Ahab (King living at the time of Divided Monarchy)

Ahab was king of northern Israel for about twenty-two years, remembered above all for marrying the Phoenician princess Jezebel and letting her import Baal worship into a kingdom that was supposed to belong to Yahweh alone. His reign is really the story of his running conflict with the prophet Elijah, from the three-year drought Elijah announced as judgment to the fire-from-heaven contest on Mount Carmel to Elijah's blunt condemnation of Ahab for murdering Naboth to steal his vineyard. Ahab's own father, Omri, is confirmed outside the Bible on the Moabite Stone and in Assyrian records, which also name Ahab directly as a major military contributor at the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC.