Ammon was the name of one of the most important of ancient Israel's Trans-Jordan nations and neighbours. The ancient Ammonite territory is today part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
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The Ammonites, Gen 19:38 tells us, were descendants of Ben-Ammi, the son of the younger of Lot's two daughters. They were, therefore, the distant cousins of the Israelites, since Lot was Abram's nephew (Gen 11:27; 12:5). Possibly for this reason, Israel—when she was on her way from Egypt to Canaan—was commanded not to "harass or engage them in battle" (Deut 2:19; see also Num 21:24).
Israel's relationship with them, however, soon soured, and Deut 23:3 commands that "no Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation. Nothing in the Pentateuch provide an explanation for this injunction. The inclusion of the Moabites in the commandment suggests to many scholars that it was possibly because the Ammonites joined the Moabites in their hiring of Balaam to curse Israel (Num 22).
The relationship between the two nations swung back and forth between open hostility to fragile peace. The Ammonites joined Eglon of Moab to subdue Israel (Judg 3). One of the sore points of contention was over the territory of Jabesh-gilead that Israel had captured from Sihon king of the Amorites. As its name imply, the city and its environ was situated in Gilead, close to the Ammonite border. Disputes over Jabesh flared repeated from the time of the judge Jephthah (Judg 10:18-11:32) until well into the exilic times, when Tobiah, "the Ammonite official," together with Sanballat, tried to oppose Nehemiah's effort to rebuilt the city of Jerusalem (Neh 2:10ff; 4:3ff; 6:1ff, & 13:4ff). David managed, for a time, to befriend one of their kings, Nahash, but hopes of long-term peace with them were dashed when his effort to befriend Nahash's son fell apart (2 Sam 10:2ff). A year later David managed to capture Rabbah (modern Amman), the Ammonite capital and laid waste many of their cities as well (2 Sam 12:26-31).
Ammonites women formed part of Solomon's herem (1 Ki 11:1), and one of them, Naamah, became the mother of his successor, Rehoboam (1 Ki 14:21, 31).
Further Reading & Resources:
☰ Henry O. Thompson, "The Biblical Ammonites," Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology 1.6 (1973): 31-38.
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