Ammon and Ammonites

The Ammonites were the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ammon, situated to the east of Israel with Rabbath-Ammon as its capital. The Ammonites were related to the Israelites and their language was not so different to Hebrew. They came into conflict with the Israelites, which is why they do not have a good name in the Bible. In Genesis 19:30-38, for example, the story is told of their patriarch Benammi’s incestuous conception by Lot with one of his daughters.

When the Sea Peoples completely upset the fragile balance in western Asia around 1200 BC, the Ammonites saw their chance to form their own kingdom. The capital city Rabbath-Ammon already existed in the Canaanite period.

The Bible mentions various conflicts between Ammon and Israel. The Ammonites tried to conquer Gilead, but the Israelites regarded it as their birthright.

The judge Jephthah succeeded in defeating the Ammonites (Judges 10:6–11:36). Saul fought the Ammonites again, when they laid siege to the Israelite city of Jabesh in Gilead (1 Samuel 11:1-11). David conquered the Ammonites (2 Samuel 10). Later they regained their independence.

How deep the hate between the two nations ran can be seen from the prophecies against Ammon that can be found in the Old Testament (Isaiah 11:14; Jeremiah 49:1-6; Ezekiel 25:1-7; Amos 1:13-15; Zephaniah 2:8-9). This is also evident from the prohibition against including Ammonites in the Lord’s community (Deuteronomy 23:3; Nehemiah 13:1).

The Assyrian King Tiglath Pileser III turned Ammon into a vassal state in 734 BC. After the fall of the Assyrian empire, Ammon became a tributary of Babylonia. In 582 BC, it was annexed by the Babylonians. Ammon played a shadowy part in the fall of the Kingdom of Judah (Jeremiah 41:10-15).

The Ammonites persisted as a nation in the Persian and Hellenistic Era as well. They continued to be enemies to the Jews, as was evident in the time of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 4:1-2) and the Maccabean revolt (1 Maccabees 5:6-7).

In the Roman Era the capital city Rabbath-Ammon, by then renamed Philadelphia, belonged to the Decapolis. In AD 106, the region was subsumed into the province of Arabia. Thus Ammon came to a definitive end, but the name lived on in that of the present-day capital of Jordan: Amman.