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 ot...