Achab

ACHAB (Hebrew «Brother of the Father»; Assyrian A-ḫa-ab-bu). - King of Israel from 875 to 853 B.C. His story is told in 1 Kings 16:29-22:40. He inherited from his father Omri a prosperous and feared kingdom. The close alliance with the Phoenicians, which had facilitated exchanges and commerce, was concretized in a marriage: A. received as his bride Jezebel (v.), daughter of the king of Tyre, an authoritarian woman who dominated him, dragging him into apostasy. A. "did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him" (ibid. 16:30-33). He granted his wife the worship of the god of Tyre: Baal Melqart, to whom a temple was erected in the capital. Idolatry spread among the popular classes, inflaming with zeal the prophet Elijah, who announced the divine punishment: drought devastated the country for three and a half years. A. would perhaps have yielded to the man of God, especially during the memorable events of Carmel (v. ELIA), but Jezebel was implacable.

Notable was the building activity of A.: he revived cities, enlarged the palace of Samaria, as appears from the excavations of 1908-10 that brought it back to light, and built the "ivory house" (ibid. 22:39), some ivory ornaments of which were found in 1932-33 (illustrated by J. W. and G. M. Crowfoot, Early Ivories from Samaria, London 1938).

In foreign relations, he was at peace with the kingdom of Judah and held the Moabites subject. With Damascus he had alternations of friendship and wars. He joined the Syrian coalition, and with eleven other allied kings of the maritime coast he fought at Qarqar on the Orontes against Shalmaneser III (v.), who prevailed (854). In the expedition to reconquer Ramoth in Gilead, struck by an arrow, he died from loss of blood.

Salvatore Garofalo