Nehemiah 2:10

2:10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official ¹  heard all this, they were very displeased that someone had come to seek benefit for the Israelites.

Nehemiah 2:19

2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard all this, ²  they derided us and expressed contempt toward us. They said, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

Nehemiah 4:3

4:3 Then Tobiah the Ammonite, who was close by, said, “If even a fox were to climb up on what they are building, it would break down their wall of stones!”

Psalms 83:7-9

83:7 Gebal, ³  Ammon, and Amalek,

Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. ⁴ 

83:8 Even Assyria has allied with them,

lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. ⁵  (Selah)

83:9 Do to them as you did to Midian ⁶  –

as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River! ⁷ 

Jeremiah 49:1-6

Judgment Against Ammon

49:1 The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ⁸ 

“Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining?

Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land?

Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ⁹ 

have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ¹⁰ 

49:2 Because you did that,

I, the Lord, affirm that ¹¹  a time is coming

when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon,

hear the sound of the battle cry.

It will become a mound covered with ruins. ¹² 

Its villages will be burned to the ground. ¹³ 

Then Israel will take back its land

from those who took their land from them.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹⁴ 

49:3 Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed.

Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding ¹⁵  Rabbah.

Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning.

Run about covered with gashes. ¹⁶ 

For your god Milcom will go into exile

along with his priests and officials. ¹⁷ 

49:4 Why do you brag about your great power?

Your power is ebbing away, ¹⁸  you rebellious people of Ammon, ¹⁹ 

who trust in your riches and say,

‘Who would dare to attack us?’

49:5 I will bring terror on you from every side,”

says the Lord God who rules over all. ²⁰ 

“You will be scattered in every direction. ²¹ 

No one will gather the fugitives back together.

49:6 Yet in days to come

I will reverse Ammon’s ill fortune.” ²² 

says the Lord. ²³ 

Amos 1:13-15

1:13 This is what the Lord says:

“Because the Ammonites have committed three crimes ²⁴  –

make that four! ²⁵  – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. ²⁶ 

They ripped open Gilead’s pregnant women ²⁷ 

so they could expand their territory.

1:14 So I will set fire to Rabbah’s ²⁸  city wall; ²⁹ 

fire ³⁰  will consume her fortresses.

War cries will be heard on the day of battle; ³¹ 

a strong gale will blow on the day of the windstorm. ³² 

1:15 Ammon’s ³³  king will be deported; ³⁴ 

he and his officials ³⁵  will be carried off ³⁶  together.”

The Lord has spoken!

[2:10]  ¹ tn Heb “servant” (so KJV, ASV; NAB “slave”; NCV “officer.” This phrase also occurs in v. 19.

[2:19]  ² tn The Hebrew text does not include the words “all this,” but they have been added in the translation for clarity.

[83:7]  ³ sn Some identify Gebal with the Phoenician coastal city of Byblos (see Ezek 27:9, where the name is spelled differently), though others locate this site south of the Dead Sea (see BDB 148 s.v. גְּבַל; HALOT 174 s.v. גְּבַל).

[83:7]  ⁴ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[83:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “they are an arm for the sons of Lot.” The “arm” is here a symbol of military might.

[83:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “do to them like Midian.”

[83:9]  ⁷ sn The psalmist alludes here to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (see Judg 7-8) and to Barak’s victory over Jabin’s army, which was led by his general Sisera (Judg 4-5).

[49:1]  ⁸ sn Ammonites. Ammon was a small kingdom to the north and east of Moab which was in constant conflict with the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh over territorial rights to the lands north and south of the Jabbok River. Ammon mainly centered on the city of Rabbah which is modern Amman. According to Judg 11:13 the Ammonites claimed the land between the Jabbok and the Arnon but this was land taken from them by Sihon and Og and land that the Israelites captured from the latter two kings. The Ammonites attempted to expand into the territory of Israel in the Transjordan in the time of Jephthah (Judg 10-11) and the time of Saul (1 Sam 11). Apparently when Tiglath Pileser carried away the Israelite tribes in Transjordan in 733 b.c., the Ammonites took over possession of their cities (Jer 49:1). Like Moab they appear to have been loyal to Nebuchadnezzar in the early part of his reign, forming part of the contingent that he sent to harass Judah when Jehoiakim rebelled in 598 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:2). But along with Moab and Edom they sent representatives to plot rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar in 594 b.c. (Jer 27:3). The Ammonites were evidently in rebellion against him in 588 b.c. when he had to decide whether to attack Rabbah or Jerusalem first (Ezek 21:18-23 [21:23-28 HT]). They appear to have remained in rebellion after the destruction of Jerusalem because their king Baalis was behind the plot to assassinate Gedaliah and offered refuge to Ishmael after he did it (Jer 40:13; 41:15). According to the Jewish historian Josephus they were conquered in 582 b.c. by Nebuchadnezzar.

[49:1]  ⁹ tc The reading here and in v. 3 follows the reading of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13. The Hebrew reads “Malcom” both here, in v. 3, and Zeph 1:5. This god is to be identified with the god known elsewhere as Molech (cf. 1 Kgs 11:7).

[49:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Does not Israel have any sons? Does not he have any heir [or “heirs” as a collective]? Why [then] has Malcom taken possession of Gad and [why] do his [Malcom’s] people live in his [Gad’s] land?” A literal translation here will not produce any meaning without major commentary. Hence the meaning that is generally agreed on is reflected in an admittedly paraphrastic translation. The reference is to the fact that the Ammonites had taken possession of the cities that had been deserted when the Assyrians carried off the Transjordanian tribes in 733 b.c. assuming that the Israelites would not return in sufficient numbers to regain control of it. The thought underlying the expression “Why has Milcom taken possession…” reflects the idea, common in the OT and the ancient Near East, that the god of a people drove out the previous inhabitants, gave their land to his worshipers to possess, and took up residence with them there (cf., e.g., Deut 1:21; Judg 11:24 and line 33-34 of the Moabite stone: “Chemosh said to me, ‘Go down, fight against Hauronen.’ And I went down [and I fought against the town and took it], and Chemosh dwelt there in my time.” [ANET 321]).

[49:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[49:2]  ¹² tn Heb “a desolate tel.” For the explanation of what a “tel” is see the study note on 30:18.

[49:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “Its daughters will be burned with fire.” For the use of the word “daughters” to refer to the villages surrounding a larger city see BDB 123 s.v. I בַּת 4 and compare the usage in Judg 1:27.

[49:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “says the Lord.” The first person is used to maintain the first person address throughout.

[49:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “you women of Rabbah”; Heb “daughters of Rabbah.” It is difficult to tell whether the word “daughters” is used here in the same sense that it has in v. 2 (see the translator’s note there) or in the literal sense of “daughters.” The former has been preferred because the cities themselves (e.g., Heshbon) are called to wail in the earlier part of the verse and the term “daughters” has been used in the previous verse of the surrounding villages.

[49:3]  ¹⁶ tc Or “Run back and forth inside the walls of your towns.” Or “slash yourselves with gashes.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads “run back and forth among the walls.” The word “run back and forth” is generally taken as a Hitpolel of a verb that means to “go about” in the Qal and to “go back and forth” in the Polel (cf. BDB 1002 s.v. I שׁוּט). The noun that follows in the Hebrew means “wall, hedge” and is quite commonly modified by the noun צֹאן (tso’n, “sheep”) referring to sheepfolds (cf., e.g., Num 32:36; 1 Sam 24:3). But the phrase “run back and forth among the sheepfolds” yields little meaning here. In Ps 89:40 (89:41 HT) the word “wall” is used in parallelism with fortified cities and refers to the walls of the city. That is the sense that is assumed in one of the alternate translations with the words “of your towns” being supplied in the translation for clarification. However, that figure is a little odd in a context which speaks of mourning rites. Hence, some emend the word “walls” (גְּדֵרוֹת, gÿderot) to “gashes” (גְּדֻדוֹת, gÿdudot), a word that has occurred in a similar context in Jer 48:37. That would involve only the common confusion of ר and ד. That is the reading adopted here and fits the context nicely. NRSV appears to go one step further and read the verb as a Hitpolel from a root that is otherwise used only as a noun to mean “whip” or “scourge.” NRSV reads “slash yourselves with whips” which also makes excellent sense in the context but is not supported by any parallel use of the verb.

[49:3]  ¹⁷ sn Compare Jer 48:7 and the study note there.

[49:4]  ¹⁸ tn Or “Why do you brag about your valleys, about the fruitfulness of your valleys.” The meaning of the first two lines of this verse are uncertain primarily due to the ambiguity of the expression זָב עִמְקֵךְ (zav ’imqekh). The form זָב (zav) is either a Qal perfect or Qal participle of a verb meaning flow. It is common in the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” and is also common to refer to the seminal discharge or discharge of blood which makes a man or woman unclean. BDB 264 s.v. זוּב Qal.2 sees it as an abbreviation of the idea of “flowing with milk and honey” and sees it as referring to the fertility of Ammon’s valley. However, there are no other examples of such an ellipsis. Several of the modern English versions and commentaries have taken the word עֵמֶק (’emeq) not as a reference to a valley but to the homonym cited in the note on 47:5 and see the reference here to the flowing away of Ammon’s strength. That interpretation is followed here. Instead of explaining the plural ending on עֲמָקִים (’amaqim) as being an enclitic ם (mem) as others who follow this interpretation (e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 325), the present translation understands the plural as a plural of amplification (cf. GKC 397-98 §124.e and compare the noun “might” in Isa 40:26).

[49:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “apostate daughter.” This same term is applied to Israel in Jer 31:22 but seems inappropriate here to Ammon because she had never been loyal to the Lord and could not hence be called “apostate.” However, if it is used of the fact that she rebelled against the Lord’s servant, Nebuchadnezzar, it might be appropriate (cf. Jer 27:6, 8). Hence the term “rebellious” is used in the translation to represent it. The word “daughter” is again a personification of the land (cf. BDB 123 s.v. בַּת 3) and is here translated “people of Ammon” to make it easier for the modern reader to identify the referent.

[49:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “The Lord Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of the rendering here and of the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[49:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “You will be scattered each man [straight] before him.”

[49:6]  ²² tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:6]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[1:13]  ²⁴ tn Traditionally, “transgressions” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV) or “sins” (NIV). For an explanation of the atrocities outlined in this oracle as treaty violations of God’s mandate to Noah in Gen 9:5-7, see the note on the word “violations” in 1:3.

[1:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Because of three violations of the Ammonites, even because of four.”
On the three…four style that introduces each of the judgment oracles of chaps. 1-2 see the note on the word “four” in 1:3.

[1:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

[1:13]  ²⁷ sn The Ammonites ripped open Gilead’s pregnant women in conjunction with a military invasion designed to expand their territory. Such atrocities, although repugnant, were not uncommon in ancient Near Eastern warfare.

[1:14]  ²⁸ sn Rabbah was the Ammonite capital.

[1:14]  ²⁹ sn The city wall symbolizes the city’s defenses and security.

[1:14]  ³⁰ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:14]  ³¹ tn Heb “with a war cry in the day of battle.”

[1:14]  ³² tn Heb “with wind in the day of the windstorm.”

[1:15]  ³³ tn Heb “their”; the referent (Ammon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:15]  ³⁴ tn Heb “will go into exile.”

[1:15]  ³⁵ tn Or “princes” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT); TEV “officers”; CEV “leaders.”

[1:15]  ³⁶ tn The words “will be carried off” are supplied in the translation for clarification.