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The eastern Mediterranean was coming to life again. By the end of the ninth century, the northern kingdom of Israel had become a major power in the region. When the Egyptian pharaoh Shishak had invaded Canaan in 926, he had not only sacked Jerusalem and devastated 150 towns in Israel and Judah, but had also destroyed the ancient Canaanite strongholds of Megiddo, Rehob, Beth-shean, and Taanach. Canaanite culture never re¬covered. Israel expanded into the old Canaanite territories, absorbed the inhabitants of the ruined cities, and exploited their skills.” King Omri (885-874) built a marvelous new capital in Samaria, with a large, five-acre royal acropolis. His son Ahab (874-853) built a magnificent ivory palace there and established trade links with Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Greece. He also married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, whose name has become a byword for wickedness.
The biblical historian who wrote a very negative account of Ahab in the first book of Kings was appalled by Jezebel, because she had imported the cult of Phoenician Baal into Israel. But he was writing in the seventh century, in a very different world. In the ninth century, Ahab’s marriage would have been considered a political coup. It was important for the kingdom of Israel to integrate with the region, and hold its own against Damascus, Phoenicia, and Moab. Ahab was doing nothing new. Solomon had also made diplomatic marriages with foreign princesses, had included their gods in the royal cult, and built temples for them in the hills outside Jerusalem. 14 But Ahab had the misfortune to inspire the wrath of a small but passionately committed minority, who believed that the people of Israel should worship Yahweh alone.
Ahab was not an apostate. He regularly consulted the prophets of Yah¬weh and saw nothing amiss in his wife’s devotion to Baal. For centuries, Yahweh’s cult had been nourished by the hymns and rites of Baal. As archaeologists have discovered, most of the population worshiped other local gods besides Yahweh, and Baal worship flourished in Israel until the sixth century.” But by the ninth century, some Israelites were beginning to cut down on the number of gods they worshiped. In Syria and Meso¬potamia, the experience of the divine was too complex and overwhelm¬ing to be confined to a single symbol. The imagery of the divine assembly, with its carefully graded ranks of consorts, divine children, and servants, showed that divinity was multifaceted and yet formed a coherent unity.’6 The symbolism of the divine assembly was very important to the people of Israel and Judah, but by the ninth century it was becoming more streamlined. Instead of presiding over a large divine household, like El and his consort, Asherah,Yahweh presided alone over a host of lesser celestial beings. 17 They were his “heavenly host,” the warriors in his divine army.As the national God,Yahweh had no peers, no rivals, and no superiors. He was surrounded by an “assembly of the holy ones” and “sons of God” who all applauded his fidelity to his people:
