Ammon

בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן

Where is Ammon? The plateau around Amman, in Jordan. I mark it certain.

Joab laid siege to Rabbah, the Ammonite capital, while David stayed home in Jerusalem. From his roof David saw Bathsheba. Her husband Uriah was sent to die at Rabbah's walls, and in the end David took the city.

By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker

Site today
The plateau around Amman, in Jordan
How sure
Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
Other names
Rabbath-Ammon, Philadelphia, Greco-Roman name of the capital
Location
31.6567° N, 35.7254° E (Google Maps)
Ammon on the hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel
Ammon on our hand-drawn Map of Biblical Israel. Get the full map as a print →

How we know where it was

The capital kept its name. The Greeks renamed Rabbah of Ammon Philadelphia, but the old name came back, and today it is Amman. Ammonite inscriptions and statues from the Amman Citadel confirm that the kingdom's center lay there.

The Torah traces the Ammonites to Ben-ammi, son of Lot's younger daughter, and tells Israel not to take their land. Ammon held the high plateau around the upper Jabbok, on the desert edge east of Gilead. The tableland west and southwest of it, toward Heshbon, was another matter. Sihon the Amorite held it when Israel arrived. After his defeat it went to Reuben and Gad.

Visiting today

The Amman Citadel rises over the center of Jordan's capital, with a museum of Ammonite finds and a Roman theater below.

Read it in the Bible

Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.

See Ammon on the interactive map →

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