Omri was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the sixth king of Israel. He was a successful military campaigner who extended the northern kingdom of Israel. Other monarchs from the House of Omri are Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram, and Athaliah. Like his predecessor, king Zimri, who ruled for only seven days, Omri is the second king mentioned in the Bible without a statement of his tribal origin. One possibility, though unproven, is that he was of the tribe of Issachar.

The Kingdom of Israel, or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age, whose beginnings can be dated back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. The kingdom controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan. The regions of Samaria and Galilee underwent a period with large number of settlements during the 10th century BCE, with the capital in Shechem, and then in Tirzah. The kingdom was ruled by the Omride dynasty in the 9th century BCE, whose political center was the city of Samaria.