Tivni vs Omri: Separation vs Unity

A short idea I thought of now: Ephraim Ha'Reuveni was a famous Jewish botanist in Israel. In an essay he wrote on Tanachic names that come from plants and animals, he pointed out that both Omri and Tivni (as well as some other names) are plant names: Omri comes from Omer (עומר), which means 'sheaf of grain' and Tivni comes from Teven (תבן) which means 'hay' (see here, p. 388, n. 36).

Now, Omri was a famous king of Israel. Before that he had been a general in the Israelite army, and when the Israelites heard that Zimri had killed King Elah and the House of Ba'asha, they followed Omri to do battle against Zimri, eventually killing him. After this had happened, a challenger rose: Tivni ben Ginat. This caused the splitting of the Israelites into two factions: Followers of Omri and followers of Tivni, as it says in Kings 1:16:12-13:

"Then the people of Israel split into two factions: a part of the people followed Tibni son of Ginath to make him king, and the other part followed Omri. Those who followed Omri proved stronger than those who followed Tibni son of Ginath; Tibni died and Omri became king."

It occurred to me earlier that we may be able to understand why Omri managed to defeat Tivni based on their names: Omri is a sheaf, meaning a bundle of grain. In other words, within a sheaf is a group of united grain stalks. Hay, on the other hand, is simply separated stalks. Of course, anything can be bundled up, but the word 'hay' does not refer to a bundle, unlike 'sheaf'. In other words, when we first meet Omri, seemingly all of the Israelites follow him - i.e., he unites Israel against the usurper Zimri. Then along comes Tivni who causes separation in Israel. But ultimately Omri manages to win, because "strength in unity".

This idea is particularly interesting with regards to Omri's son Achav, who also saw the importance of keeping Israel united. I once noticed that Eliyahu, who was a kind of opponent to Achav in certain ways, had a name comprising of two names of Hashem (E-l and Ya-hu) while Achav had a name comprising nouns that refer to family members: Ach (brother) and Av (father). We see here full Godliness vs full humanity. But more than that, within Achav's name we see familial unity. During Achav's time, there were good relations between Israel and Judah and the two royal families even intermarried. And we see him making his last stand as an injured king about to die from an arrow wound- not running away, so as to not cause his army to scatter.

In short, it seems that Achav received the idea of the importance of unity from his father Omri.

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