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This book critically assesses biblical and archaeological data from the period of King Omri of Israel, as well as inscriptional sources from Syria-Palestine and related material for a socio-historical analysis of the Northern Kingdom in the ninth century BCE. The book is an attempt to extend the sociological research (which has been successfully applied to such other topics as Israelite settlement in Canaan, the origins and early development of the monarchy, et cetra), to the divided monarch as well. The book uses the social scientific approach, as it has gained currency among biblical scholars, specifically macrosociological theory, applied to the political and economic systems. The book argues that it is possible to achieve a closer dialogue between the interests of history on the one hand and sociology on the other in the study of ancient Israelite society.

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Gilbert Okuro Ojwang is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Languages at Oakwood University, Huntsville, Alabama, USA. His Ph.D. degree in Old Testament and Semitic Languages is from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, with graduate studies in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

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