Omri, Samaria and Ahab

The word of the LORD comes to Jehu son of Hanani against Baasha. Elah son of Baasha reigns two years and is "drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza" when his officer Zimri kills him and destroys Baasha's house. Zimri reigns seven days in Tirzah. The army at Gibbethon makes Omri king; when Tirzah falls, Zimri "went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him with fire, and died."

Half the people follow Tibni son of Ginath, half Omri; "so Tibni died, and Omri reigned." After six years in Tirzah, "he bought the hill Samaria of Shemer for two talents of silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built… Samaria." "But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him."

Ahab son of Omri reigns twenty-two years in Samaria. "As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam… he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal." He builds an altar for Baal in the house of Baal in Samaria, and makes an Asherah. "In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua."

Omri outside the Bible

The Mesha Stele (c. 840 BC) says: "Omri was king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days." Assyrian kings called Israel "the land of Omri" or "the house of Omri" for over a century, even after his dynasty fell (Jehu is called "son of Omri" on the Black Obelisk). Omri is the first king of Israel named in a contemporary or near-contemporary outside source.

Samaria (Sebastia)

Excavations at Sebastia (Harvard, 1908–10; the Joint Expedition, 1931–35) uncovered a royal acropolis with fine ashlar masonry, a large palace and carved ivories (later, mostly 8th century BC), and the Samaria Ostraca. The founding of the royal compound is generally attributed to the Omrides in the 9th century BC, though the exact phasing is debated.

Hiel and Jericho

16:34 fulfills Joshua's curse (Joshua 6:26). Whether Hiel sacrificed his sons as foundation offerings or they died, as the Greek "in his firstborn" and later readers understood, is debated. The library's Greek says he rebuilt Jericho "by sacrificing his firstborn" (Giguet's wording); the Hebrew says "in (or with) Abiram his firstborn."

The Greek here

The library's Greek adds, after 16:28, a notice of Jehoshaphat's accession in Judah (which the Hebrew gives at 22:41–50). The Greek tradition's royal chronology differs at several points in Kings.