Ahab reigned during a time when the Syrians to the north of Israel frequently attacked the Israelites and involved them in war, but in the last year's of Ahab's reign, Israel and Syria were forced to be allies against the most serious enemy to appear-Assyria. King Shalmaneser III of Assyria, who ruled from 859 to 824 B.C., set out to build an empire for Assyria and prepared to attack Syria and Israel in 853 B.C. At Qarqar, north of Damascus, a battle was fought which resulted in the withdrawal of the Assyrians. Shalmaneser's own account of the battle has survived, claiming victory and referring to the army of Ahab the Israelite.

This battle is the first event in Israelite history which can be dated precisely by the evidence of a written record outside the Bible, but we find that the writer of the book of Kings does not refer to it at all. Although Ahab succeeded in turning back the Assyrians from his country and Syria, the writer of the book of Kings does not find this a significant matter because he is not interested in the political career of Ahab. Ahab's marriage to a princess of Phoenicia was without doubt a political alliance, but it brought religious consequences to Israel.

If we want to know what kind of religion was followed by Jezebel, we should turn back to Chapter 8 in which the religion of Ugarit is described. Ugarit was north of Phoenicia on the same Mediterranean coastline but there would have been many similarities between the religions of the two places. In supporting Jezebel's religion, Ahab supported the cultural and political interests of his wife's country, to strengthen the ties between Israel and Sidon. Politically, it seemed sensible for small states such as these to find ways of uniting against the great common threat which was beginning to arise to the east, in Assyria. By accepting his old enemy Syria as an ally, Ahab did succeed in turning back the forces of Shalmaneser at Qarqar. But the writer of the book of Kings is not interested in this at all. He sees Ahab as the betrayer of the covenant faith, a ruler who trusts in political expedients such as marriage with a woman from the kind of background totally condemned by the book of Deuteronomy, an apostate leading his people into apostasy.