If you don’t think the Bible is edge of your seat thrilling, you aren’t reading it.

Revenge, deception, intrigue; Days of Our Lives has nothing on this stuff!

After the kingdom of Israel split in two (now Judah and Israel), the country of Israel suffered through one wretched king after another. A few kings in was a king named Elah. He only served two years because, while he was drunk, he was assassinated by his rival Zimri.

Zimri then became the king, but after slaughtering the entire royal family and everyone associated with it, Israel rejected him as their king. After only seven days! Zimri was so distraught that he committed suicide by setting fire to the palace.

Without any nobility left alive, Israel set the commander of their army on the throne. His name was Omri. (King Omri was the father of the notorious and exceedingly wicked King Ahab.)

King Omri became a very powerful and militarily successful leader. He was so prominent, in fact, that historical documents tell us that during his time Israel was referred to as, “The Land of Omri.” Excavations of the palace that he built have yielded treasures that are nothing short of stunning.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “Extrabiblical sources paint a picture of a dynamic and powerful figure, and he is thought by modern scholars to have been the most important ruler of the northern kingdom.”

As prominent and important as Omri was, the Bible hardly gives him a mention except to say that, “Omri did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; he did more evil than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:25)

That should tell us a lot.

King Omri had literally everything that he could have hoped or dreamed. In modern times, he would have been on every who’s who list. Best sellers would have been written about him, his Tweets would have broke the internet and the negotiations that he made with the Moabites would have no doubt garnered him a Nobel Peace Prize.

None of that mattered to God.

The only thing that mattered to God was the condition of Omri’s heart. Nothing else was even worth mentioning.