The World's Success, God's Scorn Text: 1 Kings 16:21-28
Introduction: Two Report Cards
Every man, whether he knows it or not, is having his life graded. He is being evaluated, and a final report card is being prepared. The great delusion of our secular age is the belief that we are the ones who get to write the final evaluation. We think that history will be our judge, or that our peers will be, or that our own carefully curated legacy will be the final word. We live in an age of frantic brand management, where every politician, celebrity, and influencer works tirelessly to craft a public perception of competence, success, and importance.
But there are two sets of books being kept. There is the world's ledger, which measures a man by his power, his wealth, his strategic cunning, and the cities he builds. By this standard, the man we are about to consider, Omri, the sixth king of Israel, was a staggering success. If you were to read the Assyrian records, you would find that for a century and a half after his death, the entire kingdom of Israel was known as the "House of Omri." He was a significant political and military figure on the world stage. He founded a dynasty. He built a capital city so well-fortified that it would last for the remainder of the Northern Kingdom's existence. By the world's report card, he gets straight A's.
But there is another report card, one kept by the living God. And on this report card, the one that actually matters for eternity, Omri is a catastrophic failure. The Holy Spirit, in authoring this history, devotes a mere eight verses to this titan of the ancient world, and the summary judgment is absolutely scathing. He did evil, and he did it worse than all who were before him. The world's applause is deafening, but heaven's verdict is damnation.
This is the great disconnect that we must grasp. God's metrics for success and the world's metrics for success are not just different; they are antithetical. God does not grade on a curve. He grades on the basis of covenant faithfulness. And as we look at this brief, almost dismissive, account of a worldly-wise king, we are forced to ask ourselves which report card we are living for. Are we building for the "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel," or are we building for the Lamb's Book of Life?
The Text
Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king; the other half followed Omri. But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath. And Tibni died and Omri became king. In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned twelve years; he reigned six years at Tirzah. And he bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and named the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill. And Omri did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and acted more wickedly than all who were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and in his sins which he made Israel sin, provoking Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their idols. Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did and his might which he showed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria; and Ahab his son became king in his place.
(1 Kings 16:21-28 LSB)
The Pragmatism of Power (v. 21-22)
We begin with the raw nature of fallen politics.
"Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts: half of the people followed Tibni the son of Ginath, to make him king; the other half followed Omri. But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath. And Tibni died and Omri became king." (1 Kings 16:21-22)
The previous king, Zimri, had lasted a grand total of seven days before he set his own palace on fire and committed suicide. Israel is in a state of chaotic collapse. And in the midst of this, what is the process for choosing the next leader? It is not prayer. It is not consulting a prophet. It is not an appeal to God's law. It is a raw power struggle. The nation splits into factions, and the faction with the most might wins. Omri's followers "prevailed." The Hebrew word here is the same one used for overpowering an enemy in battle. This is not a democratic election; it is a civil war.
Notice the complete absence of God in their political calculus. This is pure pragmatism. Who is the strongest? Who has the army? Who can get the job done? Omri was the commander of the army, a man of proven competence in the world's eyes. Tibni, we know nothing about, except that he lost. The principle of succession here is simple: might makes right. This is the political philosophy of Cain, of Nimrod, of every pagan empire then and now.
When a nation has abandoned God's law as its foundation, this is what is left. Politics becomes a zero-sum game of force and faction. There is no appeal to a higher authority, no transcendent standard of justice. There is only the prevailing of one group over another. This is a picture of a people thoroughly secularized in their public life. They may still have had some religious observances, but when it came to the serious business of who would rule, they resorted to the world's methods entirely.
A Monument to Man (v. 23-24)
Next, Omri the pragmatist makes a shrewd, worldly-wise decision.
"In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned twelve years; he reigned six years at Tirzah. And he bought the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and named the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill." (1 Kings 16:23-24 LSB)
The old capital, Tirzah, was compromised. Its palace had been burned down by Zimri. It was strategically vulnerable. So Omri, the competent military man, goes shopping for a new capital. He finds a hill that is easily defensible and centrally located. He buys it, and he builds a new city. From a purely secular, military, and economic standpoint, this was a brilliant move. The city of Samaria would become the great, enduring capital of the Northern Kingdom.
But look at the foundation. He buys the hill from a man named Shemer and names the city after him. The new capital of God's covenant people is named not for God, not for some great act of redemption, but for a real estate transaction. The city is a monument to a man. It is founded on secular principles, for secular reasons, and bears a secular name. This is the very essence of humanism. It is building a city, a culture, a civilization with man at the center.
Contrast this with Jerusalem, the city of David, whose name means "foundation of peace," and which God chose to place His name there. Omri is not building a capital for Yahweh; he is building a fortress for himself. He is establishing a power base that is deliberately disconnected from the spiritual heritage of Israel. He is creating a new center of gravity, one that pulls the people's allegiance away from Jerusalem and the temple, and fixes it on the throne of a man. This is a political act of apostasy, memorialized in stone and mortar.
God's Scathing Evaluation (v. 25-26)
Now we come to the divine report card, the only one that matters.
"And Omri did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and acted more wickedly than all who were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and in his sins which he made Israel sin, provoking Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their idols." (1 Kings 16:25-26 LSB)
This is a staggering indictment. After a string of spectacularly wicked kings, the Spirit says that this man, this competent builder and shrewd politician, was the worst of them all. Why? Because he took the sin of Jeroboam and institutionalized it. Jeroboam's sin was a politically motivated religious innovation. He set up golden calves in Dan and Bethel to keep the people from going to Jerusalem to worship, fearing he would lose his grip on power. It was a state-sponsored, counterfeit religion designed to serve the king, not God.
Omri takes this sin and gives it a permanent, glorious, stone-and-mortar capital. He solidifies the apostasy. He makes the rebellion respectable. He builds a beautiful, defensible city as the headquarters for idolatry. His great worldly success was, in God's eyes, his great spiritual crime. He was more wicked because he was more effective in entrenching sin. A bumbling, incompetent idolater is one thing. A competent, efficient, and successful idolater is far more dangerous to the health of a nation.
This is a direct assault on our modern sensibilities. We admire competence. We value effectiveness. We think that as long as a leader "gets the job done," his personal beliefs or the spiritual direction he takes the nation are secondary. God says the opposite. Competence in the service of wickedness is not a mitigating factor; it is an aggravating factor. Omri's skill as a state-builder made him a more potent enemy of God. He didn't just sin; he "made Israel sin." He used his political power to mainstream rebellion against the covenant.
The World's Footnote and the Son's Inheritance (v. 27-28)
The passage concludes with a dismissive summary and a dark foreshadowing.
"Now the rest of the acts of Omri which he did and his might which he showed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria; and Ahab his son became king in his place." (1 Kings 16:27-28 LSB)
The Holy Spirit essentially says, "If you want to read about his worldly achievements, his military might, his political maneuvering, go read some other book. That's not what this story is about." The inspired record is not interested in his GDP, his foreign policy, or his building projects. It is interested in his covenant faithfulness, of which there was none. All his might and all his acts are relegated to a footnote. In the grand narrative of redemption, this great king of the earth is a minor character, a speed bump on the road to judgment.
And what is his legacy? What does he pass on to the next generation? He was buried in the very city he built as a monument to his own pragmatism. And his son, Ahab, became king. Omri's sin did not die with him. He cultivated a garden of idolatry, and his son Ahab would harvest the most poisonous fruit it could produce. The wickedness that Omri institutionalized, Ahab would radicalize. The foundation of man-centered, pragmatic, idolatrous statecraft that Omri laid in Samaria would become the launching pad for the overt Baal worship of Ahab and Jezebel.
The sins of the fathers are not just visited on the children; they are often amplified by them. Omri created the political and religious infrastructure that made Ahab possible. His legacy was not just a city, but a curse. He passed on a kingdom divorced from God, a politics of pure power, and a religion of convenience. And his son would take that inheritance and drive the nation headlong into the abyss.
Conclusion: Building on Rock or Sand
The story of Omri is a profound warning to the modern church, particularly in the West. We are tempted on every side to make peace with the world's standards of success. We are tempted to value pragmatic effectiveness over doctrinal purity. We are tempted to build impressive institutions, ministries, and platforms, and to name them after Shemer, so to speak, rather than after Christ.
We see a man who won a civil war, established a dynasty, and built a great city. The world called it success. God called it wickedness. We must ask what we are building. Are we building on the shifting sands of public opinion, political pragmatism, and worldly metrics of success? Or are we building on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and His Word?
Omri built a city that would last 150 years. But it was ultimately a city of death, a capital of apostasy that led his people to ruin and exile. His might was a footnote, his legacy was a curse, and his end was to be buried in his own monument to unbelief. The final report card was an F.
The call to us is to be builders of a different sort. We are called to build the church, the city of God. We are to measure our success not by the size of our budget, but by the faithfulness of our preaching. Not by our political influence, but by our submission to King Jesus. Not by the might we show, but by the mercy we receive. For the chronicles of the kings of this world are all being written on paper that is destined to burn. But the one who does the will of God abides forever. Let us therefore live for the audience of One, and for the report card that He alone will write.