AMMON, AMMONITES ăm’ ən,— ə nīts (עַמֹּֽון, LXX Αμμων, υἱοί Αμμονιτῶν).

1. Name. According to Genesis 19:38 Lot’s younger daughter gave birth to a child by her own father and named him Ben-’Ammī. He was the ancestor of the Ammonites. It is clear that the name Ben-’Ammī offers an explanation for the ethnic name ’Ammōnī or benē ’Ammōn. The proper tr. of the name Ben-’Ammī is not clear. Some tr. it “son of my people,” others “son of my paternal uncle (or paternal clan).” Also possible would be the interpretation of ’Ammī as a divine name or epithet. Given the narrative context of Genesis 19, however, the name could mean only “son of my own father.” The uncompounded name ’Ammī does not occur elsewhere in the OT, although its compounds can be cited. Lō-’Ammī is the symbolic name given by the prophet Hosea to his son (Hos 1:9). Of the compounds which prefix ’Ammī one can cite: ’AmmīEl (name of three persons), ’Ammī-Hūd, ’Ammī-Hūr, ’Ammī-Zabad, ’Ammī-Nadab, ’Ammī-Shadday. Of these, all but the second example can quite convincingly demonstrate the primary reference of ’Ammī to God (or a god). The bare element ’Ammī or its extension ’Ammīyān > ’Ammōn represents merely an abbreviated or hypocoristic form of the longer compounds. In such compound names the first element prob. means “(divine) protector.” In the context of Genesis 19 the daughter regarded her widowed father as her only protector; hence, the name Ben-’Ammī. The compounded form Ben-Ammī (consonantal spelling bn ’my) is found in the Ugaritic texts as a personal name with the variant bn ’myn, just as in the OT ben ’ammī alternates with the more common benē ’Ammōn. In the Mari texts (c. 1780 b.c.), where the W Sem. ’ayin was spelled with the cuneiform ḫ , one finds both compounded names such as Hamma-El (cf. OT ’AmmīEl), Hammi-Andulli, Hammi-Shagish, Hammi-Ishtamar (cf. Ugaritic royal name ’Ammishtamru), Hammi-Tilu, Hammu-Rāpi’, and Hammu-Tar, along with the hypocoristic Hammānu (= Heb. ’Ammōn!). In the El Amarna tablets (c. 1400-1300 b.c.) the following example occurs: ’Ammu-nīra, Prince of Beirut. In the Alalakh Tablets a mayor bears the name ’Ammīya, and other ’Ammī names are: ’Ammī-ṭābā, ’Ammīya-Haddu, ’Ammī-taqum, ’Ammu-Hadda (OT ’Ammī-Hūd?), and ’Ammu-Rāpi’. Both the forms ’Ammān and ’Ammīyān occur as personal names. Although the long a in the final syllable of the name ’Ammān had shifted to long o in the Heb. speech, it remained a in Ammonite speech, as heard by the Assyrians in the 9th and 8th centuries b.c. They called the land Bīt-Ammānay (“house of Ammānay”) or māt ban Ammānay (“land of the ban-Ammanay”).

2. Origin and ethnic affiliation. As noted above, the OT account in Genesis 19 places the origin of the Ammonites and Moabites in southern Trans-Jordan at the beginning of the second millennium b.c. Both groups spoke languages closely related to Heb. and intermarriage between Hebrews and Moabites (Ruth’s sons) and Hebrews and Ammonites (2 Chron 12:13; 24:26) indicates that communication between these groups and the Israelites to the W was never any problem. Many Ammonite and Moabite personal names have striking parallels in early Arab., suggesting that strong influence was brought to bear upon them from the oasis towns to the SE. Since Trans-Jordan was settled by groups which recently had adopted sedentary ways, it is likely that a large proportion of the population was related to nomadic groups such as the Midianites. At the time of the Israelite entrance into Canaan under Moses, three primary groups occupied Trans-Jordan: the Ammonites in the area surrounding the later capital Rabbath-Ammon, prob. extending no further W than the settlement of Jazer, the Amorite kingdom of Heshbon located between Ammon and Moab, and the Moabites whose northern border must at that time have been the Arnon River. In addition, to the N of Ammon was the kingdom of Bashan, ruled by King Og. The territories of Ammon and Moab were left untouched by the Israelites; but the kingdoms of Bashan and Heshbon were conquered. Ammon was left as a peninsula of land, jutting out into the “sea” of former Amorite territory to the N, W and S, recently conquered by Moses and the Israelites. These three groups (Amorites, Ammonites, and Moabites) were doubtless related in some manner, but precisely how is unknown.

3. History of Ammon.

a. Earliest history attested in OT (c. 1250-1100 B.C.). In the middle decades of the 13th cent. b.c., while the Israelites under Moses and Joshua were passing through Trans-Jordan on their way to Canaan, the OT attests the presence of an organized political kingdom of the Ammonites (Num 21:24; Deut 2:19-21, 37; 3:16), whose land Yahweh refused to give to the tribes of Israel. This land is said to have belonged long before to a group named the Zamzummīm, whom the Ammonites dispossessed. That Ammon should not have been mentioned in the Song of Moses (Exod 15) or the Oracles of Balaam (Num 23; 24) does not mean that it did not yet exist. In the former poem only Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Canaan are numbered among the trembling foes. Powers to the N of Moab are simply ignored. No mention is made of Bashan or Heshbon either, yet one may not discount their organized existence at this time. Likewise, in the Oracles of Balaam the countries mentioned are not intended to exhaust the known powers of the area. Neither Canaan, Philistia, the Amorite kingdoms, nor Ammon are included. Not long after the initial settlement of the tribes in Israel, Ammon appears as a military ally of Eglon, king of Moab. The Ammonite troops assisted the Moabites in their attempt to regain former Moabite territory at the northern end of the Dead Sea, including Jericho (“the city of palms,” Judg 3:13).

b. The Ammonite War with Jephthah the Gileadite (c. 1100-1020 B.C.). Excavation reveals that during the 11th cent. the Ammonites had fortified their borders with structures in the megalithic style. Judges (10:8) records: “For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sorely distressed.” The inhabitants of Gilead sought and found an able leader in Jephthah, the bastard son of Gilead and a harlot (11:1). After making a compact with the elders of Gilead, Jephthah gathered his army and defeated the Ammonites (11:32, 33). Since the victory was a decisive one, it was not necessary for Jephthah to conduct any campaign W of the Jordan against Ammonite settlements. It is of interest that the unnamed king of the Ammonites claimed Israel had taken away Ammonite land, when it conquered the territory between the Arnon and Jabbok Rivers (11:13).

c. Ammonites in the period of Saul (c. 1020-1000 B.C.). A new Ammonite king, named Nahash, came to power c. 1020 b.c., determined to re-assert Ammonite power over the Israelite settlements to the E of the Jordan. He chose as the target of his campaign the town of Jabesh-Gilead, whose citizens offered to make a treaty with him, which he refused (1 Sam 11:1, 2) except on the cruelest of terms: the gouging out of the right eye of every citizen. Given seven days in which to make their decision, the citizens of Jabesh sent an embassy to Gibeah of Saul, seeking military aid from the Benjaminites there (11:4). Saul heeded their plea and sent messengers throughout the tribes demanding “volunteers” for his muster (11:7). The volunteers came to a rendezvous at Bezek N of Shechem in the hills of Manasseh. Leading 330,000 men (11:8), Saul assaulted the camp of the Ammonites with three separate attack columns and took no prisoners from his victory. All who were not killed were scattered (11:11) according to the principles of holy war. Later in his reign (14:47, 48) Saul fought further battles with the Trans-Jordanian peoples who raided the Israelite settlements (Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites).

d. Ammon as a vassal state under David and Solomon (c. 1000-922 B.C.). During the years of Saul’s pursuit of David, at least one Ammonite (and prob. more) soldier threw in his lot with the young Judean (Zelek the Ammonite, 2 Sam 23:37). King Nahash, who had fought with Saul, was inclined to be friendly with his successor David both before and after his accession to the Israelite throne. When Nahash died and his son Hanun succeeded to the throne, David sent an embassy to express both his sadness at the passing of Nahash and his joy at the accession of his son Hanun. The intentions of this embassy, however, were questioned by Hanun’s advisers, who maintained they had been sent to spy and plan the conquest of Ammon (2 Sam 10:1-3; 1 Chron 19:1-3). Hanun ordered them to be shorn of half their beards and the lower half of their garments, exposing them to shame and ridicule (2 Sam 10:4, 5; 1 Chron 19:4, 5). This was an affront calculated to bring on a war. The Ammonites sent for military aid from the Aramean states of Syria: Beth-rehob, Maacah, Tob, Aram-zobah. With a payment of 1000 talents of silver, Hanun was able to recruit 33,000 foot soldiers (2 Sam 10:6) and 32,000 chariots (1 Chron 19:7). The native troops of Ammon deployed about the gate of the capital city (2 Sam 10:8; 1 Chron 19:9), while their Aramean mercenaries deployed themselves in the vicinity of the Reubenite town of Medeba to the S of the capital. David’s generalissimo, Joab, decided upon a plan of attack. He would personally command the crack troops of his army and attack the Aramean companies to the S in Medeba, while sending his brother Abishai at the head of the rest of the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites at Rabbath-Ammon (2 Sam 10:9ff.; 1 Chron 19:10ff.). The strategy succeeded. Joab and the elite corps soon put the Arameans to rout, thus thoroughly demoralizing the Ammonite army, which quickly retired from the battlefield to the safety of the walled capital city. The fleeing Arameans sought further assistance from Shobach and Hadarezer, Aramean leaders from beyond the Euphrates River (2 Sam 10:15ff.; 1 Chron 19:16 ff.). But David launched an over-powering expeditionary force against the Arameans, forcing Hadarezer and his vassal kings to submit and become the vassals of David (2 Sam 10:19).

The following year David sent Joab again at the head of a massive army to ravage the Ammonite countryside and put the capital under siege (2 Sam 11:1; 1 Chron 20:1). When Joab had besieged the capital for many months and had finally captured its water supply (“the city of water,” 2 Sam 12:27), he sent word to David, notifying him that the capitulation of the city was imminent and that the king should come at once to assume command of the besieging forces, in order to preside over the capture of the Ammonite capital (12:28). David arrived and was in command at the fall of Rabbah-Ammon. With the fall of its capital and the transfer of the golden crown of its king to the head of David (12:30f.), Ammon became another Israelite vassal state. During the remainder of the reign of David and that of Solomon the Ammonites were governed through a viceroy from among the old royal family. When David took refuge from Absalom in Mahanaim in Trans-Jordan (2 Sam 17), he was supported by Shobi, the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites (17:27). Probably it was from this same Nahashite line that Solomon’s Ammonitess wife, Naamah, was chosen. She became the mother of Rehoboam, the next king (1 Kings 14:21, 31; 2 Chron 12:13). Thus Ammonite blood was introduced into the Israelite royal family, as the blood of Ruth the Moabitess had already entered the line before the birth of King David (Ruth 4:13-22).

e. Ammon during the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (c. 900-580 B.C.). Shortly after the division of the kingdom of Solomon in 925 b.c. and the devastating campaigns through Pal. c. 924 b.c. by Shishak, king of Egypt, who passed through Ammonite terrain when he touched at Succoth and Zaphon on his way N to Beth-shean, the Ammonites declared their independence from Israel and Judah. Before 853 b.c. a king arose in Ammon bearing the same name as the third king of the northern kingdom, Baasha (Ba’sha’). He hailed from Beth-rehob and was a member of the twelve-king alliance headed up by Ahab of Israel and Hadad-ezer of Damascus to oppose the westward march of the Assyrian king Shalmanezer III in 853 b.c. His contribution to the alliance consisted of several thousand foot soldiers. The league succeeded in halting Shalmanezer, whereupon its members dispersed and resumed their jockeying among themselves for local power. Shortly thereafter the Ammonites allied themselves with other Trans-Jordanian powers (Moab and perhaps the Meunites, although the text, 2 Chron 20:1, reads “Ammonites” instead of “Meunites”) against Jehoshaphat of Judah. The reason for their attack is not stated in the Biblical account (20:1-30). Jehoshaphat had fought beside Ahab against Trans-Jordanians in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings 20:1-34; 22:1-40; 2 Chron 18:1-34), which did not earn for him the love of the Ammonites and Moabites. He had reinstated Judah’s rule over Edom in the S and attempted to restore maritime trade at Ezion-geber (1 Kings 22:48-50; 2 Chron 20:35-37); both actions perhaps threatened Moabite and Ammonite control over trade routes to the E of the Jordan. All of this doubtless contributed to the animosity of the Trans-Jordanian powers against the king of Judah. At some time during the short reign of Ahaziah of Israel (c. 850-849 b.c.) the Ammonites, Moabites, and Meunites attacked Judah. The attack was not a concerted drive to conquer, but was rather in the nature of a raid. In a daring move the invaders crossed the Dead Sea at the ford opposite Masada, climbed one of the difficult but short ascents into the heart of the Judean hills, and camped in the vicinity of Engedi, also called Hazazon-tamar (2 Chron 20:1, 2).

When word reached Jehoshaphat, he turned to God for help in his consternation (20:3ff.). Assured by the Lord’s promise of victory through the prophet Jahaziel (20:13-19), the Judean force marched S from Jerusalem through Bethlehem and Tekoa to the Wildernes of Tekoa. The enemy armies were making their way up the Ascent of Ziz to the Wilderness of Jeruel. When they were suddenly set upon by Judean ambushers, the Moabite and Ammonite columns panicked and fought mistakenly against their allies, the Meunites from Mt. Seir (20:20ff.). Their demise was total.

When Ahaziah of Israel died and was succeded by Jehoram, Jehoshaphat of Judah joined him in an expedition against Moab (2 Kings 3:4-27). Because Mesha of Moab had so heavily fortified the approach to his kingdom from the N with fortresses at Bezer, Nebo, Kiriathaim, Beth-baal-meon, Medeba, and Ataroth, the kings of Israel and Judah chose to circumvent the southern tip of the Dead Sea, attack the “soft underbelly” of Moab at Horonaim, and drive on from there to Kir-hareseth. They were able to secure the services of the prophet Elisha on the expedition. After seven days of traveling, the caravan found no water holes and were faced with a critical situation. According to a promise from God through Elisha, a sudden flood of water came down a dry wadi from the direction of Edom and saved them (3:20). The march resumed and the battle was joined in Horonaim, where the Moabites were put to flight. Cutting off all the water supply of the enemy in the vicinity, the Israelite army laid siege to the walled city of Kir-hareseth. The king of Moab in the direst emergency offered his eldest son as a human sacrifice to his god Chemosh on the city wall in full view of the enemy. Demoralized by the sight, the Israelites withdrew to their land.

After the humbling of Moab, their northern neighbors the Arameans pushed southward to the Arnon River (10:32, 33). The Ammonites doubtless helped these Arameans in this effort to fill the vacuum left by a failing Moab and to keep out Israel and Judah’s influence in the E. When the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III (810-783 b.c.) imposed tribute on some of Aram’s dependencies, Ammon seems to have been left alone and continued to control Gilead until c. 750 b.c.

The accessions of Jeroboam II of Israel and Uzziah (Azariah) of Judah c. 785 b.c. ushered in an era of prosperity and expansion for both kingdoms. The Assyrians had first broken the power of the Arameans of Damascus and then retired to the E themselves, leaving Trans-Jordan to fend for itself against its former masters on the W bank of the river. Uzziah, for his part, was able to regain control over the “Arabians of Gur-baal and the Meunites” and over the Ammonites (2 Chron 26:7, 8). This must have seemed to Amos, who prophesied during the reign of Uzziah, the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s word through him against Ammon for its cruelties against the people of Gilead (Amos 1:13-15).

After Uzziah died (c. 741 b.c.), his son and successor Jotham had to put down an attempted rebellion by a king of the Ammonites (2 Chron 27:5, 6). Jotham received from Ammon an annual tribute after that of 100 talents of silver, 10,000 cor of wheat, 10,000 cor of barley. In 732 b.c. the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III deposed Pekah, king of Israel, and made Hoshea of Israel an Assyrian vassal. In the same year the Assyrians crushed Damascus and her king Rezin. All of the Syro-Palestinian states fell into line and rendered tribute, including Ahaz of Judah (2 Kings 16:7, 8; 2 Chron 28:16, 21). All of the Trans-Jordanian states and their native dynasts (Shanip of Ammon, Shalamān of Moab, Ka’us-malak of Edom) paid tribute.

Shortly after Sargon II of Assyria died (c. 705 b.c.), rebellions in the W brought his successor Sennacherib (c. 704-681 b.c.) to quell the potentially dangerous situation (c. 701 b.c.). During this campaign Sennacherib received tribute and submission from the Trans-Jordanian states and their dynasts: Buduili (Bod’el?) of Ammon, Kammushu-nadbi (Chemosh-nadab) of Moab, and Ayarammu of Edom. The same king Buduili is mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (681-669) and Ashurbanipal (only through c. 667 of his reign, 668-633). A building inscr. of Esarhaddon’s mentions Buduili of Ammon as supplying materials for the royal palace at Nineveh. A letter written to Esarhaddon himself informs us that the Ammonites paid a larger amount of tribute (two minas of gold) than either Moab or Judah, which suggests that renewed Ammonite control over the Trans-Jordanian trade routes had raised her level of prosperity above that of her neighbors. About 667 b.c. Buduili died and was succeeded by ’Ammi-nadab, whose name appears in a cylinder of Ashurbanipal among those twenty-two kings of the seacoast who paid tribute to the Assyrian in the course of his campaign against Egypt in 667. Archeological findings in Ammon from the period of the 7th cent. suggest that Ammonite officials of this period enjoyed a higher standard of living than Judah under Manasseh, Amon, and the first years of Josiah.

As the power of Assyria began to wane at the end of the 7th cent. (c. 630-615 b.c.), rebellious Arab tribes of the Syrian Desert began to harass Ammonite borders. After the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, in 612 b.c., it would seem that the Ammonites moved into territory formerly held by the kingdom of Israel (cf. Jer 49:1-6; Zeph 2:8-11), in particular cities which had once belonged to the tribe of Gad—prob. Mephaath, Heshbon, Beth-peor, Beth-jeshimoth, Kiriathaim, and Medeba, and possibly all the cities as far S as the Arnon River. It is not likely that the Ammonites at this time controlled Gilead or that stretch of land between Jazer and the Jordan River. Rather, Josiah of Judah seems to have gained control of this former Assyrian province. According to the Babylonian Chronicle, in 599 Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 605-562 b.c.) led troops into Syria and from there sent raiding parties into the desert to attack the Arabs. During the reign of Jehoiakim of Judah (609-598 b.c.), Nebuchadnezzar sent raiding parties of Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites against Judean territory (2 Kings 24:2), particularly Trans-Jordanian Judean territory. Thus the Ammonites, in return for Babylonian defense against the Arabs, helped to harass Judah. In 593, however, during the reign of Zedekiah of Judah, Ammon joined with Edom, Moab, Tyre, and Sidon in a conspiracy meeting at Jerusalem to rebel against Babylon (Jer 27:3). Jeremiah warned the assembled envoys that God would bring their plan to naught (27:4-11). The rebels were encouraged by an Egyp. promise of support, but it never materialized and the attempt failed. Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and deported thousands of its leading citizens. Ammon did not receive the same crushing blow from Babylon yet. In fact, some Judeans took refuge in Ammon, including Ishmael (41:1), who fell under the influence of Baalis, king of Ammon, and plotted with him to assassinate the Judean collaborationist governor Gedaliah (40:14). The assassination succeeded (41:2, 3, 15), but whatever hopes Baalis might have had of reviving Judah under Ammonite domination were dashed by another punitive expedition by Nebuchadnezzar, during which he sacked Rabbah and deported many Ammonites. Into the vacuum which remained poured the Arab invaders who were called “sons of the east” (benē qedem). This marked the end of the autonomous Ammonite state. Ammon remained a camping ground for Arabs until c. 530 b.c. when the Persians assumed control over the former Babylonian provinces in the W.

During the time of Nehemiah (c. 445-433 b.c.) there lived a certain Tobiah, the head of a Jewish enclave in Ammon, who is called “Tobiah, the servant (’abd), the Ammonite” (Neh 2:10, 19; 4:3, 7; etc.). Since a recently published Libyanite inscr. mentions a certain “’Abd, the governor,” who seems to have been the Pers. governor of Ammon and Dedan, the above mentioned formula mentioning Tobiah may be a spelling error for “Tobiah and ’Abd the governor.” Tobiah would have been the Jewish assistant to the governor ’Abd. This Tobiah was apparently the first in a long line of Tobiahs whose home was ’Araq el-Emir, where the family tombs have been found.

4. The religion of Ammon. Little is known other than the name of the national god, Milcom (consonants mlkm). Milkōm, malkam, and mōlek appear to be three alternate forms of his name. All contain the common Sem. noun mlk, “king.” It has been suggested that the final m in the name is the possessive pronoun “their,” and that the name means “their king.” If so, the name finds a near parallel in that of the god of the city of Nesha in central Asia Minor c. 1800 b.c., Siu-summi (“their god”).

Bibliography N. Glueck, The Other Side of Jordan (1940); R. de Vaux, “Notes d’histoire et de topographie Transjordaniennes,” Vivre et Penser, 50 (1941), 16-47; Y. Aharoni, “A New Ammonite Inscription,” IEJ 1 (1950), 219-222; H. L. Ginsberg, “Judah and the Transjordan States from 734-582 B.C.,” Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (1950), 347-368; N. Avigad, “An Ammonite Seal,” IEJ 2 (1952), 163, 164; W. F. Albright, “Some Notes on Ammonite History,” Miscellanea Biblica B. Ubach (1954), 131-136; J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts (2nd ed., 1955), 275-317; G. L. Harding, The Antiquities of Jordan (1959); Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah (eds.), The Macmillan Bible Atlas (1968).