Ezekiel 25:1-7

Prophecy against Ammon

The name of this people is usually the children of Ammon (Beni Ammon). This is the name both of the people and the country (in the latter case construed as fem. Ezekiel 25:3; Ezekiel 25:10). Ammon was recognised by Israel as a distant member of the same family with themselves (Genesis 19:38). At an early period the people was settled on the E. of the Jordan, between the Arnon and the Jabbok (Judges 11:13), but before the Exodus they had been dispossessed of this territory by Amorites from the W. of the Jordan, and pushed eastward towards the desert (Numbers 21:21), though they could not forget their ancient claims to their former seat, even when Israel had wrested it from the Amorites (Judges 11:19; cf. Joshua 13:25). The relations of Ammon to Israel were for the most part unfriendly. In the times of the Judges they harassed the tribes E. of the Jordan, and were crushed by Jephthah (Judges 10-11). Saul signalised his early reign by defeating their king, who had laid siege to Jabesh in Gilead (1 Samuel 11). Owing to the affront offered to his ambassadors David invaded the country and took cruel vengeance on the inhabitants (2 Samuel 10:1; 2 Samuel 11:14; 2 Samuel 12:26). The Ammonites continued when opportunity offered to carry on a savage warfare with the tribes across the Jordan (Amos 1:13); and when these were carried away by the Assyrians they naturally in company with Moab seized the depopulated country (Jeremiah 49:1; Zephaniah 2:8). During the struggle of Judah with Babylon they shewed the old mischievous animosity (2 Kings 24:2), and after the fall of the city the treacherous murder of Gedaliah the Babylonian governor by Ishmael was instigated by their king (Jeremiah 40:14). After the Return Ammonites are again found obstructing the pious aspirations of the restored community (Nehemiah 4:3; cf. Nehemiah 2:10; cf. Nehemiah 2:19), and true to their old instincts they appear on the side of the Syrians in the Maccabean war of independence (1Ma 5:6).