Section 95
Journey through Samaria
Samaria
Luke 9:51-56 | John 7:10 |
---|---|
51Now when the days were approaching for Jesus' ascension, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52He sent messengers on ahead, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. 53But the people there refused to welcome him, because his face was set to go to Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just like Elijah did?” 55But he turned and rebuked them, saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you belong to. 56For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people's lives but to save them.” And they went on to another village. | 10However, after his brothers had gone up to the feast, Jesus also went up, not openly but in secret. |
Notes
Samaria
After King Solomon’s death, the nation Israel divided north of the tribe of Benjamin’s border. Jerusalem stayed the capital in the south. Jeroboam chose Shechem as the capital for the Northern Kingdom, but the capital wasn’t there for long. Succeeding kings relocated Israel’s principal city from Shechem to Tirzah. Shechem, which lay between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, provided central Israel’s most important crossroads.
King Omri moved the capital back to Samaria, and it served as the northern kingdom’s administrative center for 160 years. Samaria took its name from Shemer, the man
who sold Omri the hill (1 Kings 16:24-28). After the Assyrians dragged the Northern Kingdom into exile in 722 BC, they repopulated the area, producing a mixed breed - partly Jewish, partly Assyrian - called Samaritans. Caesar Augustus gave Samaria to Herod the Great, who rebuilt the city to his usual exorbitant standards and renamed the site Sebaste, the Greek name for Augustus.