("a watch mountain".) The oblong terraced hill in the center of a basinshaped, valley, a continuation of the Shethem valley, six miles N.W. of Shechem. The owner, Shemer, sold it for two silver talents to Omri king of Israel (925 B.C.), who built on it a city and called it after Shomer (1 Kings 16:23-24). Shechem previously had been the capital, Tirzah the court residence in summer (1 Kings 15:21; 1 Kings 15:33; 1 Kings 16:1-18). The situation combines strength, fertility and beauty (Josephus, Ant. 15:8, section 5; B.J. 1:21, section 2). It is 600 ft. high, surrounded with terraced hills, clad with figs and olives. There is abundant water in the valley; but the city, like Jerusalem, is dependent on rain cisterns. The view is charming: to the N. and E. lie its own rich valleys; to the W. fertile Sharon and the blue Mediterranean. (On the "glorious beauty" of Ephraim (Samaria), Isaiah 28:1, see MEALS.) Its strength enabled it to withstand severe sieges by the Syrians (1 Kings 20; 2 Kings 6; 7). Finally it fell before Shalmaneser and Sargon, after a three years' siege (2 Kings 18:9-12), 721 B.C. Called from its Baal worship, introduced by Ahab, "the city of the house of Ahab" (1 Kings 16:32-33; 2 Kings 10:25). Alexander the Great replaced its inhabitants with Syro Macedonians. John Hyrcanus (109 B.C.) destroyed the city after a 12 months' siege (Josephus, Ant. 13:10, section 2-3). Herod the Great rebuilt and adorned it, naming it Sebaste from Sebastos, Greek for Augustus, his patron (Ant. 14:5, section 3; 15:8, section 5; B.J. 1:20, section 3, 21, section 2). The woman of Samaria and several of her townsmen (John 4) were the firstfruits gathered into Christ; the fuller harvest followed under Philip the evangelist deacon (Acts 8, compare John 4:35). Septimius Severus planted a Roman colony there in the third century A.D.; but politically it became secondary to Caesarea. Ecclesiastically it was of more importance; and Marius its bishop signed himself "Maximus Sebastenus" at the council of Nice, A.D. 325. The Mahometans took it, A.D. 614. The Crusaders established a Latin bishop there. Now Sebustieh; its houses of stone are taken from ancient materials, but irregularly placed; the inhabitants are rude but industrious. The ruin of the church of John the Baptist marks the traditional place of his burial; the original structure is attributed to Helena, Constantine's mother; but the present building, except the eastern Greek end, is of later style: 153 ft. long inside, 75 broad, and a porch 10 ft. wide. Within is a Turkish tomb under which by steps you descend to a vault with tessellated floor, and five niches for the dead, the central one being alleged to have been that of John (?). Fifteen limestone columns stand near the hill top, two others lie on the ground, in two rows, 32 paces apart. Another colonnade, on the N. side of the hill, in a ravine, is arranged in a quadrangle, 196 paces long and 64 broad. On the W.S.W. are many columns, erect or prostrate, extending a third of a mile, and ending in a heap of ruins; each column 16 ft. high, 6 ft. in circumference at the base, 5 ft. at the top: probably relics of Herod's work. frontHOSHEA.) Its present state accords with prophecy: (Hosea 13:16) "Samaria shall become desolate"; (Micah 1:6) "I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard, and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley (a graphic picture of its present state which is 'as though the buildings of the ancient city had been thrown down from the brow of a hill': Scottish Mission Enquiry, 295), and I will discover the foundations thereof." The hill planted with vines originally should return to its pristine state. SAMARIA is the designation of northern Israel under Jeroboam (1 Kings 13:32; Hosea 8:5-6; Amos 3:9). Through the depopulations by Pul and Tiglath Pileser (1 Chronicles 5:26; 2 Kings 15:29) the extent of Samaria was much limited. The pagan pushed into the vacated region, and "Galilee of the Gentiles" ("nations") became an accepted phrase (Isaiah 9:1). After Shalmaneser's capture of Samaria and carrying away of Israel to Halah and Habor, and in the cities of the Medes (2 Kings 17:5-6; 2 Kings 17:23-24), Esarhaddon or Asnapper planted "instead" men of Babylon (where Esarhaddon resided in part: 2 Chronicles 33:11), Cuthah, Ava, and Sepharvaim (Ezra 4:2-3; Ezra 4:10). (See ESARHADDON; ASNAPPER.) So completely did God "wipe" away Israel (2 Kings 21:13) that no Israelite remained able to teach the colonists "the manner of the God of the land" (2 Kings 17:26). Isaiah (Isaiah 7:8) in 742 B.C. foretold that within 65 years Ephraim should be "broken" so as "not to be a people"; accomplished in 677 B.C. by Esarhaddon's occupying their land with foreigners. Josephus (Ant. 10:9, section 7) notices the difference between the ten and the two tribes. Israel's land became the land of complete strangers; Judah not so. The lions sent by Jehovah (who still claims the land as His own and His people's: Jeremiah 31:20; Leviticus 26:42), in consequence of the colonists worshipping their five deities respectively, constrained them through fear to learn from an imported Israelite priest how to "fear Jehovah." But it was fear, not love; it was a vain combination of incompatible worships, that of Jehovah and of idols (Zephaniah 1:5; Ezekiel 20:39; 1 Kings 18:21; Matthew 6:24). Luke (Luke 17:18) calls them "strangers," foreigners (allogeneis). In Ezra's (Ezra 4:1-4) time they claim no community of descent, but only of religion, with the Jews. Baffled in their wish to share in building the temple, they thwarted the building by false representations' before Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes until the reign of DARIUS (Ezra 5; 6). (See AHASUERUS; ARTAXERXES.) The Samaritans gradually cast off idols. In 409 B.C. Manasseh, of priestly descent, having been expelled for an unlawful marriage by Nehemiah, built a temple on Mount Gerizim for the Samaritans by Darius Nothus' permission. Henceforward the Samaritans refused all kindness to the pilgrims on their way to the feasts at Jerusalem, and often even waylaid them (Josephus, Ant. 20:6, section 1, 18:2, section 2). John Hyrcanus destroyed the Gerizim temple, but they still directed their worship toward it; then they built one at Shechem. The Pentateuch was their sole code; for their copy they claimed an antiquity and authority above any Jewish manuscript Jewish renegades joined them; hence they began to claim Jewish descent, as the Samaritan woman (John 4:12) says "Jacob our father." Possibly (though there is no positive evidence) Israelites may have not been completely swept from the fastness of the Samaritan hills, and these may have intermarried with the colonists. The Jews recognized no Israelite connection in the Samaritans. The Jews' charge against Jesus was, "Thou art a Samaritan" (John 8:48), probably because He had conversed with the Samaritans for their salvation (John 4). Then He was coming from Judaea, at a season "four months before the harvest," when the Samaritans could have no suspicion of His having been at Jerusalem for devotion (John 4:8; John 4:35); so the Samaritans treated Him with civility and hospitality, and the disciples bought food in the Samaritan town without being insulted. But in Luke 9:51-53, when He was "going to Jerusalem," the Samaritans did not receive Him: a minute coincidence with propriety, confirming the gospel narratives. In sending forth the twelve Christ identifies the Samaritans with Gentiles (Matthew 10:5-6); He distinguishes them from Jews (Acts 1:8; John 4:22). Samaria lay between Judaea and Galilee. (See Josephus, B. J. 3:3, section 4). Bounded N. by the hills beginning at Carmel and running E. toward Jordan, forming the southern boundary of the plain Esdraelon (Jezreel); including Ephraim and the Manasseh W. of Jordan. Pilate chastised them, to his own downfall (Josephus, Ant. 18:4, section 1). Under Vespasian 10,600 fell (B. J. 3:7, section 32). Dositheus an apostate Jew became their leader. Epiphanius (Haer. 1) mentions their hostility to Christianity, and numerous sects. Jos. Scaliger corresponded with them in the 16th century; DeSacy edited two of their letters to Scaliger; Job Ludolf received a letter from them in the 17th century. frontEichhorn's Repertorium, 13) At Nablus (Shechem, or Sychar) the Samaritans have a settlement of 200 persons still, observing the law, and celebrating the Passover on Gerizim.