=Ahab's Aramean Wars.= Omri's son, Ahab, proved an even more able general than his father. In a series of engagements, in which he fought against great odds and against armies equipped far better than his own, he repelled the Arameans, who overran his territory. In the first engagement, which was fought near Samaria, the Hebrews, profiting by the blind overconfidence of the enemy, won through a sudden attack. The decisive battle was fought a year later near Aphek. This city is not the Aphek on the southeastern side of the Plain of Sharon, but is probably to be identified with the modern town of Fîk, beside the important highway which runs from the southern end of the Sea of Galilee northeastward toward Damascus. Ahab's courage was shown in thus going out to meet his foe on the northeastern border of his territory. The town lay on the top of the plateau at the end of a valley that looked down upon the Sea of Galilee on the west. The battle was probably fought on the level plain of the Jaulan, which ran east of the town, and resulted in the complete defeat of the Aramean army and the capture of its king. =Strength and Fatal Weakness of Ahab's Policy.= Ahab was contented to make a favorable treaty with his fallen foe. The captured Israelite cities were restored and a trading quarter was set aside in Damascus for the Hebrew merchants. Ahab evidently sought in every way to develop the commercial resources of his kingdom. His marriage with Jezebel, the daughter of the Tyrian king, was intended to cement more closely the relations with this great commercial people on the west. Viewed from the point of view of world politics, Ahab's policy in maintaining the natural boundaries and in developing the commercial resources of his nation was sound. By his contemporaries he was doubtless regarded as a most successful king. His fatal mistake, however, was that of Solomon: in his pursuit of material splendor he disregarded the inherited beliefs and rights of his subjects. The official recognition of the Canaanite worship of his Phœnician queen was even more of a menace to the pure worship of Jehovah in Northern Israel in the days of Ahab than in Jerusalem in the days of Solomon. Northern Israel was pre-eminently Baal's land. Here the Canaanites had been most strongly intrenched and their religious traditions still pervaded the land. Communication with the Canaanites on the Mediterranean coast was exceedingly close and there was much in these ancient Baal cults to attract the prosperous, pleasure-loving, cosmopolitan people of Northern Israel. Ahab's policy did not contemplate a substitution of the worship of the Tyrian god, Baal Melkart, for that of Jehovah, but it did mean obscuring the fundamental characteristics and demands of Israel's God.