Meaning of SAMARIA

(lat.: "Samaria"; gr. "Samar[e]ia", from Aram. "Shãmerayin"; for the Heb. name.
(a) The capital of the ten tribes during most of the history of the northern kingdom; It was built by Omri on a hill that he acquired for two talents of silver from a man called Shemer, which means "to stand guard."

Omri called the city Shõm'rõn, deriving its name from Shemer (1 Kings 16:24). To the southwest of the city a watchtower stood. The capital, crowning a height sometimes called Mount Samaria (Am. 4:1; 6:1), overlooked a fertile valley (Is. 28:1).

This strong city was so well situated that it remained the capital of the northern kingdom until the captivity of the ten tribes. Successive sovereigns resided and were buried there (1 Kings 16:28, 29; 20:43; 22:10, 37, etc.).

Samaria had barely been built when war broke out between Ben-hadad I, king of Syria, and Omri. Ben-hadad, according to his son, achieved victory. Omri had to open certain routes from Samaria to Syrian merchants (1 Kings 20:34).

Under the reign of Ahab, son and successor of Omri, Ben-hadad II was detained by the walls of Samaria (1 Kings 20:1-21). To the north of the city there was an artificial pond, carved into the rock and cemented.

There Ahab's servants washed his bloody chariot, on which the king had died after the battle of Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 23:38). Samaria was besieged by the Syrians a second time, and miraculously delivered (2 Kings 6:8-7:20).

The elders of Samaria, fearing to incur Jehu's displeasure, put to death, at his command, seventy of Ahab's sons (2 Kings 10:1-10).

From the very beginning of its history, Samaria was a city full of idolatry. Ahab paved the way for pagan cults by erecting a temple and an altar to Baal (1 Kings 16:32).

Four hundred prophets of Astarte ate at the table of Jezebel (1 Kings 18:19), and it is probable that the sacred monolith, emblem of this divinity, survived until the reign of Jehu (2 Kings 13:6).

The false cults, fought by Elijah, involved drunkenness and immorality (Hos. 7:1-8; Am. 4:1; 8:14; cf. 1 Kings 18). Elisha lived in Samaria (2 Kings 5:3-9), where the prophet Hosea also lived.

There were numerous men of God who predicted the punishment of the northern kingdom and its capital (Is. 7:9; 8:4; Jer. 31:5; Ez. 16:46, 51, 53, 55; 23:33 ; Hos. 8:5, 6; 13:16; Am. 3:12; Mi. 1:5-9).

The city fell under a catastrophic judgment. The Assyrians, under the reign of Shalmansar V, besieged the city in 724 BC; Finally, in the year 722, or at the beginning of the year 721, it fell into the hands of the king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:3-6).

Sargon, successor of Shalmansar V, acceded to the throne in the year 721. He is credited with taking the city (see SARGON). The conqueror deported the Israelites from Samaria, and replaced them with Babylonians and other foreigners (2 Kings 17:24). (See SAMARITAN.)

In the year 332 or 331 BC, Alexander the Great took the city, drove them to Shechem, and put Syro-Macedonians in their place. Around the year 108 BC, Juan Hyrcano besieged it and surrounded it with a fence of 80 stadia (just over 14.5 km).

The city resisted for a year, but finally had to surrender due to hunger. The victor razed it, and tried to eliminate all vestiges of its fortifications (cf. Mi. 1:6; Ant. 13:10, 2 and 3; Wars 1:2, 7 and 8).

In the time of Alexander Jannaeus, the city was inhabited again. Pompey included it in the Roman province of Syria. Gabinius fortified it again (Ant. 14:4, 4; 5, 3).

Herod the Great rebuilt it, fortified it, and gave it the name Sebasté (fem. of Sebastos, Greek form of Latin "Augustus"), in honor of the emperor, Herod's protector (Ant. 15:8, 5). Philip the Evangelist preached Christ in Samaria, with much fruit.

Simon Magus and many others believed and were baptized (Acts 8:5-13). Peter and John went from Jerusalem to Samaria to support Philip in the work (Acts 8:14-25). Identification: more than 8 km northwest of Shechem, in the location of the town of Sebastiyeh, on a hill with steep slopes, whose plateau summit measures just over 1.5 km from east to west.
Archeology.

Samaria has been excavated from 1908 to 1910 by an expedition led by Harvard University, and in the period 1931-1935 by various groups (Harvard Excavations at Samaria 1908-1910, 2 vols., 1924, and Crowfoot, K. Kenyon and E. Sukenik: «The buildings at Samaria», 1942). These excavations revealed three main periods of the city's life:
(A) That of Omri-Acab (880-853 BC).

(B) The period of Jehu (841-840 BC).

(C) The 8th century BC, which saw the reign of Jeroboam II and the height of his splendor.
At the level of the Omri-Acab era there are very thick walls.

With them Samaria was able to effectively resist the attack of the Syrians (2 Kings 6:24-30) and the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 17:5). The water supply was carried out through a large number of cisterns.

Samaria lacked springs in the style of Gezer, Megiddo or Hazor. See ÓSTRACA, b, for inscribed pottery found in Samaria.

The discovery of numerous ivory fragments and ivory inlays in fragments of furniture, with carvings of papyrus, lotuses, bulls, sphinxes and Egyptian gods such as Isis and Horus, which show great care in their execution, agrees with the biblical mention of « the house of ivory" (1 Kings 22:39; cf. Am. 3:15).

(b) The territory of the ten tribes, that is, the kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 21:1; 2 Kings 17:24; Is. 7:9; Jer. 31:5; Ezek. 16:46) . (See ISRAEL.)

(c) The district of Samaria formed by central Palestine, between Galilee to the north and Judea to the south (1 Mac. 10:30). Josephus does not give a clear description of the boundaries (Wars 3:3, 4, 5), but he does say that the northern border passes through a town on the great plain called Ginea, which is evidently En Gannim ( Jos. 19:21; 21:29), in the southern corner of the plain of Esdraelon. The southern border was in the district of Acrabatena, just over 10 km south of Shechem.

Samaria extended east of the Jordan, but to the west it did not reach the Mediterranean. Aco belonged to Judea (see PTOLEMIDA). According to the Talmud, the western limit was Antipatris.

The district of Samaria included the ancient territories of Manasseh west of the Jordan, and of Ephraim, with a part of Issachar and Benjamin. In 63 BC, Pompey annexed Samaria to the province of Syria (Ant. 14:4, 4).

In the year 6 AD, Augustus made Judea, Samaria and Idumea a division of the prefecture of Syria, and gave it the name of the province of Judea, appointing procurators for its government (Ant. 17:13, 5; cf. 11:4); This was the administrative division that governed at the time of the Lord Jesus Christ.