AMMON

(Amʹmon) [relative; kinsman].

Lot’s son by his younger daughter and the progenitor of the Ammonites. (Gen. 19:38) As in the case of the older daughter, so also Lot’s younger daughter had relations with her father while they were residing in a cave in a mountainous region, Lot having first been given much wine to drink by his daughters. (Gen. 19:30-36) The name given to Ammon by his mother was Ben-amʹmi, meaning, literally, “son of my people,” that is, ‘son of my relatives’ and not of foreigners like the Sodomites. The name thus evidently was associated with the concern voiced by the older daughter that the two daughters could not find anyone of their own people or family line to marry in the land they were inhabiting.—See Moab.

“Ammon” is also used at Psalm 83:7 to refer to the nation of his descendants. The usual term is “sons of Ammon,” which, to the Hebrew mind, would literally mean “sons of my kinsman,” thereby recalling to the Israelites the relationship existing between them and the Ammonites, a relationship that even Jehovah took into account, as evidenced by his directing the Israelites not to molest Ammon nor to engage in strife with them since they were sons of Lot, Abraham’s nephew.—Deut. 2:19; see AMMONITES.