Ammon

For other uses, see Ammon (disambiguation).

Ammon or Ammonites (Hebrew: עַמּוֹן, Standard ʻAmmon Tiberian ʻAmmôn ; "People"), also referred to in the Bible as the "children of Ammon," were a people (also known from Assyrian and other records) living east of the Jordan river whose origin the Old Testament traces to Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, as with the Moabites. The Ammonites were regarded by Hebrews as close relatives of the Israelites and Edomites.

Territory

The ancient kingdom of Ammon was located in northwestern Arabia east of Gilead and the Dead Sea. The borders of the Ammonite territory are not uniformly defined in the Old Testament and no doubt fluctuated as the results of warfare and treaties. In Judges 11:13, the king of Ammon, demands of the Israelites the restoration of the land "from Arnon even unto Jabbok and unto Jordan." The claim is considered unjust , since the Israelite part of this tract had been conquered from the Amorite king Sihon, who had, in turn, displaced the Moabites.

After their deliverance from Egypt, the Israelites discovered Sihon in possession of Gilead, the country on the left bank of the Jordan, to the north of the Arnon (Numbers 21:13). The Ammonites were thus driven out of Gilead across the upper waters of the Jabbok, where it flows from south to north, which continued to be their western boundary (Numbers 21:24; Deuteronomy 2:37 and 3:16). The other limits of the country of the Ammonites are not clear. On the south, it probably adjoined the land of Moab. On the north, it may have met that of the king of Geshur (Joshua 12:5), while the east it apparently merged into the desert peopled by Kedarites and other nomadic tribes.

The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon. The modern city of Amman, Jordan, is located roughly at its site. The country to the south and east of Amman is distinguished by its fertility. Ruined towns are scattered thickly over it, attesting that it was once occupied by a population that, however fierce, was settled and industrious; a fact indicated also by the tribute of grain paid annually to Jotham (2 Chr. 27:5).

In the Torah

Descent

According to the pedigree given in Book of Genesis 19:37-38, the Ammonites were closely related to the Israelites and still more closely to their neighbors in the south, the Moabites. However, the above passage indicates also the contempt which the Hebrews felt toward the Ammonites felt by the Hebrews, for it portrays them as the descendents of a man name Ben-Ammi, the son of Lot through incest with his own daughter. The Torah excludes the progeny of Ammonites from the assembly of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:3-4) on grounds that it was they and the Moabites who hired the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. However, Deuteronomy 2:19 specifies:

When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.

The Ammonites are thus portrayed as the Israelites' cousins, who grew into a nation while the Israelites left Canaan to live in Egypt in the time of Joseph, the son of Jacob. When the Israelites of the Exodus paused before their territory, the Ammonites prohibited them from passing through their lands.

In Judges, 3:13, the Ammonites appear as furnishing assistance to King Eglon of Moab against Israel. The are the primary antagonists of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Gilead in the saga of the judge Jephthah. However, Ammon often acted in league with other nations of the area. It should also be kept in mind that the Israelites themselves did not act as one nation during this period, but as separate tribes, who sometimes engaged in warfare against each other, as well as against the enemies of "Israel."

Ammon vs. Saul and David

The siege of Jabesh-Gilead, east of the Jordan, by the Ammonites leader Nahash prompted the townsmen to call on "Israel" for aid. This became the impetus behind the unification of the tribes under Saul, who defeated the Ammonites and was thus confirmed as king (1 Samuel 11:11-14). In the prophet Samuel's, "farewell speech," he indicates that it was the threat of aggression from Nahash that prompted Israel to ask him for a king (1 Samuel 12:12).

From Samuel II 10:2, it may be concluded that Nahash assisted David out of hatred for Saul; but his son Hanun provoked David by ill-treating his ambassadors, and brought about the defeat of the Ammonites, despite assistance from their northern neighbors in Aram. Their capital Rabbah was captured, and numerous captives were taken from "all the cities of the children of Ammon."

King David reported won waged war against the Ammonites before moving against the powerful kingdom of Damascus, and he dedicated treasures from these battles to the Lord (2 Samuel 8). David is portrayed in 2 Sam. 10 as having been "showed kindness" by Nahash. However, a misunderstanding by the Ammonites of David's intent in sending a delegation to Nahash's son Hanun them led to his waging a nearly genocidal war against Ammon. The badly insulted David's emissaries, prompting David to retaliate by send his army against them under the command of his general, Joab. The Ammonites allied themselves with Syrian forces under Hadadezer to defend themselves, but to no avail. "When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with the Israelites", leaving Ammon to fend for itself. (2 Sam 10:19)

While David remained in Jerusalem to dally with Bathsheba, Joab let the army against the Ammonite forces at Rabbah. It was here that the Israelite commander, Uriah the Hittite, was infamously slain by David's treachery (2 Sam 11). Joab besieged the city and finally took its citadel, inviting David to join the battle and take the lead in bringing about its fall.

The Ammonite capital was apparently a wealthy one, as its king gold crown is described as weight a talent (75 pounds). He also "took a great quantity of plunder from the city." Like the Egyptian pharaohs had done to the Israelites, David enslaved the population of the Ammonite towns and set them to brick-making (2 Sam. 12)

However, depending on the translation of the passage, David might have punished the Ammonites much more outrageously than this:

He also brought out the people who were in it, and set them under saws, sharp iron instruments, and iron axes, and made them pass through the brickkiln. And thus he did to all the cities of the sons of Ammon. (2 Sam. 12:21)

Ammon's relations with Judah and Israel

The Ammonites, themselves, had a reputation for exceeding cruelty in warfare (Amos 1:13) The new ruler was possibly Shobi, a brother of Hanun, who was evidently appointed by David as his vassal. During David's flight from Jerusalem during the rebellion of Absalom, Shobi offered Daivd valuable aid. (2 Samuel 17:27). There were also Ammonite mercenaries in David's army. Solomon's chief wife—the mother of his heir— was Naamah, the Ammonitess (1 Kings, 14:21), probably a daughter of Shobi. She became the mother of Rehoboam, implying that the Davidic kings all had Ammonite blood (1 Kings 14:31). Solomon honored his alliance with Ammon by erecting an altar to the Ammonite god Molech (Kings 11:7), an act which lost him the support of the Jerusalem priesthood and prophets of Yahweh.

Hostilities again broke out between Judah and Ammon under Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 20). Ammon joined with Moab against Judah on this occasion, but in the biblical version of the battle, the forces allied against Judah ended up turning against each other. The Israelites then came upon the slaughter and "There was so much plunder that it took three days to collect it."

From Assyrian inscriptions, we learn that the Ammonite king Ba'sa (Baasha) son of Ruhubi, with 1000 men, joined Ahab of Israel and Syrian allies against Shalmaneser III at the Battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C.E. They may at this time have been vassals of Bar-Hadad II, the Aramaean king of Damascus.

Ammon later fought against the northern Kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam II (Amos, 1:13). The Ammonites brought tribute to King Uzziah of Judah (2 Chronicles 26:8), but rebelled under his son Jotham, (2 Chron. 27:5) who defeated them and forced them to pay heavy tribute in silver, and crops.

In 734 the Ammonite king Sanipu was a vassal of Tiglath-Pileser III. His successor, Pudu-ilu, held the same position under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. An Assyrian tribute-list from this period indicates that Ammon paid one-fifth the tribute required from Judah, which remained relatively prosperous compared to its poorer neighbor

Somewhat later, The Ammonite king Amminadab I was among the tributaries who suffered in the course of the great Arabian campaign of Assurbanipal. Other Ammonite kings attested to in contemporary sources are Barakel and Hissalel, who reigned about 620 B.C.E.

The Ammonites under King Baalis helped the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadrezzar against Jehoiakim of Judah (2 Kings 24:2). On the other hand, some of the Ammonites apparently joined the Judean King Zedekiah's rebellion against Babylon (Jeremiah 27:3), and were threatened by the Babylonian army, (Ezekiel 21:20), but they do not appear to have suffered greatly as a result.

Subsequent history

Map of the southern Levant, c.830 B.C.E.

In the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the Ammonites were mercurial in their political attitude. They assisted the Babylonian army against the Jews (2 Kings, 24:2), encroached upon the territory of the Gad, and occupied Heshbon and Jazer (Jeremiah 49:1, cf. Zephaniah 2:8). However, passages in Jeremiah 9:26, 25:21, 27:3, and Ezra, 21:20, point to rebellion by them against Babylonian supremacy. They received Jews fleeing before the Babylonians (Jeremiah 40:11), and their king, Baalis, instigated the assassination of Gedaliah, the Babylonians' Jewish governor of Jerusalem and its environs.

At the time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem by Ezra and Nehemiah, the Ammonites were again hostile to the Jews, and Tobiah, an Ammonite (possibly the governor of Ammon), incited them to hinder the work (Neh. iii. 35). However, the Jewish attitude toward the Ammonites, forbidding them to help rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem or intermarry with Jews, apparently precipitated this. Despite Ezra's efforts to prevent them, inter-marriages between Jews and Ammonites were frequent (Ezra, 9:1; I Esdras 8:69, and elsewhere).

Little mention is made of the Ammonites through the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. Their name appears, however, during the time of the Maccabees. The Ammonites, with some of the neighboring tribes, did their utmost to resist and check the revival of the Jewish power under Judas Maccabaeus (1 Maccabees 5:6; cf. Josephus Jewish Antiquities xii.8.1). The Ammonites under Timotheus were defeated by Judas (1 Maccabees 5:6). However, it is possible that, after the Babylonian Exile, the term Ammonite denoted all peoples living in the former country of Ammon and Gad, including Samaritans and others.

The last notice of the Ammonites themselves is in Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (§ 119), where it is affirmed that they were still a numerous people in the second century C.E.

Language

The few Ammonite names that have been preserved testify, in harmony with other considerations, that their language was Semitic, closely related to the Hebrew language and the Moabite language.

The frequent assumption that, living on the borders of the desert, they remained more pastoral than the Moabites and Israelites, is unfounded. The environs of Rabbah, at least, were fertile and were tilled. In regard to other cities than Rabbah, see Judges, xi. 33; II Sam. xii. 31.

Religion

Of the customs, religion, and social structure of the Ammonites, little is known. From the names of their kings, it seems logical that the cult of the Baals probably coexisted in Ammon with that of El. Both Israelite and Ammonite names contain the theorphoric "el" syllable, and a few Israelite names contain "bal" or "baal." The name of the Ammonite king Tobiah suggests that Yahweh may have been worshiped in Ammon as well. Possibly this was an import from the era of Israelite domination, or from other cultural interactions.

In the biblical record, the name of the Ammonites' chief deity is Milcom, sometimes given as Moloch), as in I Kings, 11:5 I Kings, 11:7; II Kings, 23:13. The word is related to the Hebrew word for king, and is sometimes translated as "their king."

No Canaanite, Moabite, or Ammonite records survive that speak specifically of the Ammonite religion. In the Bible, Milcom/Moloch is described as having been worshiped at times by human sacrifice. Jeremiah 32:35 and elsewhere indicates that Moloch was also the object of worship by Israelites living in Jerusalem during his time. However, the high places built for the purpose of offering sacrifice to him are described as dedicated to "Baal." The worship of Moloch outside of Ammonite territory reportedly dated back to the time of Solomon, who built an altar to him in honor his Ammonite wife, the mother of Rehoboam.

Economy

Like its sister-kingdom of Moab, Ammon was the source of numerous natural resources, including sandstone and limestone. It had a productive agricultural sector and occupied a vital place along the King's Highway, the ancient trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia. As with the Edomites and Moabites, trade along this route gave them considerable revenue.

In Jewish law

The Ammonites, still numerous in the south of Palestine in the second Christian century according to Justin Martyr ("Dialogus cum Tryphone," chapter 119), presented a serious problem to the Pharisees because many marriages with Ammonite and Moabite wives had taken place in the days of Nehemiah. Still later, it is not improbable that when Judas Maccabeus had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Ammonites, Jewish warriors took Ammonite women as wives, and their sons, sword in hand, claimed recognition as Jews notwithstanding the law that "an Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord." Such a condition or a similar incident is reflected in the story told in the Talmud that in the days of King Saul the legitimacy of David's claim to royalty was disputed on account of his descent from Ruth, the Moabite; whereupon Ithra, the Israelite girt with his sword, strode like an Ishmaelite into the schoolhouse of Jesse, declaring upon the authority of Samuel, the prophet, and his bet din (court of justice), that the law excluding the Ammonite and Moabite from the Jewish congregation referred only to the men—who alone had sinned in not meeting Israel with bread and water—and not to the women. The story reflects actual conditions in pre-Talmudic times, conditions that led to the fixed rule stated in the Mishnah: "Ammonite and Moabite men are excluded from the Jewish community for all time; their women are admissible."

Later it was held that the prohibition no longer applies in practice, as Sennacherib had so mixed up the races by his practice of deportation that the current residents of Ammon and Moab could not be identified with the Biblical peoples of those names.

The fact that Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, was born of an Ammonite woman also made it difficult to maintain the messianic claims of the house of David; but it was adduced as an illustration of divine Providence which selected the "two doves," Ruth, the Moabite, and Naamah, the Ammonite, for honorable distinction.

See also

• Abel-cheramim

External links

• Muller, Max and Kaufman Kohler. "Ammon, Ammonites." Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906.
• Hertz J.H. (1936) The Pentateuch and Haftoras. Deuteronomy. Oxford University Press, London.
• Ammon on Bruce Gordon's Regnal Chronologies (also at [1])
• Jordanian government site on ancient Trans-Jordanian kingdoms
• Catholic Encyclopedia article

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.

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