No-Amon
People's Dictionary of the Bible [1]
No-amon ( Nô-Â'Mon ), Portion, or, Temple Of Amon? A large and most important city of Egypt. Nahum 3:8-10. This city was as mighty as Nineveh; yet judgment and ultimate desolation were threatened against it. There can be no doubt that the city intended was that called Thebes, in upper Egypt, seated on both banks of the Nile, renowned for its hundred gates and vast population, and as being the principal seat of the worship of the god Amon. Some of the mightiest Egyptian dynasties reigned at Thebes, and embellished it with crowds of unrivalled palaces and temples. But the voice of prophecy proclaimed that it should be "rent asunder." This doom began to be fulfilled first by the Assyrians. See Isaiah 20:1-6. It is evident from the words of Nahum that Thebes fell earlier than Nineveh. Nahum 1:1. According to Sir H. Rawlinson, Esar-haddon and his son Assur-bani-pal both conquered Egypt, and the latter took Thebes twice. Cambyses, king of Persia, ruthlessly destroyed it and burnt and mutilated its remaining monuments; and its ruin was completed by Ptolemy Lathyrus, about 81 b.c. The remains of this vast city, which appears to have been quadrangular, four miles by two, still astonish those who visit them. They lie 260 miles south of Cairo, including Karnak and Luxor. Fragments of colossal obelisks, pillars, and statues are scattered over the wide space. The grand hall of the temple at Karnak is described as "170 feet by 329, supported by a central avenue of twelve massive columns, 66 feet high—without the pedestal and abacus—and 12 in diameter, besides 122 of smaller or rather less gigantic dimensions, 41 feet 9 inches in height, and 27 feet 6 inches in circumference, distributed in seven lines on either side of the former." Pictured records and hieroglyphic inscriptions abound in the temples and the tombs; and when these shall be fully deciphered we may hope for much additional information in regard to Egyptian history and customs, illustrating and corroborating the sacred books.
Smith's Bible Dictionary [2]
No-a'mon. (Temple Of Amon). Nahum 3:8. No, Jeremiah 46:25; Ezekiel 30:14; Ezekiel 30:16, a city of Egypt, better known under the name of Thebes or Diospolis Magna, the ancient and splendid metropolis of upper Egypt. The second part of the first form as the name of Amen , the chief divinity of Thebes, mentioned or alluded to in connection with this place in Jeremiah.
There is a difficulty as to the meaning of No. It seems most reasonable to suppose that No is a Shemitic name and that Amen is added in Nahum (l.c.) to distinguish Thebes, from some other place bearing the same name, or on account of the connection of Amen with that city. The description of No-amon as "situated among the rivers, the waters round about it" (Nah. L.c.), remarkably characterizes Thebes.
(It lay on both sides of the Nile, and was celebrated for its hundred gates, for its temples, obelisks, statues. etc. It was emphatically the city of temples, in the ruins of which many monuments of ancient Egypt are preserved, The plan of the city was a parallelogram, two miles from north to south and four from east to west, but none suppose that in its glory if really extended 33 miles along both aides of the Nile. Thebes was destroyed by Ptolemy, B.C. 81, and since then its population has dwelt in villages only. - Editor).
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [3]
No-Amon See No.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [4]
The manner in which this ancient city is mentioned in the several passages of the Bible is deserving of the notice of the student of Scripture geography. The first passage in which it occurs is Jeremiah 46:25, "I will punish The Multitude Of No; " מַנּאֹ אֶלאּאָמוֹן , el Amon min-N' , literally "to the Amon from No" (Sept. Τὸν Ἀμμων Τὸν Υἱὸν Αὐτῆς ; Vulg. Super Tumultum Alexandrice ) , where the reference seems to be rather to the Egyptian deity Amon, who was worshipped at No, than to The People of that city (which would make אָמוֹן = הָמוֹן , "multitude"). The next passage is Ezekiel 30:14-16, "I will execute judgments In No " ( בְּנא , Be- Ndo; Ἐν Διοσπόλει ; In Alexandria ) ; "I will cut off The Multitude Of No " ( אֶתאּחֲמוֹן נא , Eth Hamon Nd; Τὸ Πλῆθος Μἐμφεως ; Multitudinem A Lexandrice ) ; "No shall be rent asunder" ( נא , Nd; Ἐν Διοσπόλει ; Alexandria ) . The different rendering in the Sept. here is remarkable. Memphis was identical with the Noph of the Bible. The Hebrew word rendered "multitude" in Ezekiel 30:15 is different from that in Jeremiah; perhaps it may be a corruption of Amon. Diospolis was the Greek equivalent of No,- Ammon, and identical with Thebes. The last passage is Nahum 3:8, and is very important, not merely as giving the full name of the city, but also describing its position. It is thus rendered in the A. V., "Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?" "Populous No" is in Hebrew נאֹ אָמוֹן , No-Amon (Sept. Μερίδα Ἀμμών ; Vulg. Alexandria Populorum ) , that is, "No of Amon," in which Amon was the supreme deity, and of which he was protector. (See Amon).
Critics are not agreed as to the meaning of the word No; but it would seem from this passage that the translators of the Sept., who were themselves resident in Egypt, regarded it as equivalent to the Egyptian noz, that is, Σχοῖνος , "a measuringline," and then-= Μερίς , "a part or portion" (see Gesen. Thes. p. 835). The second part of the first form is ‘ the name of Amen, the chief divinity of Thebes, mentioned or alluded to in connection with this place in the passage of Jeremiah, and perhaps also alluded to in that of Ezekiel. The second part of the Egyptian sacred name of the city, ha-amen, "the abode of Amen," is the same. But how are we to explain the use of No alone? It thus occurs not only in Hebrew, but also in the language of the Assyrian inscriptions, in which it is written Nia, according to Sir Henry Rawlinson (" Illustrations of Egyptian History and Chronology," etc., Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit. [2d ser.] 7:166). Sir Henry Rawlinson identifies Ni'a with NoAmon. The whole paper (p. 137 sq.) is of great importance, as illustrating the reference in Nahum to the capture of Thebes, by showing that Egypt was conquered by both Esarhaddon and Asshur-bani-pal, and that the latter twice took Thebes. If these wars were after the prophet's time, the narrative of them makes it more *proballe than it before seemed that there was a still earlier conquest of Egypt by the Assyrians. The conjectures that Thebes was called pein-amoun, "the abode of Amen," or still nearer the Hebrew, naamnoun, "the [city] of Amen," like naesi, "the [city] of His," or as Gesenius prefers, ma-amoun, "the place of Amen" (Thesaurus, s.v.), are all liable to two serious objections, that they neither represent the Egyptian name nor afford an explanation of the use of No alone. It seems most reasonable to suppose that No is a Shemitic name, and that Amon is added in Nahum (1. c.) to distinguish Thebes from some other place bearing the same name, or on account of the connection of Amen with.:that city. Thebes also bears in ancient Egyptian the common name, of doubtful signification, ap-t or t-ap, which the Greeks represented by Thebee. The whole metropolis, on both banks of the river, was called Tam (see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. 1:175 sq.). (See No).
Various opinions have been entertained as to the site of this city. That it was in Egypt all admit. The Sept. identifies it with Diospolis; but there were two places of this name-one in Lower Egypt, near the sea, and encompassed by the marshes of the Delta (Strabo, xviii, p. 802); and with this Champollion and others identify No (l'AEgypte, 2:131); and Gesenius (1. c.) well observes that it would not then be compared in Nahum to Nineveh. The other was Thebes, in Upper Egypt, which is probably the place really referred to in the Sept. For No, Jerome in the Vulg. reads Alexandria (as also the Chaldee, the Rabbins, and Drusius); but, the town of Alexandria was not in existence in the time of Jeremiah; and yet it appears from the words of Nahum (l.c.) that No had been already destroyed in his day (see Bochart, Opera, 1:6). This and the evidence of the Assyrian record leave no doubt that it is Thebes. The description of No-Amon, as "situate among the rivers, the waters round about it" (Nahum 1.c.), remarkably characterizes Thebes, the only town of ancient Egypt which we know to have been built on both sides of the Nile; and the prophecy that it should "be rent asunder" ( Ezekiel 30:16) cannot fail to appear remarkably significant to the observer who stands amid the vast ruins of its chief edifice, the great temple of Amen, which is rent and shattered as if by an earthquake, although it must be held to refer primarily, at least, rather to the breaking up or capture of the city (comp. — 2 Kings 25:4; Jeremiah 52:7), than to its destruction. (See Thebes).
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [5]
nō - ā´mon ( אמון נא , nō' 'āmōn , Egyptian nut , "a city," with the feminine ending t, and Amon, proper name of a god, City Amon, i.e. the "City," paragraph excellence , of the god Amon; translated in the King James Version "populous No," following the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) in a misunderstanding of the word 'āmōn ; the Revised Version (British and American) "No-amon"): Occurs in this form only in Nahum 3:8 , but מנּא אמון , 'āmōn minnō' , "Amon of No," occurs in Jeremiah 46:25 . Compare also Ezekiel 30:14-16 , where נא , nō' , is undoubtedly the same city.
The description of No-amon in Nahum 3:8 seems to be that of a delta city, but ים , yām , "sea" in that passage is used poetically for the Nile, as in Job 41:31 and in Isaiah 18:2 . With this difficulty removed, the Egyptian etymology of the name leaves no doubt as to the correct identification of the place. The "City Amon" in the days of Nahum, Jeremiah and Ezekiel was Thebes (compare the article "Thebes" in any general encyclopedia).
