Ammonites

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

the descendants of Ammon, the son of Lot. They took possession of the country called by their name, after having driven out the Zamzummims, who were its ancient inhabitants. The precise period at which this expulsion took place is not ascertained. The Ammonites had kings, and were uncircumcised,  Jeremiah 9:25-26 , and seem to have been principally addicted to husbandry. They, as well as the Moabites, were among the nations whose peace or prosperity the Israelites were forbidden to disturb,  Deuteronomy 2:19 , &c. However, neither the one nor the other were to be admitted into the congregation to the tenth generation, because they did not come out to relieve them in the wilderness, and were implicated in hiring Balaam to curse them. Their chief and peculiar deity is, in Scripture, called Moloch. Chemosh was also a god of the Ammonites. Before the Israelites entered Canaan, the Amorites conquered a great part of the country belonging to the Ammonites and Moabites; but it was retaken by Moses, and divided between the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Previous to the time of Jephthah, B.C. 1188, the Ammonites engaged as principals in a war, under a king whose name is not given, against the Israelites. This prince, determining to recover the ancient country of the Ammonites, made a sudden irruption into it, reduced the land, and kept the inhabitants in subjection for eighteen years. He afterwards crossed Jordan with a design of falling upon the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. The Israelites resisted the invader; and, assembling at Mizpeh, chose Jephthah for their general, and sent an expostulatory message to the king of the Ammonites,  Judges 10:11 . The king replied, that those lands belonged to the Ammonites, who had been unjustly dispossessed of them by the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt, and exhorted Jephthah to restore them peaceably to the lawful owners.

Jephthah remonstrated on the injustice of his claim; but finding a war inevitable, he fell upon the Ammonites near Aroer, and defeated them with great slaughter. On this occasion the Ammonites lost twenty cities; and thus an end was put, after eighteen years' bondage, to the tyranny of Ammon over the Israelites beyond Jordan. In the days of Saul, 1 Samuel 11, B.C. 1095, the old claim of the Ammonites was revived by Nahash their king, and they laid siege to the city of Jabesh. The inhabitants were inclined to acknowledge Nahash as their sovereign; but he would accept their submission only on condition that every one of them should consent to lose his right eye, and that thus he might fix a lasting reproach upon Israel: but from this humiliating and severe requisition they were delivered by Saul, who vanquished and dispersed the army of Nahash. Upon the death of Nahash, David sent ambassadors to his son and successor Hanun, to congratulate him on his accession; but these ambassadors were treated as spies, and dismissed in a very reproachful manner, 2 Samuel 10. This indignity was punished by David with rigour. Rabbah, the capital of Hanun, and the other cities of Ammon, which resisted the progress of the conqueror, were destroyed and razed to the ground; and the inhabitants were put to death or reduced to servitude. In the reign of Jehoshaphat the Ammonites united with their brethren, the Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, against the king of Judah; but they were completely routed. They were afterward overthrown by Uzziah, king of Judah, and made tributary,  2 Chronicles 26:8; and rebelling in the reign of his son Jotham, they were reduced to the necessity of purchasing peace at a very dear rate. After the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, were carried into captivity by Tiglath-Pileser, B.C. 740, the Ammonites and Moabites took possession of the cities belonging to these tribes, and were reproached for it by  Jeremiah 49:1 . Their ambassadors were exhorted to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatened, on their refusal, with captivity and slavery,  Jeremiah 27:2-4 . The Prophet Ezekiel,  Ezekiel 25:4-10 , denounces their entire destruction, and informs them, that God would deliver them up to the people of the east; and that the Ammonites should no more be mentioned among the nations: and this punishment they were to suffer for insulting the Israelites on account of their calamities, and the destruction of their temple by the Chaldeans. This malediction began to be inflicted upon them in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the people around Judea, A.M. 3420 or 3421, B.C. 583. It is probable that Cyrus granted to the Ammonites and Moabites liberty to return into their own country, whence they had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar; for they were exposed to the revolutions that were common to the people of Syria and Palestine, and were subject sometimes to the kings of Egypt, and sometimes to the kings of Syria. Polybius informs us, that Antiochus the Great took Rabboth, or Philadelphia, the capital of the Ammonites, demolished the walls, and put a garrison into it, A.M. 3806, B.C. 198. During the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Ammonites manifested their hatred to the Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived in their parts. At length their city Jaser, and the neighbouring town, fell a prey to the Jews, who smote the men, carried their wives and children into captivity, and plundered and burned the city. Thus ended their last conflict with the descendants of Israel. Ammon was, however, a highly productive and populous country when the Romans became masters of all the provinces of Syria; and several of the ten allied cities, which gave name to the celebrated Decapolis, were included within its boundaries. Even when first invaded by the Saracens, this country, including Moab, was enriched by the various benefits of trade, covered with a line of forts, and possessed some strong and populous cities. Volney bears witness, "that in the immense plains of the Hauran, ruins are continually to be met with, and that what is said of its actual fertility perfectly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew writings." The fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every traveller who has visited it. And "it is evident," says Burckhardt, "that the whole country must have been extremely well cultivated in order to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns," as are now visible only in their ruins. While the fruitfulness of the land of Ammon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it subsisted long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions, are thus indisputably established by historical evidence and by existing proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the mere desire of exploring these regions and obtaining geographical information) have made known its present aspect; and testimony the most clear, unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the state of dire desolation to which it is and has long been reduced.

It was prophesied concerning Ammon, "Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks. Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the Heathen; I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations. Rabbah" (the chief city) "of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation,"

 Ezekiel 25:2;  Ezekiel 25:5;  Ezekiel 25:7;  Ezekiel 25:10;  Ezekiel 21:32;  Jeremiah 49:2;  Zephaniah 2:9 .

Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the Heathen—to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual desolation. "All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert." ( Seetzens Travels. ) Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other, keep it in "perpetual desolation," and make it "a spoil to the Heathen." "The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being abandoned to the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total ruin." ( Ibid. ) "At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches." ( Burckhardt's Travels. ) The cities are left desolate. "Many of the ruins present no objects of any interest. They consist of a few walls of dwelling houses, heaps of stones, the foundations of some public edifices, and a few cisterns filled up; there is nothing entire, though it appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Ammon there is a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the greater part are covered with ruins." ( Burckhardt's Travels in Syria. ) While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts throughout it which "are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep."

( Buckingham's Travels in Palestine. ) "The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, "we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Ammon, "the masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end," he adds, "we came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses in the northern and southern wall were originally open passages, and had arched door ways facing each other; but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of one man and of the goats, which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among "flocks of sheep and goats," close beside the ruins of Ammon; and particularly remarks that, during the night, he "was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating of flocks." So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object than the elucidation of the Scriptures,—that "the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks."

"The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations." While the Jews, who were long their hereditary enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do any claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold; for they retained their name, and continued a great multitude until the second century of the Christian aera. ( Justin Martyr. ) "Yet they are cut off from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed." No people is attached to its soil; none regard it as their country and adopt its name: "And the Ammonites are not remembered among the nations."

"Rabbah" (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) "shall be a desolate heap." Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful stream, encircled by a fruitful region, strong by nature and fortified by art, nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befal it in the fate of war or change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent desolation. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs, and its site is now "covered with the ruins of private buildings—nothing of them remaining except the foundations and some of the door posts. The buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay," ( Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, ) so that they may be said literally to form a desolate heap. The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than "a stable for camels." Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, says Mr. Keith, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, to a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and prophetic truth of Scripture is blended in one bright inscription.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Deuteronomy 2:20 Deuteronomy 23:3 1 Samuel 11:1 2 Samuel 23:37 1 Kings 11:1 1 Chronicles 11:39 2 Chronicles 12:13 2 Chronicles 20:1 2 Chronicles 24:26 2 Chronicles 26:8 2 Chronicles 27:5 Ezra 9:1 Nehemiah 2:10 2:19 Nehemiah 4:3 4:7 Nehemiah 13:1 Jeremiah 40:11 40:14 Jeremiah 41:10 41:15 Jeremiah 49:1-2 Ezekiel 25:1

Most of our information about the Ammonites comes from the Old Testament, although Ammonite kings are mentioned occasionally in the Assyrian records. We know from the latter, for example, that an Ammonite king named Ba'sha, along with Ahab of Israel and other kings of the region, defended Syria-Palestine against Shalmaneser III in 853 B.C. An Ammonite inscription, the so-called Siran Bottle Inscription and several seals/seal impressions have provided additional information about the Ammonites.

Archaeologists have excavated only a small portion of the site of ancient Rabbah (the so-called “Citadel” in the heart of the modern city of Amman). The surrounding area remains largely unexplored. In addition to the inscription and seals mentioned above, the bust of an Ammonite warrior (or god) and the remains of round stone towers thought to be Ammonite are significant archaeological discoveries shedding light on the Ammonites.

Conflict broke out between the Ammonites and Israelites as early as the time of the Judges. The Ammonites made war on the Israelites of Gilead, leading the Israelites to appeal to Jephthah, chief of a local band of renegade raiders, to organize and lead their resistance. Jephthah accepted the challenge, but only after extracting a promise from the elders of Gilead that, if he indeed succeeded in defeating the Ammonites, they would recognize him as ruler of Gilead. At the same time he vowed to Yahweh that “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering” ( Judges 11:30-31 ). Jephthah was victorious, and the Gileadites submitted to his rule; but then his little daughter greeted him upon his return ( Judges 10:6-11:40 ).

On another occasion when the Ammonites were attacking the city of Jabesh in Gilead and the Jabeshites attempted to negotiate terms for surrender, the Ammonites demanded nothing less than to put out the right eye of each man in the city. In desperation, the Jabeshites sent messengers to Saul at Gibeah for help. Saul organized an army, hurried to Jabesh, and lifted the siege. Consequently, the Jabeshites were strong supporters of Saul in later years ( 1 Samuel 11:1;  1 Samuel 31:11-13 ). The Ammonite king Saul defeated at Jabesh was Nahash. Presumably this was the same Nahash with whom David had good dealings but whose son, Hanun, renewed hostilities ( 2 Samuel 10-12 ). The ensuing wars between Israel and Ammon involved warfare between David's troops and those of Hadadezer of Zobah ( 2 Samuel 10:6-19 ) and provided the occasion of David's affair with Bathsheba. Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, was killed while storming the walls of Rabbah ( 2 Samuel 11-12 ).

No war with the Ammonites is reported during Solomon's reign. On the contrary, Solomon took one or more Ammonite wives and allowed the worship of Milcom, the Ammonite god, in Jerusalem ( 1 Kings 11:1-8 ). Presumably the worship of Milcom continued in Jerusalem until it was stamped out by Josiah many years later ( 2 Kings 23:13 ). We know little of relations between the Ammonites and either Israel or Judah during the first half century of the separate kingdoms, probably because neither of the Hebrew kingdoms attempted to exercise influence in the Transjordan. The coalition of Syro-Palestinian kings, which included Ba'sha of Ammon and Ahab of Israel, halted the Assyrian king, Shalmaneser's march in 853 B.C. But success was only temporary. Later Shalmaneser penetrated the very heart of Syria-Palestine, exacting tribute from the Israelites and, although it is not recorded, probably also from the Ammonites. Eventually, all the petty kingdoms of the region fell to the Assyrians and either were incorporated into the Assyrian province system or controlled as satellites. Ammonite kings paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser III, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon.

The Israelites recognized the Ammonites as relatives, although somewhat more distant than the Edomites. This relationship was expressed genealogically. Specifically, the Ammonites were said to have descended from an ancestor named Ben Ammi, one of two sons which Lot bore to his two daughters. The Moabites were said to have descended from the other son ( Genesis 19:30-38 ). The Ammonites also are mentioned from time to time in Israel's poetical literature. See for example Amos' oracle against the Ammonites in  Amos 1:13-15 .

Rabbah apparently had dwindled to an insignificant settlement by the third century B.C. when Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246) rebuilt the city and renamed it “Philadelphia” after himself. Philadelphia came to be regarded as one of the Decapolis cities, a federation of ten Greek cities in Palestine ( Matthew 4:25 ), and was annexed with the whole Decapolis region to the Roman empire in A.D. 90. The city reached its zenith during the second century A.D., benefiting from the active commerce which moved along the old trade route connecting Damascus and Bostra with the Gulf of Aqabah and western Arabia. The old route was refurbished at that time under the name Via Nova Triana (“Trajan's New Road”), and Philadelphia itself was expanded on a grand scale. Remains of this second century Roman phase of the city are still standing in the heart of the modern city of Amman including the Roman theater, the nymphaum, and temple ruins on the citadel.

Philadelphia, as all of the cities along the Via Nova, began to decline in the third century due to security problems along the Roman frontier and shifts in commercial patterns. Yet it continued as a relatively important city into the Byzantine period. It became the seat of a bishopric and sent representatives to the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) and the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). Decline continued during the Islamic period until eventually the site of ancient Rabbah/Philadelphia was represented only by a desolate ruin. This was the situation when the place was visited by western travelers at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The history of the modern city, called now Amman, began with resettlement of the site by Circassian refugees in 1878. See Transjordan; Decapolis .

Maxwell Miller

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

The descendants of Ammon, or Ben-Ammi, a son of Lot. They destroyed an ancient race of giants called Zamzummim, and seized their country, which lay east of Judea,  Deuteronomy 2:19-21 . Their territory extended from the Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the Jordan a considerable distance into Arabia. Their capital city was Rabbah, (also called Rabbath Ammon, and afterwards Philadelphia,) which stood on the Jabbok. Yet in the time of Moses they had been driven out of this region, towards the east, by the Amorites,  Numbers 21:21-35   32:33 . Moses was forbidden to assail them,  Deuteronomy 2:19 . They were gross idolaters; their chief idol being Moloch, supposed to be the same with Saturn,  1 Kings 11:5-7   2 Kings 23:13 . They oppressed Israel in the time of Jephthah, and were defeated by him with great slaughter,  Judges 11:1-40 . The children of Ammon afterwards, at various times, troubled the Israelites, for which the prophets threatened them with divine judgments,  Jeremiah 46:1-6   Ezekiel 25:2-10 .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Am´monites, the descendants of the younger son of Lot ( Genesis 19:38). They originally occupied a tract of country east of the Amorites, and separated from the Moabites by the river Arnon. It was previously in the possession of a gigantic race called Zamzummims ( Deuteronomy 2:20), 'but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead.' The 'Israelites on reaching the borders of the Promised Land, were commanded not to molest the children of Ammon, for the sake of their progenitor Lot. But, though thus preserved from the annoyance which the passage of such an immense host through their country might have occasioned, they showed them no hospitality or kindness; they were therefore prohibited from 'entering the congregation of the Lord' (i.e. from being admitted into the civil community of the Israelites) 'to the tenth generation for ever' ( Deuteronomy 23:3). This is evidently intended to be a perpetual prohibition, and was so understood by Nehemiah ( Nehemiah 13:1). The first mention of their active hostility against Israel occurs in  Judges 3:13. About 140 years later we are informed that the children of Israel forsook Jehovah and served the gods of various nations, including those of the children of Ammon, and the anger of Jehovah was kindled against them, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and of the children of Ammon. The Ammonites crossed over the Jordan, and fought with Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, so that 'Israel was sore distressed.' In answer to Jephthah's messengers ( Judges 11:12), the king of Ammon charged the Israelites with having taken away that part of his territories which lay between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok, which, in  Joshua 13:25, is called 'half the land of the children of Ammon,' but was in the possession of the Amorites when the Israelites invaded it; and this fact was urged by Jephthah, in order to prove that the charge was ill-founded. Jephthah 'smote them from Aroer to Minnith, even twenty cities, with a very great slaughter' ( Judges 11:33). The Ammonites were again signally defeated by Saul (B.C. 1095) ( 1 Samuel 11:11), and, according to Josephus, their king Nahash was slain. His successor, who bore the same name, was a friend of David, and died some years after his accession to the throne. In consequence of the gross insult offered to David's ambassadors by his son Hanun ( 2 Samuel 10:4), a war ensued, in which the Ammonites were defeated, and their allies the Syrians were so daunted 'that they feared to help the children of Ammon any more' ( 2 Samuel 10:19). In the following year David took their metropolis, Rabbah, and great abundance of spoil, which is probably mentioned by anticipation in  2 Samuel 8:12 ( 2 Samuel 10:14;  2 Samuel 12:26-31). In the reign of Jehoshaphat (B.C. 896) the Ammonites joined with the Moabites and other tribes belonging to Mount Seir, to invade Judah; but, by the divine intervention, were led to destroy one another. Jehoshaphat and his people were three days in gathering the spoil ( 2 Chronicles 20:25). The Ammonites 'gave gifts' to Uzziah ( 2 Chronicles 26:8), and paid a tribute to his son Jotham for three successive years, consisting of 100 talents of silver, 1000 measures of wheat, and as many of barley. When the two and a half tribes were carried away captive, the Ammonites took possession of the towns belonging to the tribe of Gad ( Jeremiah 49:1). 'Bands of the children of Ammon' and of other nations came up with Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem (B.C. 607), and joined in exulting over its fall ( Ezekiel 25:3;  Ezekiel 25:6). Yet they allowed some of the fugitive Jews to take refuge among them, and even to intermarry ( Jeremiah 40:11;  Nehemiah 13:23). On the return of the Jews from Babylon the Ammonites manifested their ancient hostility by deriding and opposing the rebuilding of Jerusalem ( Nehemiah 4:3;  Nehemiah 4:7-8). Both Ezra and Nehemiah expressed vehement, indignation against those Jews who had intermarried with the heathen, and thus transgressed the divine command ( Deuteronomy 7:3; Ezra 10;  Nehemiah 13:25). Judas Maccabaeus (B.C. 164) fought many battles with the Ammonites, and took Jazer with the towns belonging to it. Justin Martyr affirms that in his time the Ammonites were still numerous.

The national idol of the Ammonites was Molech or Milcom, whose worship was introduced among the Israelites by the Ammonitish wives of Solomon ( 1 Kings 11:5;  1 Kings 11:7); and the high places built by that sovereign for this 'abomination' were not destroyed till the reign of Josiah (B.C. 610) ( 2 Kings 23:13).

Besides Nahash and Hanun, an Ammonitish king Baalis is mentioned by Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 40:14).

In the writings of the prophets terrible denunciations are uttered against the Ammonites on account of their rancorous hostility to the people of Israel; and the destruction of their metropolis, Rabbah, is distinctly foretold ( Zephaniah 2:8;  Jeremiah 49:1-6;  Ezekiel 25:1-5;  Ezekiel 25:10;  Amos 1:13-15).

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

A Semitic race living E. of the Jordan; at continual feud with the Jews, and a continual trouble to them, till subdued by Judas Maccabæus.