the descendants of Ammon, the son of Lot. They took
possession of the country called by their name, after having driven out
the Zamzummims, who were its ancient inhabitants. The precise period at
which this expulsion took place is not ascertained. The Ammonites had
kings, and were uncircumcised, Jer. ix, 25, 26, and seem to have been
principally addicted to husbandry. They, as well as the Moabites, were
among the nations whose peace or prosperity the Israelites were
forbidden to disturb, Deut. ii, 19, &c. However, neither the one nor the
other were to be admitted into the congregation to the tenth generation,
because they did not come out to relieve them in the wilderness, and
were implicated in hiring Balaam to curse them. Their chief and peculiar
deity is, in Scripture, called Moloch. Chemosh was also a god of the
Ammonites. Before the Israelites entered Canaan, the Amorites conquered
a great part of the country belonging to the Ammonites and Moabites; but
it was retaken by Moses, and divided between the tribes of Gad and
Reuben. Previous to the time of Jephthah, B. C. 1188, the Ammonites
engaged as principals in a war, under a king whose name is not given,
against the Israelites. This prince, determining to recover the ancient
country of the Ammonites, made a sudden irruption into it, reduced the
land, and kept the inhabitants in subjection for eighteen years. He
afterward crossed Jordan with a design of falling upon the tribes of
Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. The Israelites resisted the invader; and,
assembling at Mizpeh, chose Jephthah for their general, and sent an
expostulatory message to the king of the Ammonites, Judges x, xi. The
king replied, that those lands belonged to the Ammonites, who had been
unjustly dispossessed of them by the Israelites, when they came out of
Egypt, and exhorted Jephthah to restore them peaceably to the lawful
owners. Jephthah remonstrated on the injustice of his claim; but finding
a war inevitable, he fell upon the Ammonites near Aroer, and defeated
them with great slaughter. On this occasion the Ammonites lost twenty
cities; and thus an end was put, after eighteen years’ bondage, to the
tyranny of Ammon over the Israelites beyond Jordan. In the days of Saul,
1 Sam. xi, B. C. 1095, the old claim of the Ammonites was revived by
Nahash their king, and they laid siege to the city of Jabesh. The
inhabitants were inclined to acknowledge Nahash as their sovereign; but
he would accept their submission only on condition that every one of
them should consent to lose his right eye, and that thus he might fix a
lasting reproach upon Israel: but from this humiliating and severe
requisition they were delivered by Saul, who vanquished and dispersed
the army of Nahash. Upon the death of Nahash, David sent ambassadors to
his son and successor Hanun, to congratulate him on his accession; but
these ambassadors were treated as spies, and dismissed in a very
reproachful manner, 2 Sam. x. This indignity was punished by David with
rigour. Rabbah, the capital of Hanun, and the other cities of Ammon,
which resisted the progress of the conqueror, were destroyed and razed
to the ground; and the inhabitants were put to death or reduced to
servitude. In the reign of Jehoshaphat the Ammonites united with their
brethren, the Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, against the
king of Judah; but they were completely routed. They were afterward
overthrown by Uzziah, king of Judah, and made tributary, 2 Chron. xxvi,
8; and rebelling in the reign of his son Jotham, they were reduced to
the necessity of purchasing peace at a very dear rate. After the tribes
of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, were carried into
captivity by Tiglath Pileser, B. C. 740, the Ammonites and Moabites took
possession of the cities belonging to these tribes, and were reproached
for it by Jeremiah, xlix, 1. Their ambassadors were exhorted to submit
to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatened, on their refusal, with captivity and
slavery, Jer. xxvii, 2, 3, 4. The Prophet Ezekiel, xxv, 4–10, denounces
their entire destruction, and informs them, that God would deliver them
up to the people of the east; and that the Ammonites should no more be
mentioned among the nations: and this punishment they were to suffer for
insulting the Israelites on account of their calamities, and the
destruction of their temple by the Chaldeans. This malediction began to
be inflicted upon them in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem,
when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the people around Judea, A. M.
3420 or 3421, B. C. 583. It is probable that Cyrus granted to the
Ammonites and Moabites liberty to return into their own country, whence
they had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar; for they were exposed to the
revolutions that were common to the people of Syria and Palestine, and
were subject sometimes to the kings of Egypt, and sometimes to the kings
of Syria. Polybius informs us, that Antiochus the Great took Rabboth, or
Philadelphia, the capital of the Ammonites, demolished the walls, and
put a garrison into it, A. M. 3806, B. C. 198. During the persecutions
of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Ammonites manifested their hatred to the
Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived in
their parts. At length their city Jaser, and the neighbouring town, fell
a prey to the Jews, who smote the men, carried their wives and children
into captivity, and plundered and burned the city. Thus ended their last
conflict with the descendants of Israel. Ammon was, however, a highly
productive and populous country when the Romans became masters of all
the provinces of Syria; and several of the ten allied cities, which gave
name to the celebrated Decapolis, were included within its boundaries.
Even when first invaded by the Saracens, this country, including Moab,
was enriched by the various benefits of trade, covered with a line of
forts, and possessed some strong and populous cities. Volney bears
witness, “that in the immense plains of the Hauran, ruins are
continually to be met with, and that what is said of its actual
fertility perfectly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew
writings.” The fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every
traveller who has visited it. And “it is evident,” says Burckhardt,
“that the whole country must have been extremely well cultivated in
order to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns,”
as are now visible only in their ruins. While the fruitfulness of the
land of Ammon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it
subsisted long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions,
are thus indisputably established by historical evidence and by existing
proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the
mere desire of exploring these regions and obtaining geographical
information) have made known its present aspect; and testimony the most
clear, unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the state of
dire desolation to which it is and has long been reduced.
It was prophesied concerning Ammon, “Son of man, set thy face against
the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the
Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks. Behold, I
will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the
Heathen; I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish
out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be
remembered among the nations. Rabbah” (the chief city) “of the Ammonites
shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation,” Ezek.
xxv, 2, 5, 7, 10; xxi, 32; Jer. xlix, 2; Zeph. ii, 9.
Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the Heathen--to be destroyed,
and to be a perpetual desolation. “All this country, formerly so
populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert.”
(_Seetzen’s Travels._) Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is
divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the
latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other,
keep it in “perpetual desolation,” and make it “a spoil to the Heathen.”
“The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being abandoned to
the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total
ruin.” (_Ibid._) “At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient
cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek
churches.” (_Burckhardt’s Travels._) The cities are left desolate. “Many
of the ruins present no objects of any interest. They consist of a few
walls of dwelling houses, heaps of stones, the foundations of some
public edifices, and a few cisterns filled up; there is nothing entire,
though it appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the
remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Ammon there is
a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the greater part
are covered with ruins.” (_Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria._) While the
country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts
throughout it which “are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture,
and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their
camels and their sheep.” (_Buckingham’s Travels in Palestine._) “The
whole way we traversed,” says Seetzen, “we saw villages in ruins, and
met numbers of Arabs with their camels,” &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a
building among the ruins of Ammon, “the masonry of which was evidently
constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older
buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end,” he adds, “we
came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the
sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses in the northern
and southern wall were originally open passages, and had arched door
ways facing each other; but the first of these was found wholly closed
up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage,
just sufficient for the entrance of one man and of the goats, which the
Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night.”
He relates that he lay down among “flocks of sheep and goats,” close
beside the ruins of Ammon; and particularly remarks that, during the
night, he “was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating
of flocks.” So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt,
and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion
whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object
than the elucidation of the Scriptures,--that “the chief city of the
Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks.”
“The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations.” While the
Jews, who were long their hereditary enemies, continue as distinct a
people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the
Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do any
claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time
when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold; for they
retained their name, and continued a great multitude until the second
century of the Christian æra. (_Justin Martyr._) “Yet they are cut off
from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is
destroyed.” No people is attached to its soil; none regard it as their
country and adopt its name: “And the Ammonites are not remembered among
the nations.”
“Rabbah” (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) “shall be a desolate
heap.” Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful
stream, encircled by a fruitful region, strong by nature and fortified
by art, nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the
conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of
Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befal it in the fate of war or
change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to
become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its
continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given
uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel
denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out,
as it exists to this day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent
desolation. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs, and its
site is now “covered with the ruins of private buildings--nothing of
them remaining except the foundations and some of the door posts. The
buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay,” (_Burckhardt’s
Travels in Syria_,) so that they may be said literally to form a
desolate heap. The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned
the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and
the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the
abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better
object than “a stable for camels.” Yet these broken walls and ruined
palaces, says Mr. Keith, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon,
can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, to
a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be,
when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and
prophetic truth of Scripture is blended in one bright inscription.
possession of the country called by their name, after having driven out
the Zamzummims, who were its ancient inhabitants. The precise period at
which this expulsion took place is not ascertained. The Ammonites had
kings, and were uncircumcised, Jer. ix, 25, 26, and seem to have been
principally addicted to husbandry. They, as well as the Moabites, were
among the nations whose peace or prosperity the Israelites were
forbidden to disturb, Deut. ii, 19, &c. However, neither the one nor the
other were to be admitted into the congregation to the tenth generation,
because they did not come out to relieve them in the wilderness, and
were implicated in hiring Balaam to curse them. Their chief and peculiar
deity is, in Scripture, called Moloch. Chemosh was also a god of the
Ammonites. Before the Israelites entered Canaan, the Amorites conquered
a great part of the country belonging to the Ammonites and Moabites; but
it was retaken by Moses, and divided between the tribes of Gad and
Reuben. Previous to the time of Jephthah, B. C. 1188, the Ammonites
engaged as principals in a war, under a king whose name is not given,
against the Israelites. This prince, determining to recover the ancient
country of the Ammonites, made a sudden irruption into it, reduced the
land, and kept the inhabitants in subjection for eighteen years. He
afterward crossed Jordan with a design of falling upon the tribes of
Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. The Israelites resisted the invader; and,
assembling at Mizpeh, chose Jephthah for their general, and sent an
expostulatory message to the king of the Ammonites, Judges x, xi. The
king replied, that those lands belonged to the Ammonites, who had been
unjustly dispossessed of them by the Israelites, when they came out of
Egypt, and exhorted Jephthah to restore them peaceably to the lawful
owners. Jephthah remonstrated on the injustice of his claim; but finding
a war inevitable, he fell upon the Ammonites near Aroer, and defeated
them with great slaughter. On this occasion the Ammonites lost twenty
cities; and thus an end was put, after eighteen years’ bondage, to the
tyranny of Ammon over the Israelites beyond Jordan. In the days of Saul,
1 Sam. xi, B. C. 1095, the old claim of the Ammonites was revived by
Nahash their king, and they laid siege to the city of Jabesh. The
inhabitants were inclined to acknowledge Nahash as their sovereign; but
he would accept their submission only on condition that every one of
them should consent to lose his right eye, and that thus he might fix a
lasting reproach upon Israel: but from this humiliating and severe
requisition they were delivered by Saul, who vanquished and dispersed
the army of Nahash. Upon the death of Nahash, David sent ambassadors to
his son and successor Hanun, to congratulate him on his accession; but
these ambassadors were treated as spies, and dismissed in a very
reproachful manner, 2 Sam. x. This indignity was punished by David with
rigour. Rabbah, the capital of Hanun, and the other cities of Ammon,
which resisted the progress of the conqueror, were destroyed and razed
to the ground; and the inhabitants were put to death or reduced to
servitude. In the reign of Jehoshaphat the Ammonites united with their
brethren, the Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, against the
king of Judah; but they were completely routed. They were afterward
overthrown by Uzziah, king of Judah, and made tributary, 2 Chron. xxvi,
8; and rebelling in the reign of his son Jotham, they were reduced to
the necessity of purchasing peace at a very dear rate. After the tribes
of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, were carried into
captivity by Tiglath Pileser, B. C. 740, the Ammonites and Moabites took
possession of the cities belonging to these tribes, and were reproached
for it by Jeremiah, xlix, 1. Their ambassadors were exhorted to submit
to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatened, on their refusal, with captivity and
slavery, Jer. xxvii, 2, 3, 4. The Prophet Ezekiel, xxv, 4–10, denounces
their entire destruction, and informs them, that God would deliver them
up to the people of the east; and that the Ammonites should no more be
mentioned among the nations: and this punishment they were to suffer for
insulting the Israelites on account of their calamities, and the
destruction of their temple by the Chaldeans. This malediction began to
be inflicted upon them in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem,
when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the people around Judea, A. M.
3420 or 3421, B. C. 583. It is probable that Cyrus granted to the
Ammonites and Moabites liberty to return into their own country, whence
they had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar; for they were exposed to the
revolutions that were common to the people of Syria and Palestine, and
were subject sometimes to the kings of Egypt, and sometimes to the kings
of Syria. Polybius informs us, that Antiochus the Great took Rabboth, or
Philadelphia, the capital of the Ammonites, demolished the walls, and
put a garrison into it, A. M. 3806, B. C. 198. During the persecutions
of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Ammonites manifested their hatred to the
Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived in
their parts. At length their city Jaser, and the neighbouring town, fell
a prey to the Jews, who smote the men, carried their wives and children
into captivity, and plundered and burned the city. Thus ended their last
conflict with the descendants of Israel. Ammon was, however, a highly
productive and populous country when the Romans became masters of all
the provinces of Syria; and several of the ten allied cities, which gave
name to the celebrated Decapolis, were included within its boundaries.
Even when first invaded by the Saracens, this country, including Moab,
was enriched by the various benefits of trade, covered with a line of
forts, and possessed some strong and populous cities. Volney bears
witness, “that in the immense plains of the Hauran, ruins are
continually to be met with, and that what is said of its actual
fertility perfectly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew
writings.” The fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every
traveller who has visited it. And “it is evident,” says Burckhardt,
“that the whole country must have been extremely well cultivated in
order to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns,”
as are now visible only in their ruins. While the fruitfulness of the
land of Ammon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it
subsisted long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions,
are thus indisputably established by historical evidence and by existing
proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the
mere desire of exploring these regions and obtaining geographical
information) have made known its present aspect; and testimony the most
clear, unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the state of
dire desolation to which it is and has long been reduced.
It was prophesied concerning Ammon, “Son of man, set thy face against
the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the
Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks. Behold, I
will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the
Heathen; I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish
out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be
remembered among the nations. Rabbah” (the chief city) “of the Ammonites
shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation,” Ezek.
xxv, 2, 5, 7, 10; xxi, 32; Jer. xlix, 2; Zeph. ii, 9.
Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the Heathen--to be destroyed,
and to be a perpetual desolation. “All this country, formerly so
populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert.”
(_Seetzen’s Travels._) Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is
divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the
latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other,
keep it in “perpetual desolation,” and make it “a spoil to the Heathen.”
“The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being abandoned to
the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total
ruin.” (_Ibid._) “At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient
cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek
churches.” (_Burckhardt’s Travels._) The cities are left desolate. “Many
of the ruins present no objects of any interest. They consist of a few
walls of dwelling houses, heaps of stones, the foundations of some
public edifices, and a few cisterns filled up; there is nothing entire,
though it appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the
remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Ammon there is
a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the greater part
are covered with ruins.” (_Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria._) While the
country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts
throughout it which “are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture,
and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their
camels and their sheep.” (_Buckingham’s Travels in Palestine._) “The
whole way we traversed,” says Seetzen, “we saw villages in ruins, and
met numbers of Arabs with their camels,” &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a
building among the ruins of Ammon, “the masonry of which was evidently
constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older
buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end,” he adds, “we
came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the
sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses in the northern
and southern wall were originally open passages, and had arched door
ways facing each other; but the first of these was found wholly closed
up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage,
just sufficient for the entrance of one man and of the goats, which the
Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night.”
He relates that he lay down among “flocks of sheep and goats,” close
beside the ruins of Ammon; and particularly remarks that, during the
night, he “was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating
of flocks.” So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt,
and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion
whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object
than the elucidation of the Scriptures,--that “the chief city of the
Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks.”
“The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations.” While the
Jews, who were long their hereditary enemies, continue as distinct a
people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the
Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do any
claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time
when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold; for they
retained their name, and continued a great multitude until the second
century of the Christian æra. (_Justin Martyr._) “Yet they are cut off
from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is
destroyed.” No people is attached to its soil; none regard it as their
country and adopt its name: “And the Ammonites are not remembered among
the nations.”
“Rabbah” (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) “shall be a desolate
heap.” Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful
stream, encircled by a fruitful region, strong by nature and fortified
by art, nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the
conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of
Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befal it in the fate of war or
change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to
become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its
continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given
uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel
denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out,
as it exists to this day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent
desolation. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs, and its
site is now “covered with the ruins of private buildings--nothing of
them remaining except the foundations and some of the door posts. The
buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay,” (_Burckhardt’s
Travels in Syria_,) so that they may be said literally to form a
desolate heap. The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned
the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and
the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the
abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better
object than “a stable for camels.” Yet these broken walls and ruined
palaces, says Mr. Keith, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon,
can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, to
a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be,
when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and
prophetic truth of Scripture is blended in one bright inscription.