Ammon

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

In the tableland region east of the Jordan River were the sister nations of Ammon and Moab. They were descended from the two daughters of Lot, and therefore were related to Israel ( Genesis 19:36-38). The chief city of Ammon was Rabbah, or Rabbath-Ammon (now known as Amman, capital of the present-day nation of Jordan) ( Deuteronomy 3:11;  2 Samuel 12:26). The national god of Ammon was Molech, or Milcom ( 1 Kings 11:5;  1 Kings 11:7; see Molech ).

National history

Ammon was a well watered region to the east of the Jordan River, with a number of streams that flowed through deep gorges into the Jordan. The most important of these streams was the Jabbok.

In the days before Israel’s migration to Canaan, the Ammonites were pushed further east, away from the Jordan, by the Amorites. The Amorites overran all the land bordering the Jordan, from Bashan in the north to the Dead Sea in the south. Israel in turn conquered the Amorites, took the land for itself and divided it among the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half of Manasseh ( Numbers 21:13;  Numbers 21:24-26;  Numbers 21:32-35;  Numbers 32:1-5;  Joshua 13:8-12).

God approved of the Israelites’ conquest of this territory, for they had taken it not from the Ammonites, who were related to them, but from the Amorites, who were under God’s judgment ( Deuteronomy 2:17-19;  Deuteronomy 2:37;  Deuteronomy 3:1-11;  Judges 11:12-23; see Amorites ). Therefore, when the Ammonites tried to repossess the area during the time of the judges, God used Jephthah to drive them out ( Judges 10:6-9;  Judges 11:32-33).

With the changes that accompanied Saul’s appointment as Israel’s first king, the Ammonites seized the opportunity to invade Israel’s eastern territory once more; but they were soon driven out ( 1 Samuel 11:1-11). There were good relations between Ammon and Israel for much of David’s reign, but when a new Ammonite king became aggressive, David’s army drove the attackers back ( 2 Samuel 10:1-14). When there was another attack the next year, David invaded Ammon, captured Rabbah, took control of the nation and forced the Ammonite people to work for Israel ( 2 Samuel 11:1;  2 Samuel 12:26-31).

David’s successor, Solomon, took Ammonite women into his harem and worshipped the gods they brought with them ( 1 Kings 11:1;  1 Kings 11:5;  1 Kings 11:7;  1 Kings 11:33). Solomon’s son and successor, Rehoboam, was half-Ammonite, being the son of one of Solomon’s Ammonite wives ( 1 Kings 14:21).

Ammon had repeated conflicts with Israel and Judah over the next two hundred years ( 2 Chronicles 20:10-11;  2 Chronicles 26:8;  2 Chronicles 27:5). When Assyria conquered Israel and took its people into captivity (722 BC), Ammon again took the opportunity to seize some of Israel’s eastern territory. But the Ammonites’ violence, cruelty and arrogance were inexcusable, and God’s prophets assured them of a fitting punishment ( Jeremiah 49:1-6;  Amos 1:13-15;  Zephaniah 2:8-11). The Ammonites also joined the attackers to help with the final destruction of Judah, but their treachery only made their own destruction more certain ( 2 Kings 24:1-2;  Jeremiah 40:13-14;  Jeremiah 41:1-3;  Jeremiah 41:10;  Ezekiel 25:1-7).

As a result of conquests, first by Babylon and then by Persia, the nation of Ammon ceased to exist. Individual Ammonites continued to be a source of trouble to the Jews ( Nehemiah 2:10;  Nehemiah 4:7-9), but eventually the separate racial identity of the Ammonites disappeared.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

A nation sprung from Ben-ammi, Lot's son by his younger daughter ( Genesis 19:38;  Psalms 83:7-8), as Moab by his elder, after Lot escaped from Sodom. Ammon and Moab appear continually together; both are said to have hired Balaam ( Deuteronomy 13:4), though Moab alone is mentioned in the detailed account (Numbers 22; 23). The land from Arnon river to Jabbok is assigned to both ( Judges 11:12-18;  Judges 11:25). The Israelites dispossessed the Amorites of land which afterward Ammon occupied, between Arnon and Jabbok, but did not, as Jephthah reasons, dispossess Ammon of it, though now claiming it as theirs ( Numbers 21:24;  Numbers 21:26;  Numbers 21:29). Ammon destroyed the aboriginal Rephaim or giants, named Zamzummim, and occupied their land, Jabbok being their boundary ( Deuteronomy 2:20-21;  Deuteronomy 2:37).

Moab was probably the more civilized half of Lot's descendants; whence we read of the plentiful fields, hay, summer fruits, vineyards, presses, songs of the grape treaders, of Moab (Isaiah 15; 16; Jeremiah 48): Ammon the more fierce, plundering, Bedouin-like half; whence we read of their threat of thrusting out the right eye of all in Jabesh Gilead ( 1 Samuel 11:2), ripping up pregnant women in Gilead ( Amos 1:13), treacherously murdering, as Ishmael, Baalis' agent, did ( Jeremiah 40:14;  Jeremiah 41:5-7), suspecting and insulting their ally David to their own ruin ( 2 Samuel 10:1-5;  2 Samuel 12:31). Ammon's one stronghold, Rabbah, "the city of: waters" (20 cities are mentioned  Judges 11:33, perhaps some Moabite cities), forms a contrast to Moab's numerous towns with their "high places" (Jeremiah 48); their idol, Moloch, accordingly they worshipped in a tent, the token of nomad life, not a fixed temple or high place, such as was appropriated to the god of the more settled people Moab ( Amos 5:26;  Acts 7:43).

They crossed Jordan and seized Jericho for a time ( Judges 3:13). Chephar-ha-Ammonai (the hamlet of the Ammonites), in Benjamin, at the head of the passes from the Jordan westward, marks their having temporarily been in that region. Their unwillingness to help Israel, and their joining Moab in hiring Balaam ( Deuteronomy 23:2;  Deuteronomy 23:46;  Nehemiah 13:2), caused their exclusion (like that of a bastard) from the Lord's congregation for ten generations; whereas Edom, who had not hired him, was only excluded for three. The exclusion was from full Israelite citizenship, not from the spiritual privileges of the covenant, if they became proselytes. Previously to David, Jephthah and Saul had sorely punished them ( Judges 11:33;  1 Samuel 11:11;  1 Samuel 14:47).

Ammon joined with Moab in the expedition for uprooting Judah from its possession, in Jehoshaphat's reign (2 Chronicles 20;  Psalms 83:3-7). So utterly were the confederates routed that the Jews spent three days in gathering the spoil. They had to bring gifts to Uzziah ( 2 Chronicles 26:8). Jotham reduced them to pay 100 talents of silver, 10,000 measures of wheat, and 10,000 of barley. Ammon seized on the cities of Gad from which Tiglath Pileser had carried the Israelites ( Jeremiah 49:1-6;  Zephaniah 2:8-9). On the return from Jerusalem Tobiah, an Ammonite, joined with Sanballat, of Horonaim of Moab, in opposing Nehemiah's restoration of the city walls ( Nehemiah 2:10;  Nehemiah 2:19).

Naamah, Solomon's wife, mother of Rehoboam, was an Ammonite. Their idol, Moloch, appears also under the varied form Milcom and Malcham, as the Hebrew for "their king" may be rendered. Compare  Zephaniah 1:5;  2 Samuel 12:30. Solomon's Ammonite wives seduced him to rear an altar to this "abomination," to his own hurt ( Jeremiah 49:1;  Jeremiah 49:3). Nahash, perhaps a common title of their kings, means a serpent. Shobi, the son of David's friend, followed his father's rather than Hanun his brother's steps, showing kindness to David in adversity ( 2 Samuel 17:27).

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

or Hammon or JUPITER-AMMON, an epithet given to Jupiter in Lybia, where was a celebrated temple of that deity under the denomination of Jupiter Ammon, which was visited by Alexander the Great.

The word Amoun, which imports "shining," according to Jablonski, denoted the effects produced by the sun on attaining the equator, such as the increase of the days; a more splendid light; and above all, the fortunate presage of the inundation of the Nile, and its consequent abundance.

Ammon is by others derived from Ham, the son of Noah, who first peopled Egypt and Lybia, after the flood; and, when idolatry began to gain ground soon after this period, became the chief deity of those two countries, in which his descendants continued. A temple, it is said, was built to his honour, in the midst of the sandy deserts of Lybia, upon a spot of good ground, about two leagues broad, which formed a kind of island or oasis in a sea of sand. He was esteemed the Zeus of Greece, and the Jupiter of Latium, as well as the Ammon of the Egyptians. In process of time, these two names were joined; and he was called Jupiter Ammon. For this reason the city of Ammon, No-ammon, or the city of Ham, was called by the Greeks Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter. Plutarch says, that of all the Egyptian deities which seemed to have any correspondence with the Zeus of Greece, Amon or Ammon was the most peculiar and appropriate. From Egypt his name and worship were brought into Greece; as indeed were almost all the names of all the deities that were there worshipped. Jupiter Ammon, or the Egyptian Jupiter, was usually represented under the figure of a ram; though in some medals he appears of a human shape, having only two ram's horns growing out beneath his ears. The Egyptians, says Proclus, in the Timaeus of Plato, had a singular veneration for the ram, because the image of Ammon bore its head, and because this first sign of the zodiac was the presage of the fruits of the earth. Eusebius adds, that this symbol marked the conjunction of the sun and moon in the sign of the ram.

2. AMMON, or Ben-Ammi the son of Lot, by his youngest daughter,   Genesis 19:38 . He was the father of the Ammonites, and dwelt on the east side of the Dead Sea, in the mountains of Gilead.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( v. t.) To beat in the game of backgammon, before an antagonist has been able to get his "men" or counters home and withdraw any of them from the board; as, to gammon a person.

(2): ( n.) Backgammon.

(3): ( n.) The buttock or thigh of a hog, salted and smoked or dried; the lower end of a flitch.

(4): ( v. t.) To make bacon of; to salt and dry in smoke.

(5): ( v. t.) To fasten (a bowsprit) to the stem of a vessel by lashings of rope or chain, or by a band of iron.

(6): ( n.) An imposition or hoax; humbug.

(7): ( v. t.) To impose on; to hoax; to cajole.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Am'mon. (Sons Of Renown, Mountaineers). See Ammonites, The .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Genesis 19:38 Psalm 83:7

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb., Ammon', עִמּוֹן , another form of the name Ben-Ammi; Sept. Ἀμμάν ) , the son of Lot by his younger daughter ( Genesis 19:38), B.C. 2063. (See Ben-Ammi). It also stands for his posterity (comp.  Psalms 83:7-8), usually in the phrase "children of Ammon." (See Ammonite). The expression most commonly employed for this nation is (in the original) "Bene-Ammon;" next in frequency comes "Ammoni" or "Ammonim;" and least often "Ammon." The translators of the Auth. Vers. have, as usual, neglected these minute differences, and have employed the three terms, children of Ammon, Ammonites, Ammon, indiscriminately. For No- Ammon, (See Amon), and (See No). The name is perpetuated in the modern ruins called Amman, which represent RABBAH-AMMON (See Rabbah-Ammon) (q.v.).

is likewise the name of another Egyptian of the same century, a bishop, to whom St. Athanasius addressed his Letter on Chastity.

is the name of several other saints:

(1) commemorated in the Hoieronymian martyrology on Feb. 7;

(2) commemorated in Jerome's and Bede's martyrology on Feb. 9;

(3) the deacon, with the forty women, his disciples, martyrs, is commemorated in the Byzantine calendar on Sept. 1;

(4) commemorated in Jerome's and Bede's martyrology on Sept. 10;

(5) martyr at Alexandria, according to the old Roman and Bede's martyrology, on Dec. 20.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Am´mon [THEBES]