Amos 1:13-15

5. An oracle against Ammon 1:13-15

The Ammonites were descendants of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (cf. Genesis 19:30-38). Ammon was in trouble with Yahweh because its soldiers brutally attacked and slew the Israelites, even the pregnant women and their unborn children, who lived in Gilead to the west of Ammon. This brutal slaughter terrorized and decimated the attacked populace. The Ammonites did this to enlarge their territory to the west for materialistic advantage, not for self-preservation. Consequently Yahweh promised to destroy Rabbah, the capital, and Ammon’s walled cities in battle. The Ammonites’ king and royal officials would go into exile.

This happened when Tiglath-Pileser III invaded Ammon in 734 B.C., but Ammon’s final demise came when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Rabbah and took many of Ammon’s citizens captive to Babylon around 586 B.C. The last reference to them is the Ammonites’ defeat by Judas Maccabeus in the second century B.C. (1 Maccabees 5:6-7).

"In the Old Testament, as in the ancient Near East, theophanic imagery was used to indicate the active presence of a god in battles against those who refused his rule." [Note: Ibid., p. 355.]