Another characteristic of the author's method is illustrated by his treatment of the reign of Omri (1 Kings xvi. 23-28). Omri was the founder of the greatest dynasty of the northern kingdom, and was one of its greatest kings. From an inscription of the Moabite king Mesha, we learn that Omri subjugated the lands east of the Jordan (see also 2 Kings i. 1; iii. 4 ff.), and it is probable that his conquests were pushed to the north-east into Syria; the Assyrian kings long after his death call Israel the "house of Omri." But the long and brilliantly successful reign of a king who in religion followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel before him, "golden calves" and all, obviously could not be made to exemplify the doctrine that such sins are regularly visited by condign judgment in national disaster. Consequently, all that our author records of Omri, beyond the revolutions which paved for him the way to the throne (1 Kings xvi. 16-18), is contained in one verse, 1 Kings xvi. 24--he built a capital on a new site, Samaria! In the following reign, however, Israel had troubles enough; the conquests east of the Jordan were lost, and the long chapter of Syrian wars began. This was material more to the author's purpose, and he makes good use of it. Here also, in addition to the annals and whatever other sources were at his hand for the preceding period, he had a new and peculiarly grateful source in the stories of Elijah and Elisha. To the fact that these prophets were outstanding figures in some of the crises of the Syrian wars we owe it that so much of the history of that struggle is preserved; for what the author has extracted from the annals is as meagre as elsewhere. From such "lives and times" of the prophets is derived much the greater part of 1 Kings 17-2 Kings 10, with 2 Kings xiii. 14-21. The stories of Elijah (1 Kings 17-19; 21; 2 Kings 1; ii. 1-18) are among the most striking in the Old Testament; the supernatural in them seems the natural setting for a figure of such heroic mould, and is a stronger testimony than any record of fact could be to the impression of the superman on the imagination of ordinary mortals. Through the vesture of legend, we too have the impression of a something titanic in the man who dared solitary to stand for his God against kings, priests, prophets, and people, and, worse than all, the vengeful fury of a woman! We can see, also, that his conflict against the prophets of Baal makes an era in the history of religion in Israel. "If Jehovah be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him," he thunders at the people on Mt. Carmel. It was not the first assertion of the jealousy of Jehovah and the exclusiveness of the true religion; but the issue had never before been so dramatically joined. The intolerant monotheism of Judaism had found its war cry.