Reference: Ammon, Ammonites
Hastings
A people inhabiting the territory between the tribe of Gad and the Arabian desert, from the Israelitish conquest of Palestine to the 4th cent. b.c., and perhaps till the 1st cent. a.d.
In Ge 19:38 the Ammonites are said to have descended from a certain Ben-Ammi, but in the Assyrian inscriptions Shalmaneser II., Tiglath-pileser III., and Sennacherib call them Beth-Ammon, placing the determinative for 'man' before Ammon. Except in Ps 83:7, which is late, the people are never called 'Ammon' in the Hebrew OT, but the 'children of Ammon,' or 'Ammonites.'
The really important feature of the story of Ge 19 is that it reveals a consciousness that the Israelites regarded the Ammonites as their kindred. The proper names of individual Ammonites, so far as they are known to us, confirm this view. Probably, therefore, the Ammonites formed a part of that wave of Aram
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The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.
Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even to the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.
(That also is accounted a land of Rephaim: Rephaim lived therein before; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim,
only to the land of the children of Ammon you did not come near; all the side of the river Jabbok, and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the LORD our God forbade us.
An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the LORD; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them enter into the assembly of the LORD forever:
He gathered to him the children of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and struck Israel, and they possessed the city of palm trees.
It happened after a while, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. It was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah out of the land of Tob; read more. and they said to Jephthah, "Come and be our chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon." Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "Did you not hate me, and drive me out of my father's house? And why have you come to me now when you are in distress?" The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, "Therefore we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us, and fight with the children of Ammon; and you shall be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead." Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, "If you bring me home again to fight with the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivers them before me, shall I be your head?"
Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, "What have you to do with me, that you are come to me to fight against my land?" The king of the children of Ammon answered to the messengers of Jephthah, "Because Israel took away my land, when he came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore it peaceably." read more. Jephthah sent messengers again to the king of the children of Ammon; and he said to him, "Thus says Jephthah: 'Israel did not take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon, but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel went through the wilderness to the Sea of Suf, and came to Kadesh; then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, 'Please let me pass through your land.' But the king of Edom did not listen. In the same way, he sent to the king of Moab; but he would not. So Israel stayed in Kadesh. Then they went through the wilderness, and went around the land of Edom, and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they encamped on the other side of the Arnon; but they did not come within the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab. Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, "Please let us pass through your land to our land.' But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory; but Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel. The LORD, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they struck them. So Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. They possessed all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon even to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness even to the Jordan. So now the LORD, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them? Won't you possess that which Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whoever the LORD our God has driven out from before us, we will possess. And now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend against Israel, or did he ever fight against them? While Israel lived in Heshbon and its towns, and in Aroer and its towns, and in all the cities that are along by the side of the Arnon, three hundred years; why did you not recover them within that time? I therefore have not sinned against you, but you do me wrong by making war against me. The LORD, the Judge, be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon." However the king of the children of Ammon did not listen to the words of Jephthah which he sent him. Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over to the children of Ammon. Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If you will indeed deliver the children of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hand. He struck them from Aroer until you come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and to Abelcheramim, with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances: and she was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. It happened, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter. You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I can't break it." She said to him, "My father, since you have given your word to the LORD; do to me as you promised, because the LORD has taken vengeance for you on your enemies, even on the children of Ammon."
The men of Ephraim were gathered together, and passed northward; and they said to Jephthah, "Why did you pass over to fight against the children of Ammon, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house on you with fire." Jephthah said to them, "I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, you did not save me out of their hand. read more. When I saw that you did not save me, I put my life in my own hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day, to fight against me?"
It happened, when David had come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim,
Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai the Beerothite, armor bearers to Joab the son of Zeruiah,
Now king Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites;
Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there: and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.
Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the City of David: and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess. Abijam his son reigned in his place.
The LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servants the prophets.
It happened after this, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
The Ammonites gave tribute to Uzziah: and his name spread abroad even to the entrance of Egypt; for he grew exceeding strong.
He fought also with the king of the children of Ammon, and prevailed against them. The children of Ammon gave him the same year one hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. The children of Ammon gave that much to him in the second year also, and in the third.
When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, because a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.
But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they ridiculed us, and despised us, and said, "What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?"
Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, "What they are building, if a fox climbed up it, he would break down their stone wall."
But it happened that when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, and that the breaches began to be filled, then they were very angry;
In those days also saw I the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
and send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the children of Ammon, and to the king of Tyre, and to the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers who come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah;
Likewise when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan;
and said to him, "Do you know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?" But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam did not believe them.
Of the children of Ammon. "Thus says the LORD: 'Has Israel no sons? Has he no heir? Why then does Malcam possess Gad, and his people dwell in its cities?
You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem, the fortified.
Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind; read more. and their king will go into captivity, he and his officials together," says the LORD.
I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the children of Ammon, with which they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. Therefore as I live, says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will inherit them.