02 Elijah journey Jordan River Valley to Samaria drone footage

As Elijah made his way toward Ahab’s palace in Samaria, he climbed from the Jordan River Valley into the mountains of the northern kingdom. When the Old Testament speaks of “Samaria,” it usually references a city by the name. King Omri had made the city his capital (1 Kings 16:24) and his son Ahab also ruled from Samaria. Ahab married Jezebel, a fierce enemy of Elijah. All of the remaining kings of Israel made Samaria their capital, leading the Assyrians to lay siege to the city for three years before deporting all of its Jewish residents (2 Kings 17:5-6, 24). The Assyrians repopulated the area with non-Jewish people and called the larger region “Samaria.” By the time of the New Testament, the city was known as Sebaste, but the regional name stuck.