Amon (Hastings' Dictionary)

1. One of the kings of Judah, .son and successor of Manas.seh. Two parallel accounts of his reign are given in 2 K 21'", '' and 2 Ch 33-'"-'-. 84 AMON AJMORITES His name occurs in tlie genealogical list of the house of David, 1 Cli 3', and in that of the ancestry of our Lord, Mt 1'". It is also men- tioned in connexion with his son Josiah in Jer 1^ 25', Zeph 11. A. came to the throne at the age of twenty-two, and his reign lasted two years (641-639 B.C.). It has been suppo.sed that his name may have had some connexion with the Egyp. divinity Anion (see THEI5Eji),and may thus be an illustration of the extent of his father's heathen sympathies. There is, however, no other evidence that in his culti- vation of foreign forms of worship Manasseh was definitely influenced by Egypt, and the name A. may quite well be Hebrew. All that we know of A. is that during his short reign he repeated all the idolatrous practices of his father's earlier years. He had been unaffected by Manasseh's tardy repentance and futile attempts at reform, and when he came into power he gave full scope to the heathen proclivities with which his youthful training had imbued him. The state of matters under A. may be inferred partly from the fact that ' he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them' (2 K 21-1), partly from the evils that were found rampant at the time of Josiah's reformation (2 K 2.3-", 2 Ch 343-''), and partly from the description which the prophets Zephaniah and Jeremiah give of the religious condition of Judah in the begin- ning of Josiah's reign (Zeph !«-<> s-^ 3'-^, Jer 2-6). An Asherah stood in the house of the Lord ; incense was burned to Baal ; the sun, moon, and stars were worshipped ; idolatrous priests were maintained ; and the name of Malcam was held as sacred as that of J". Perhaps even human sacri- fice was not discontinued. Idolatry in religion was accompanied by lawless luxury, and by the corruption of morals in every part of society. The rulers were violent, the judges rapacious, the prophets treacherous, and the priests profane. A. was slain by conspirators, and was buried in the new burial-place in the garden of Uzza, where his father also lay. He was not the victim of a popular revolt, but of a palace intrigue ; for the people slew his murderers, and set his son Josiah on the throne. It is possilile that the plot against A. may have been connected with some attempt at religious reform, like the revolt of Jehu against Jehoram of Israel. If this was so, the attempt was a failure, and the popular reaction in favour of idolatry was strong enough to delay the revival of J"'s worship for nearly twenty years. But the record is so meagre that this must remain mere matter of conjecture. LiTERATrnE. — For the last point, see Kittel, IIi8l. nf Hch. ii. .ST8 f. There Is a readinj; by one of the hands tn the Ale.x. MS of the LXX which pives twelve years instead <tf two as the length of .\.'9 reijjn. This has been defended as authentic by George, Dulte of Manchester {The Tim^H of Daniel, London, l^.'i), on grounds of prophetical chronologv, in which he is partlv supported by Ebrard (.SX, 14". iii. 652 tf.). For the other side, see Thenius. Die Riinher der JCOniffe, in loc, and the note in Kwald (GeKchiehte, B. 8. 8. 715; Eng. tr. iv. 200). 2. A governor of Samaria in the days of Aliab, mentioned in 1 K 22-8 (px) and 2 Ch li^^ (I^-¥). The prophet Micaiah was given into his custody when Aliab set out with Jehoshaphat on his fatal attempt against llamoth-gilead. The LX.\ has some singular variations on this name. In 1 K he appears as :S,(ii.np rhv tiacnK4a t^s Tr6Keus (or ace. to another reading 'Amm""' tuv ipx"^'^'^)- I" ~ ^^l' he is 'EmV (also Se^^V) ap^oi'Ta. Josephus calls him •Axouo^. (See ZATW, 188'), S. 173 ff.) 3. 'The children of Amon ' (r^^y) are mentioned in Neh 7'" among 'the children of Solomon's servants,' in the list of those who returned from the Bab. Exile " r,„wrinht. 1898. bu (' with Zerubbabel and Jeshua. In the parallel list in Ezr (2") the name appears as Ami ('??). 4. Amon (god). See Thebes. J.\MES Patrick. ••AMORITES CIS?!? I the Amorite').— The name has been suppo.sed to signify 'mountaineer'; but the two Heb. words ^emer and 'Smic, by which the signification is supported, mean ' summit ' and 'tower,' not 'mountain.' In the Bab. and Assyr. texts, as well as in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, the name is written Amurra, ' the Amorite,' the country being Amurri ; the Egyp. form is Amur, ' Amorite.' Syria and Pal. were known to the Semites of Babylonia as ' the land of the Amorite ' as far back as the time of Sargon of Akkad (B.C. 3800), and the Sumerian name Martu (wliich has been connected with that of the Phceu. city Marathus and moun- tain Brathy) is probably a modification of Amurra. According to an early Bab. geographical list ( WAI ii. 50. 50), Sanir (the Senir of I)t .3») was a .synonym of Subartum or northern Syria. In Sumerian times ' the laiul of the Amorites ' was also known as Tidnim or Tidanu. In the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets (B.C. 1400) and of the Nineteenth Egj-p. Dynasty (B.C. l.'iOd) 'the land of the Amorites' denoted the inland region immediately to the north of the Pal. of later days. In many passages of the OT, however, the Amorites appear as the predominant populaticm of Canaan, and accordingly (as in the cuneiform inscriptions) give their name to the inhabitiints of the whole country (see 2 S 21-, Am 2'^- i"). The Hivites of Gn 34-, Jos 0' 11" are Amorites in Gn iS", 2 S 21'' ; the Jebusites of Jos 15« 18'!, Jg I'-^i U>", 2 S 5'' 241' are Amorites in Jos 10^- '^ (cf. Ezk 16»); and the Hittites of Hebron in Gn 23 take the place of the Amorites of Mamre in Gn 14'-'. Strictly speaking, however, according to Xu 13-^ while the Amalekites, or Bedawin, dwell in the desert to the south, and the Canaanites in the coa.st- lands of Phoenicia and the valley of the Jordan, 'the Hittites and the .Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mottntains.' Amorite kingdoms also existed to the south and east of Palestine. In early days we hear of Amorites to the south-west of the Dead Sea (Gn 14", cf. Dt l'"), but at the time of the Exodus their two chief kingdoms were tho.se of Sihon and Og, on the eastern side of the Jordan (l)t 3H, Jos 2i'J). Og ruled in Bashan, Sihon more to the south, where he had driven the Moabites from the fertile lands between the Jabbok and the Arnon (Nu 21'3-''). The overthrow of Sih.in and Og, and the occupation of their territories, were among the first achievements of the Israelitish invaders of Canaan (Xu 21-'-^). A fragment of an Amorite song of triumph over the coni|uered Moaliites is given in Nu 21-'-'", where it is turned against the coniiuerors themselves. Whether the Amorite kingdoms were the result of conquest, or whether the Amorites represented the original population of the country ea,st of the Jordan, we do not know. A still more difficult problem is the relation between tlie Amorites and Hittites in .southern Palestine. That the two peoples were interlocked there, we know from the statement of Ezk (16^) in regard to the double parentage (Amorite ami Hittite) of ■lerusalem. In the north, in ' the land of the Amorites ' of the cuneiform and Egyp. in.scriptions. tlie interlocking w.as due to Hittite conquest. Before the reign of Tahutmes III. of the Eighteenth Egyp. Dynasty (B.C. 1504-1449), the Amorite stronghold of IChdesh on the Ornntes had been captured by the Hittites, and had become their southern capital. The Hittites, however, were intruders from the north. On the Egyp. monuments the Amorites are de- picted as a tall race, with fair skins, light (also 'harles Scribner^s Sonx black) hair, and blue eyes (Tomkins, Jrl. of the Anthropolui/ical Institute, xviii. 3, p. 224). They thus resembled the Libyans (the Berbers of to- day), aud belonged to the white race. The same type, with profiles resemblinc; those of the Ainorites ou the E,t;yp. inonuinent.s, is still met with in I'al., especially in the extreme south. The tall stature of the Amonles impressed the Israel- ites (Xu 1328- ^, I)t 210- 11 9^, if the Anakim are to be regarded as Araorites). Amorites from time to time settled in Kgypt, and became naturalised subjects of the I'haraoh. Thus, in the reign of Tahutmes iii., the sword-bearer of the king and his brotlier, a priest, were sons of an ' Amorite ' and his wife Karuna. In the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, the Egyp. governor of the • land of the Amorites ' was Abd-Asherah (written Abd-Asirti and Abd- Asratu), who, with his son Ezer (Aziru), made successful war against KiWiadad, the governor of Phoenicia, eventually driving him frimi his cities of Zemar and Geb.al. Aziru .seems to have been assisted by the forces of Babylon and Aram-nalia- raim (Mitanni). In some of his despatches to the rharaoh lie describes the Ilittites as advancing southward, and as having captured Tuuip and other Egyp. towns in northern Syria. The kingdoms of Og and (probably) Sihon did not as yet exist. 'the field of Bashan' (Ziri-H,a.sana) being under the Egyp. governor Artama-Samas. One of the letters is from the king to the governor of ' the city of the Amorites.' and orders certain Amnrite rebels to be sent in chains to the I'haraoh, whose names are Sarru, 'Puya, Leya, Yisyari (or I'isyari), the son- in-law of .\Ianya, Dasarti, I'aluma, and Niinmakhe. About a century and a half later, Merenptah, the son and successor of Hamscs It., built a town in the land of the Amorites (Anast. iii. Jicr. ,')), and one of the chief officials at his court was Ben-Mazaiia, the son of Yupa'a or Yau ' the great,' from Ziri-Basana. But we do not know whether Bashan was at the time under Amorite rule. LiTERATi-RK. — Sflvcc, ' Tho White Race of Ancient Palestine,' In the fxpus. July IssiJ; liacetoftht O.T. (ISill). A. U. SATCE.