Ammon

Ammon's kingdom sat east of the Jordan, north of Moab, with the Jabbok River marking much of its border against Gilead. Genesis traces the nation back to Lot's younger daughter, born after the destruction of Sodom, and gives Ammon the same standing Scripture gives Moab and Edom: a people with land God assigned them and told Israel not to seize. Their capital was Rabbah, a fortress city on a hill, and their national god was Milcom, an idol Solomon later brought to Jerusalem to please his foreign wives. Ammon and Israel fought each other again and again. Jephthah led Gilead against Ammon after they crossed the Jordan to attack Judah and Ephraim. Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh-gilead and demanded to gouge out the right eye of every man in the city, until Saul rescued them and was confirmed king for it. Long after that, Tobiah the Ammonite mocked Nehemiah's wall-builders and joined a plot to attack Jerusalem itself. The richest story Scripture tells at Ammon is David's war against it. David sent envoys to comfort the new king, Hanun, and Hanun shaved half their beards and cut their clothes off at the hips, which started a war. The next spring, while Joab besieged Rabbah, David stayed behind in Jerusalem, saw Bathsheba, and had Uriah her husband killed in that same siege. Nathan the prophet confronted David for it, and only afterward does the story return to Rabbah, where Joab finally captures the city and David takes the crown from its king. Every major prophet has something to say about Ammon. Amos condemns them for ripping open pregnant women in Gilead to seize more land. Ezekiel condemns them for cheering when Jerusalem's sanctuary fell. Zephaniah puts them next to Moab as a nation that will become like Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet Jeremiah's own oracle against Ammon ends with a promise: the LORD will restore Ammon from captivity, the same mercy He shows toward His own people.