AMON ăm’ ən (אָמֹ֣ון or אָמֹ֣ן, Αμων, meaning true or faithful). 1. The fifteenth king of Judah and successor of his father Manasseh. (Cf. 1 Chron 3:14; Matt 1:10.) The brief accounts of this monarch’s short reign are in 2 Kings 21:18-26 and 2 Chronicles 33:20-25. His father Manasseh had been an exceptionally wicked king before he “knew that the Lord was God” and repented (2 Chron 33:12ff.). The record in 2 Kings does not contain a mention of Manasseh’s conversion.

“Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord...” (2 Kings 21:19f.; 2 Chron 33:21ff.). No reason appears, but “the servants of Amon conspired against him, and killed him in his house” (v. 24). This dastardly deed did not have popular support, for one reads next that “the people of the land slew all those who had conspired against King Amon, and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead” (v. 25). Josiah was both a good king and one who lived long. Many speculate that Manasseh converted too late in life to have any effect on the evil Amon, but Josiah, the grandson, was influenced for the good. Josiah would have been six years old when Manasseh died and eight when his father Amon died.

2. The governor of the city of Samaria at the time of Ahab, king of Israel. The only occurrence of his name is in the parallel passages of 1 Kings 22:26 and 2 Chronicles 18:25. There Ahab ordered that Micaiah the prophet be taken to Amon to be put in prison.

3. One of Solomon’s servants whose sons returned from exile under Zerubbabel (Neh 7:59). In the parallel passage, Ezra 2:57, he is called “Ami.”

4. The name of an Egyp. deity who resided at Thebes (Jer 46:25 KJV, here reads the multitude of No). Since Amon, the king of Judah, bore this name—which is one of the few Heb. names with no Sem. divine element incorporated into it—some scholars have connected him with this Egyp. deity. This supposition is strengthened in the light of the unorthodoxy of Amon’s father, Manasseh. The Thebian god Amon was pictured as a ram and was basically a fertility deity. When Thebes became the capital of Egypt, Amon was connected with Re, the sun god.