The Ammonites were next, both in kindred and neighbourhood, to the Moabites, and therefore are next set to the bar. Their country joined to that of the two tribes and a half, on the other side Jordan, and was but a bad neighbour; however, being a neighbour, they shall have a share in these circular predictions. 1. An action is here brought, in God's name, against the Ammonites, for an illegal encroachment upon the rightful possessions of the tribe of Gad, that lay next them, Jer 49:1. A writ of enquiry is brought to discover what title they had to those territories, which, upon the carrying away of the Gileadites, by the king of Assyria (Kg2 15:29, Ch1 5:26), were left almost dispeopled, at least unguarded, and an easy prey to the next invader. "What! Does it escheat ob defectum sanguinis - for what of an heir? Hath Israel no sons? Hath he no heir? Are there no Gadites left, to whom the right of inheritance belongs? Or, if there were not, are there no Israelites, none left of Judah, that are nearer akin to them than you are?" Why then does their king, as if he were entitled to the forfeited estates, or Milcom, their idol, as if he had the right to dispose of it to his worshippers, inherit Gad, and his people dwell in the cities which fell by lot to that tribe of God's people. Nay, there were sons and heirs of their own body, en ventre de sa mere - in their mother's womb, and the Ammonites, to prevent their claim, most barbarously murdered them (Amo 1:13): They ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border, that, having seized it, none might rise up hereafter to recover it from them. Thus they magnified themselves against their border and boasted it was their own, Zep 2:8. Note, Though among men might often prevails against right, yet that might shall be controlled by the Almighty, who sits in the throne, judging right; and those will find themselves mistaken who think every thing their own which they can lay their hands on, or which none yet appears to lay claim to. As there is justice owing to owners, so also to their heirs, when they are dead, whom it is a great sin to defraud, though they either know not their right or know not how to come at it. This shall be reckoned for particularly, when injuries of this kind are done to God's people. 2. Judgment is here given against them for this violence. (1.) Terrors shall come upon them: God will cause an alarm of war to be heard, even in Rabbah, their capital city and a very strong one, Jer 49:2. The Lord God of hosts, who has all armies at his command, will bring a fear upon them from all that be about them, Jer 49:5. Note, God has many ways to terrify those who have been a terror to his people. (2.) Their cities shall be laid in ruins: Rabbah, the mother-city, shall be a desolate heap, and her daughters, the other cities that have a dependence upon her, and receive law from her as daughters, shall be burnt with fire; so that the inhabitants shall be forced to quit them, and they shall cry, and gird themselves with sackcloth, as having lost all they had, and not knowing whither to betake themselves. (3.) Their country, which they were so proud of, shall be wasted (Jer 49:4): Wherefore gloriest thou in the valleys, and trustest in thy treasures, O backsliding daughter? They are charged with backsliding or turning away from God and from his worship, for they were the posterity of righteous Lot. It is true, they had never been so in covenant with God as Israel was; yet all idolaters may be called backsliders, for the worship of the true God was prior to that of false gods. They were untoward and refractory (so some read it); and, when they had forsaken their God, they gloried in their valleys, particularly one that was called the flowing valley, because it flowed with all good things. These they had violently taken away from Israel, and gloried in it when they had done so. They gloried in the strength of their valleys, so surrounded with mountains that they were inaccessible, gloried in the products of them, gloried in the treasures they got together out of them, saying, Who shall come unto me? While they bathed themselves in the pleasures of their country, they flattered themselves with a conceit that they should never be disturbed in the enjoyment of them: Tomorrow shall be as this day; therefore they set God and his judgments at defiance; they are proud, voluptuous, and secure; but wherefore dost thou do so: Note, Those who backslide and turn away from God have little reason either to take complacency or to put confidence in any worldly enjoyments whatsoever, Hos 9:1. (4.) Their people, from the least to the greatest, shall be forced out of the country. Some shall flee to seek for shelter, others shall be carried into captivity, so that their land shall be quite evacuated: Their king and his princes, nay, and Milcom, their god, and his priests, shall go into captivity (Jer 49:3), and every man shall be driven out right forth, shall take the next way, and make the best of it in his flight (Jer 49:5), forgetting the valleys, the flowing valleys, which now fail them. And, to complete their misery, none shall gather up him that wanders, none shall open their doors to them, as Jael to Sisera, to entertain them; and those that flee shall be so much in care to secure themselves that they shall not take notice of others, no, not of those that are nearest to them, that wander, and are at a loss which way to go, as Jer 47:3. (5.) Then the country of the Ammonites shall fall into the hands of the remaining Israelites (Jer 49:2): Then shall Israel be heir to those that were his heirs, shall possess himself of their land who had possessed themselves of his, by way of reprisal. Note, The equity of divine Providence is to be acknowledged when the losses of the injured are recompensed out of the unjust gains of the injurious. Though the enemies of God's Israel may make a prey of them for a while, the tables will shortly be turned. 3. Yet there is a prospect given them of mercy hereafter (Jer 49:6), as before to Moab. The day will come when the captivity of the children of Ammon will be brought again; for so it is in human affairs: the wheel goes round.

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord,.... Or, "are coming" (y); as they did, in a very little time after this prophecy:

that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard in Rabbah of the Ammonites; the metropolis of the Ammonites; it was their royal city in the times of David, Kg1 11:1; called by Polybius (z) Rabbahamana; and by Ptolemy (a) Philadelphia, which name it had from Ptolemy Philadelphus, who rebuilt it; this the Lord threatens with the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war, or the noise of warriors, as the Targum; the Chaldean army under Nebuchadnezzar, who, about five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, subdued the Ammonites, as Josephus (b) relates:

and it shall be a desolate heap; be utterly destroyed; its walls broken down, and houses demolished, and made a heap of rubbish: and

her daughters shall be burnt with fire: Rabbah was the mother city, and the other cities of the Ammonites were her daughters, which are threatened to be destroyed with fire by the enemy; or it may mean the villages round about Rabbah, it being usual in Scripture for villages to be called the daughters of cities; see Eze 16:46; so the Targum here paraphrases it,

"the inhabitants of her villages shall be burnt with fire:''

then shall Israel be heirs unto them that were his heirs, saith the Lord: that is, shall inherit their land again, which the Ammonites pretended to be the lawful heirs of; yea, not only possess their own land, but the land of Ammon too: this was fulfilled not immediately upon the destruction of Ammon, but in part upon the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, when they repossessed their own country; and partly in the times of the Maccabees, when they subdued the Ammonites,

"Afterward he passed over to the children of Ammon, where he found a mighty power, and much people, with Timotheus their captain.'' (1 Maccabees 5:6)

and will more fully in the latter day, when the Jews shall be converted, and return to their own land, and the children of Ammon shall obey them, Isa 11:14; so Kimchi interprets it; and other Jewish writers understand it of the days of the Messiah, as Abarbinel observes.

(y) "sunt venientes", Montanus, Schmidt. (z) Hist. l. 5. p. 414. (a) Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. (b) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 9. sect. 7.

Rabbah--"the great," metropolis of Ammon (Sa2 12:26-30). Its destruction is foretold also in Eze 25:5; Amo 1:14-15.

her daughters--the towns and villages, dependencies of the metropolis (Jos 15:45).

shall . . . be heir--shall possess those who possessed him. The full accomplishment of this is still future; partially fulfilled under the Maccabees (1 Maccabees 5:6).