AMMONITES, a People descended from Ammon, whom we have been speaking of. They are called sometimes Ammanites: They destroyed the Giants Zamzummims, and seized upon their Country. God forbad Deut. ii. 19, 20, 21.Moses, and by him the Israelites, to attack the Ammonites, because he did not intend to give their land unto the Hebrews. Before the People of Israel enter’d the land of Canaan, the Amorites had by Conquest got great part of the Countries belonging to the Ammonites and Moabites. This Moses retook from the Amorites, and divided between the Tribes of Gad and Reuben. In the time of Jephthah, the Ammonites declared war against the Israelites, under pretence Judg. xi. 13.that they detained a great part of the Country which had formerly been theirs before the Amorites possessed it. Jephthah declared, that as this was an acquisition which the Israelites had made in a just war, and what they had taken from the Amorites, who had long enjoyed it by right of conquest, he was under no obligation to restore it. The Ammonites were not satisfied with this reason, so Jephthah gave them battle, and won it.
The Ammonites and Moabites generally united whenever there was any design set afoot of attacking the Israelites. After the death of Othniel, the Ammonites and Amalekites joined with Eglon, King of Moab, to oppress the People of the Lord. Some years after, that is to say, in the year Ch. iii. 13. 1 Sam. xi. 1. From the Year of the World 2661 to 2679.of the World 2799, the Ammonites were great oppressors of the Israelites beyond Jordan; but in 2817 God raised up Jephthah to deliver them from this subjection. In the beginning of Saul’s reign, in the year of the World 2909, before J. C. 1191, before the vulgar Æra 1195, Naash King of the Ammonites having set down before Jabesh-Gilead reduced the inhabitants so low as to desire a capitulation. Naash answered that he would accept of their surrender upon no other conditions than their submitting to have every one his right eye pluckt out, that so they might be made a reproach to Israel; but Saul coming seasonably to the succour of Jabesh, delivered the City and People from the barbarity of Naash.
2 Kings i. 1.David had been the King of Ammon’s friend; and after the death of this Prince, he sent to make his compliments of condoleance to Hanun his Son and successor, who imagining that these Ambassadors were come as spies to observe his strength, and the condition of his Kingdom, treated them in a very injurious manner. David revenged the affront offered to his Ambassadors, and subdued the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Syrians their allies. Ammon and Moab continued under the obedience of King David and Solomon, and after the separation of the ten Tribes, were subject to the Kings of Israel till the death of Ahab, in 3107, before J.C. 893, before the vulgar Æra 897.
Ch. iii. 4, 5, 6, & seq. 2 Chr. xx. 1, 2, & seq. If. xv. xvi.Jehoram, the Son of Ahab, and Successor of Ahaziah, defeated the Moabites in 3109. But it does not appear that his victory was so compleat as to reduce them to his obedience. At the same time the Ammonites, Moabites, and other People made an irruption upon the lands belonging to Judah, but they were forced back and routed by Jehoshaphat. Isaiah threatens the Moabites with a misfortune which was to happen three years after his prediction, which had a view probably to the war which Salmanesar made against them about the year of the World 3277, before J.C. 723, before the vulgar Æra 727.
After the Tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half Tribe of Manasseh were carried into captivity by Tiglath Pilasser in 3264, before J. C. 736, before the vulgar Æra 740, the Ammonites and Moabites took possession of the Cities belonging to these Jerem. xlix. 1.Tribes. Jeremiah reproaches them for it. The Ambassadors of the Ammonites were some of those to whom this Prophet presented the cup of the Lord’s fury, and directed to make bonds and yokes for themselves, exhorting them to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatening them, if they did not, with captivity and slavery.
Ezekiel denounces their intire destruction, and tells them that God would give them up to the People of the East, who should set their palaces in their Country, so that there should be no more mention of the Ammonites among the Nations; and all this as a punishment to them for insulting the Israelites upon the calamities they suffer’d, and the destruction of their Temple by the Chaldæans. We believe that these misfortunes happen’d to them in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem1, when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the People who dwelt upon the confines of Judea, in the year of the World 3420 or 21, before J. C. 579, before the vulgar Æra 583.
It is probable that Cyrus gave the Ammonites and Moabites the liberty of returning into their own Country, from whence they had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar; for we see them in the place of their former settlement, expos’d to those revolutions which were common to the People of Syria and Palestine, and subject sometimes to the Kings of Egypt, and sometimes to the Kings of Syria.
Antiochus the Great took Rabboth or Philadelphia, their Capital, demolished the walls, and put a garrison into it2 in 3806. During the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Ammonites shewed their hatred to the Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived in 1 Macc. v. 6---45.their parts3. Justin Martyr says, that in his time there were still many Ammonites remaining4; but Origen assures us5, that when he was living they were known only under the general name of Arabians. Thus was the prediction of Ezekiel accomplished, who said that the Ammonites should be destroyed in such a manner as Ezek. xxv. 10.not to be remember’d among the Nations.
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