Jonathan, was lodging when David desired to extend loving-kindness to him.—2 Sam. 9:4, 5, 7; 17:27.

3. Father of Bath-sheba, Uriah’s wife later taken by David. (1 Chron. 3:5) At 2 Samuel 11:3, he is called Eliam, which is simply a transposition of the same Hebrew letters. He was possibly the son of Ahithophel, the Gilonite, who was David’s counselor but who turned traitor.—2 Sam. 23:34; 15:31.

4. A Levite, the sixth son of Obed-edom. He was a gatekeeper who shared responsibility for the storehouses of the house of Jehovah, during David’s time.—1 Chron. 26:4, 5, 12-15.

AMMIHUD

(Am·miʹhud) [my kinsman is majesty].

1. An Ephraimite, and father of Elishama, who was chieftain of the tribe of Ephraim in the second year after coming out of Egypt (1512 B.C.E.). (Num. 1:10; 2:18) He was an ancestor of Joshua (or Jehoshua).—1 Chron. 7:26, 27.

2. A Simeonite, father of the Shemuel who was the chieftain appointed for the tribe of Simeon at the time when Canaan was divided among the tribes of Israel (after 1473 B.C.E.).—Num. 34:20.

3. Of the tribe of Naphtali, and father of Pedahel, who was the chieftain appointed shortly before Moses’ death to share in dividing the land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel.—Num. 34:28.

4. Father of Talmai, king of Geshur, and grandfather of Maacah the mother of Absalom, David’s son. Absalom fled to Geshur after killing his half-brother Amnon.—2 Sam. 3:3; 13:37.

5. Son of Omri and a descendant of Perez, the son of Judah. He was the father of Uthai, who is listed as being among the first inhabitants to dwell in Jerusalem following the exile in Babylon.—1 Chron. 9:2, 4.

AMMINADAB

(Am·minʹa·dab) [my kinsman is generous].

1. A son of Ram of the family of Hezron, tribe of Judah. (1 Chron. 2:10) His son, Nahshon, was chieftain of Judah during the wilderness trek (Num. 1:7; 7:11, 12), and his daughter, Elisheba, became Aaron’s wife. (Ex. 6:23) Amminadab was an ancestor of King David and of Christ Jesus.—Ruth 4:19-22; Matt. 1:4-16; Luke 3:23-33.

2. Perhaps an alternative name for Izhar, a son of Kohath and father of Korah. (1 Chron. 6:22; compare verses 2, 18, 37, 38; Exodus 6:18, 21; Numbers 3:19, 27.) Some copies of the Septuagint give “Izhar” instead of “Amminadab” at 1 Chronicles 6:22.

3. A Levite, of the sons of Uzziel; a family head in David’s time. He helped to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem.—1 Chron. 15:10-12.

AMMISHADDAI

(Am·mi·shadʹdai) [people of the Almighty].

Father of Ahiezer, who, as chieftain of the tribe of Dan, was with Moses when he numbered the assembly of Israel in the second year after coming out of Egypt (1512 B.C.E.).—Num. 1:12; 2:25.

AMMIZABAD

(Am·mizʹa·bad) [my kinsman (people) has endowed (made a present)].

Son of Benaiah, who was King David’s mighty man over the thirty outstanding fighters. Ammizabad acted for his father, Benaiah, in overseeing the third royal service group, for the third month of the year.—1 Chron. 27:5, 6.

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.

AMMONIM

(Amʹmon·im).

At 2 Chronicles 20:1 the Masoretic text refers to some of “the Ammonim [Heb., ʽAm·moh·nimʹ]” as being joined with the sons of Moab and of Ammon against Jehoshaphat king of Judah in war. The Authorized Version inserts the word “other” to make the text read “the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites”; while some other translations render the phrase in question as reading “some of the Ammonites” (MR, JP, Dy), though this seems illogical since the Ammonites are already mentioned in the verse. Most modern translations (Ro, Mo, AT, RS, JB, NW [1955 ed.]) consider the text as referring to the Meunim of 1 Chronicles 4:41 and 2 Chronicles 26:7. This view supposes that a scribal error resulted in the first two consonants (מע) of the Hebrew M^eʽu·nimʹ being transposed, thus giving ʽAm·moh·nimʹ. This identification with the Meunim may find support in the fact that the remainder of the account of the fight against Jehoshaphat refers to “the mountainous region of Seir” (in place of “the Ammonim”) as joined with the Ammonite-Moabite forces. (2 Chron. 20:10, 22, 23) The translators of the Septuagint version used the same Greek word (Mi·naiʹon) to render the Hebrew term at 2 Chronicles 20:1 as they did in the texts referring to the Meunim, showing that they understood them to be the same.—See MEUNIM.

Since the matter is not certain, however, some translations, such as that of Isaac Leeser and the 1961 edition of the New World Translation, prefer simply to transliterate the term into English, thereby retaining the wording found in the Masoretic text.

AMMONITES

(Amʹmon·ites).

Descendants of Ammon, Lot’s son by the younger of his two daughters. (Gen. 19:36-38) They were close relatives of the Moabites, descended from Lot’s other son, Moab, and are regularly mentioned in Biblical and ancient secular history along with the Moabites. They were also more distantly related to the Israelites, and this Biblical relationship is supported by the fact that the Ammonite language was a dialect or variant of Hebrew. With rare exceptions, however, the Ammonites displayed violent enmity toward the nation of Israel.

TERRITORY OCCUPIED

Evidently out of consideration for their faithful forefather Lot, Jehovah God enabled the Ammonites to take possession of the territory previously held by the Rephaim, a towering people called the Zamzummim by the Ammonites. (Deut. 2:17-21) This land lay E of the southern end of the Jordan River and, at one time, the territory of the Ammonites joined with that of the Moabites in the plateau region on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. Sometime prior to Israel’s entry into Canaan, however, the Amorites had dispossessed the Ammonites of some of their land and pushed them to the N and E, thereby driving a wedge between them and the Moabites (who also suffered the loss of considerable territory). (Num. 21:26; Josh. 12:2; Judg. 11:13, 22) Thereafter the land of the sons of Ammon generally extended from the upper reaches of the curving Jabbok River eastward toward the desert (Num. 21:24; Josh. 12:2),