a people descended from Ammon the son of Lot. The Ammonites destroyed those giants which they called Zamzummims (Deut. ii. 19—21.), and feigned upon their country. God forbade Moabites, and by him the children of Israel (id. 19.), to attack the Ammonites; because he did not intend to give their lands unto the Hebrews. Before the Israelites entered 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 Jephtha, the Ammonites declared war against the Israelites (Judges xi.), under pretence that they detained a great part of the country which had formerly been theirs before the Amorites possessed it. Jephtha 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; wherefore Jephtha gave them battle and defeated them. The Ammonites and Moabites generally united whenever there was any design set afoot of attacking the Israelites. After the death of Othniel (id. iii.), the Ammonites and Amalekites joined with Eglon king of Moab to oppress the Hebrews; whom they subdued, and governed for the space of 18 years, till they were delivered by Ehud the son of Gera, who slew Eglon king of Moab. Some time after this, the Ammonites made war against the Israelites, and greatly distressed them. But these were at last delivered by the hands of Jephtha; who having attacked the Ammonites, made a very great slaughter among them (chap. xi.). In the beginning of Saul's reign (1 Sam. xi.), Naashh king of the Ammonites having sat down at Jabesh-gilead, reduced the inhabitants to the extremity of demanding a capitulation. Naashh answered, that he would capitulate with them upon other conditions than their submitting to have every one his right eye plucked out, that so they might be made a reproach to Israel: but Saul coming fealously to the relief of Jabesh, delivered the city and people from the barbarity of the king of the Ammonites. David had been the king of Ammon's friend; and after the death of this prince, he sent ambassadors to make his compliments of condolence to Hanun his son and successor; who, imagining that David's ambassadors were come as spies to Ammonites observe his strength, and the condition of his kingdom, treated them in a very injurious manner (2 Sam. x. 4.). David revenged this indignity thrown upon his ambassadors, by subduing the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Syrians their allies. Ammon and Moab continued under the obedience of the kings David and Solomon; and, after the separation of the ten tribes, were subject to the kings of Israel till the death of Ahaziah the year of the world 3107. Two years after the death of Ahab, Jehoram his son, and successor of Ahaziah, defeated the Moabites (2 Kings iii.); but it does not appear that this victory was so complete 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 were forced back and routed by Jehoahaz (2 Chr. xx. 1, 2.). After the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, were carried into captivity by Tiglath-pileser in the year 3264, the Ammonites and Moabites took possession of the cities belonging to these tribes. Jeremiah (xlix. 1.) reproaches them for it. The ambassadors of the Ammonites were some of those to whom this prophet (chap. xxvii. 2.—4.) presented the cup of the Lord's fury, and directed to make bonds and yokes for themselves; exhausting them to submit themselves to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatening them, if they did not, with captivity and slavery. Ezekiel (xxxv. 4.—10.) denounces their entire 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. It is believed that these misfortunes happened to the Ammonites in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the people that dwelt upon the confines of Judea, in the year of the world 3420.

It is also thought 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, exposed to those revolutions which were common to the people of Syria and Palestine; subject sometimes to the kings of Egypt, and at other times to the kings of Syria. We are told by Polybius, that Antiochus the Great took Rabbath, or Philadelphia, their capital, demolished the walls, and put a garrison in it in 3806. During the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, Josephus informs, that the Ammonites showed their hatred to the Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived about their country. Justin Martyr says, That in his time there were still many Ammonites remaining; but Origen assures us, that when he was living they were known only under the general name of Arabians. Thus was the prediction of Ezekiel (xxv. 10.) accomplished; who said that the Ammonites should be destroyed in such a manner as not to be remembered among the nations.