Ezekiel 25:2

2. Prophesy against them Or, upon, that is, concerning them. The same Hebrew particle is used when no threat is being pronounced.

The Ammonites These were the hereditary enemies of Israel, and very cruel in war. (See Ezekiel 21:28-32; 1 Samuel 11:0; 2 Samuel 10:1; 2Sa 10:11 ; 2 Samuel 10:14; 2 Kings 24:2; Psalms 83:7; Jeremiah 27:3; Jeremiah 40:14; Jeremiah 49:1; Lamentations 2:15-16; Zephaniah 2:5; Zephaniah 2:11; Nehemiah 4:13.) These Beni Ammon, “sons of Ammon” (Ezekiel 25:5), were quite probably the descendants of the Katabani of South Arabia, who call themselves in a very ancient inscription walad Amm, “children of Amm.” They are closely connected with the Moabites, not only in many biblical passages, but in a very old Minaean text (South Arabia) in which the female slaves of a temple are said to have been brought from Egypt, Moab, Ammon, etc. (Glaser). In biblical times they seem to have possessed a settled residence east of the Jordan, from which they declared the Israelites had driven them (Judges 11:13); but their ancestors were doubtless of a wandering disposition, probably being included with the Edomites and Moabites in the general term Menti, or “shepherds,” who appear on the Egyptian monuments as inhabitants of the Sinaitic peninsula fifteen hundred years or more before Abraham’s time. “They are strange looking men, with hooked noses, rounded at the point, wide nostrils, and full lips. The beard is long and the whiskers cover all the lower part of the cheek. The type is Jewish rather than Bedouin, and recalls the profiles of the tribute bearers of Jehu on the Assyrian black obelisk.” Sayce, Races of the Old Testament.