Person
Elah אלה
king of Israel for two years; killed while drunk
Elah reigned two years. Kings notes the manner of his death without mercy: the army was in the field before Gibbethon, while the king "was drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, steward of the palace at Tirzah"—and there Zimri, captain of half the chariots, came upon him and killed him (1 Kings 16:9–10).
Zimri at once destroyed the whole house of Baasha, "not leaving one that pisses against a wall"—fulfilling the word of the prophet Jehu son of Hanani to the letter. The north's second dynasty ended, like the first, with its second king.
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Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim I (1 Kings) 16:6–14 — the two years, the drinking at Tirzah, and death at Zimri's hand
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Seder Olam Rabbah — the count of the regnal years of both kingdoms, on which the whole chronology of the First Temple rests
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.