Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)

The Kingdom of Israel (Biblical Hebrew: מַמְלֶכֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized: Mamleḵeṯ Yiśrāʾēl), also called the Kingdom of Samaria or the Northern Kingdom, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan; the former two regions underwent a period in which a large number of new settlements were established shortly after the kingdom came into existence. It had four capital cities in succession: Shiloh, Shechem, Tirzah, and the city of Samaria. In the 9th century BCE, the House of Omri ruled it, whose political centre was the city of Samaria.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the territory of the Twelve Tribes of Israel was once amalgamated under a Kingdom of Israel and Judah, which was ruled by the House of Saul and then by the House of David. However, upon the death of Solomon, who was the son and successor of David, there was discontent over his son and successor Rehoboam, whose reign was only accepted by the Tribe of Judah and the Tribe of Benjamin. The unpopularity of Rehoboam's reign among the rest of the Israelites, who sought Jeroboam as their monarch, resulted in Jeroboam's Revolt, which led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel in the north (Samaria), whereas the loyalists of Judah and Benjamin kept Rehoboam as their monarch and established the Kingdom of Judah in the south (Judea), ending Israelite political unity. While the existence of Israel and Judah as two independent kingdoms is not disputed, some historians and archaeologists reject the historicity of a United Monarchy of Israel and Judah.

Around 720 BCE, Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The records of Assyrian king Sargon II indicate that he deported 27,290 Israelites to Mesopotamia. This deportation resulted in the loss of one-fifth of the kingdom's population and is known as the Assyrian captivity, which gave rise to the notion of the Ten Lost Tribes. Some of these Israelites, however, managed to migrate to safety in neighbouring Judah, though the Judahites themselves would be conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire nearly two centuries later. Those who stayed behind in Samaria following the Assyrian conquest mainly concentrated themselves around Mount Gerizim and eventually came to be known as the Samaritans. The Assyrians, as part of their historic deportation policy, also settled other conquered foreign populations in the territory of Israel.

According to Israel Finkelstein, Shoshenq I's campaign in the second half of the 10th century BCE caused the collapse of the early polity of Gibeon in the central highlands, and made possible the beginning of the Northern Kingdom, with its capital at Shechem, around 931 BCE. Israel was consolidated as a kingdom in the first half of 9th century BCE, with its capital at Tirzah first, and next at the city of Samaria from 880 BCE. The existence of this Israelite state in the north is documented in 9th century BCE inscriptions. The earliest mention is from the Kurkh stela of c. 853 BCE, when Shalmaneser III mentions "Ahab the Israelite", plus the denominative for "land", and his ten thousand troops. This kingdom would have included parts of the lowlands (the Shephelah), the Jezreel plain, lower Galilee and parts of the Transjordan.

Ahab's forces were part of an anti-Assyrian coalition, implying that an urban elite ruled the kingdom, possessed a royal and state cult with large urban temples, and had scribes, mercenaries, and an administrative apparatus. In all this, it was similar to other recently founded kingdoms of the time, such as Ammon and Moab. Samaria is one of the most universally accepted archaeological sites from the biblical period. In around 840 BCE, the Mesha Stele records the victory of Moab (in today's Jordan), under King Mesha, over Israel, King Omri and his son Ahab.

Archaeological finds, ancient Near Eastern texts, and the biblical record testify that in the time of the Omrides, Israel ruled in the mountainous Galilee, at Hazor in the upper Jordan Valley, in large parts of Transjordan between the Wadi Mujib and the Yarmuk, and in the coastal Sharon plain.

In Assyrian inscriptions, the Kingdom of Israel is referred to as the "House of ʻOmri". The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III mentions Jehu, son of ʻOmri. The Neo-Assyrian emperor Adad-nirari III made an expedition into the Levant around 803 BCE mentioned in the Nimrud slab, which lists the places he went to, sometimes using the apellative for "land", mat: the Hatti and Amurru lands, Tyre, Sidon, the mat of Hu-um-ri (^matHu-um-ri, "land of ʻOmri"), Edom, Philistia, and Aram (not Judah). The Tell al-Rimah stela of the same king introduces a third way of talking about the kingdom, as Samaria, in the phrase "Joash of Samaria". The use of Omri's name to refer to the kingdom still survived, and was used by Sargon II in the phrase "the whole house of Omri" in describing his conquest of the city of Samaria in 722 BCE. It is significant that the Assyrians never mention the Kingdom of Judah until the end of the 8th century, when it was an Assyrian vassal state: possibly they never had contact with it, or possibly they regarded it as a vassal of Israel/Samaria or Aram, or possibly the southern kingdom did not exist during this period.

One traditional source for the history of the Kingdom of Israel has been the Hebrew Bible, especially the Books of Kings and Chronicles. These books were written by authors in Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah. Being written in a rival kingdom, they were inspired by ideological and theological viewpoints that influence the narrative. Anachronisms, legends and literary forms also affect the story. Some of the recorded events are believed to have occurred long after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. Biblical archaeology has both confirmed and challenged parts of the biblical account. According to the Hebrew Bible, there existed a United Kingdom of Israel (the United Monarchy), ruled from Jerusalem by David and his son Solomon, after whose death Israel and Judah separated into two kingdoms.