Amon of Judah ''’Āmōn''; el, Αμων; la, Amon was the fifteenth
King of Judah
The Kings of Judah were the monarchs who ruled over the ancient Kingdom of Judah. According to the biblical account, this kingdom was founded after the death of Saul, when the tribe of Judah elevated David to rule over it. After seven years, David ...
Manasseh of Judah
Manasseh (; Hebrew: ''Mənaššé'', "Forgetter"; akk, 𒈨𒈾𒋛𒄿 ''Menasî'' 'me-na-si-i'' grc-gre, Μανασσῆς ''Manasses''; la, Manasses) was the fourteenth king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the oldest of the sons of Hezekia ...
. Amon is most remembered for his idolatrous practices during his short two-year reign, which led to a revolt against him and eventually to his assassination in c. 641 BC.
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of
Bozkath
Bozkath (Hebrew בצקת; ''boṣqaṯ'') is a town in the Kingdom of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The town was located in the lowland hills of Judah, otherwise known as the Shephelah, and its location is unknown.
Ancient n ...
. Following Manasseh's death, Amon began his reign of Judah at the age of 22, and reigned for two years. The
Jerusalem Bible
''The Jerusalem Bible'' (JB or TJB) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd. As a Catholic Bible, it includes 73 books: the 39 books shared with the Hebrew Bible, along with the seven deuterocanonica ...
describes Manasseh and Amon as "two wicked kings". Biblical scholar and archeologist William F. Albright has dated his reign to 642–640, while professor E. R. Thiele offers the dates 643/642 – 641/640. Thiele's dates are tied to the reign of Amon's son
Josiah
Josiah ( or ) or Yoshiyahu; la, Iosias was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Josiah is credited by most biblical ...
, whose death at the hands of Pharaoh
Necho II
Necho II (sometimes Nekau, Neku, Nechoh, or Nikuu; Greek: Νεκώς Β'; ) of Egypt was a king of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC), which ruled from Sais. Necho undertook a number of construction projects across his kingdom. In his reign, accord ...
occurred in the summer of 609. The battle in which Josiah is said to have died, which is independently confirmed in Egyptian history, places the end of Amon's reign, 31 years earlier, in 641 or 640 and the beginning of his rule in 643 or 642.
The
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" '' idolatry
Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were God. In Abrahamic religions (namely Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, and Islam) idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the ...
and set up pagan images as his father had done.
II Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the book ...
states that Amon "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father. And he walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshipped them." Similarly,
II Chronicles
The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sect ...
records that "…he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, as did Manasseh his father; and Amon sacrificed unto all the graven images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them." The Talmudic tradition recounts that "Amon burnt the Torah, and allowed spider webs to cover the altar hrough complete disusenbsp;... Amon sinned very much." Like other textual sources,
Flavius Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...
too criticizes the reign of Amon, describing his reign in similar terms to the biblical accounts.
Arnold J. Toynbee
Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's Colleg ...
considers that Amon was a pious conservative, defending the faith of his ancestors from Yahweh-only iconoclasts.
After reigning two years, Amon was assassinated by his servants or officials, who conspired against him, and he was succeeded by his son Josiah, who at the time was eight years old. After Amon's assassination his murderers became unpopular with the "people of the land", and they were ultimately killed. It was the people of the land who proclaimed Josiah as his successor; it is not clear what succession would have been anticipated by the officials who assassinated Amon. Some scholars, such as Abraham Malamat, assert that Amon was assassinated because people disliked the heavy influence that
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
, an age-old enemy of Judah responsible for the
destruction
Destruction may refer to:
Concepts
* Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
* Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism
* Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kind ...
of the
Kingdom of Israel
The Kingdom of Israel may refer to any of the historical kingdoms of ancient Israel, including:
Fully independent (c. 564 years)
*Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) (1047–931 BCE), the legendary kingdom established by the Israelites and uniting ...
, had upon him.
Era
Amon's reign was in the midst of a transitional time for the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
and the entire
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
Assyrian Empire
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyr ...
was beginning to disintegrate while the
Babylonian Empire
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state ...
had not yet risen to replace it. To the west,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
was still recovering under
Psamtik I
Wahibre Psamtik I ( Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664–610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian Empir ...
from its Assyrian occupation, transforming from a
vassal state
A vassal state is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe. Vassal states were common among the empires of the Near East, dating back t ...
to an autonomous ally. In this power vacuum, many smaller states such as Judah were able to govern themselves without foreign intervention from larger empires.
Rabbinic Literature
The opinion that Amon was the most sinful of all the wicked kings of Judah (II Chron. xxxiii. 23) is brought out in the Talmud (Sanh. 103b) as follows:
(Sanh. 104a)
Ahaz suspended the sacrificial worship, Manasseh tore down the altar, Amon made it a place of desolation overed it with cobwebs Ahaz sealed up the scrolls of the Law (Isa. viii. 16), Manasseh cut out the sacred name, Amon burnt the scrolls altogether ompare Seder Olam, R. xxiv. This is derived from the story of the finding of the Book of the Law, II Kings, xxii. 8 Ahab permitted incest, Manasseh committed it himself, Amon acted as
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...
was said to have done toward his mother
Agrippina
Agrippina is an ancient Roman cognomen and a feminine given name. People with either the cognomen or the given name include:
Cognomen
Relatives of the Roman general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa:
* Vipsania Agrippina (36 BC–20 AD), first wife of the ...
. And yet, out of respect for his son Josiah, Amon's name was not placed on the list of the kings excluded from the world to come. A midrashic fragment preserved in the Apostolical Constitutions, ii. 23, which appears to follow an account of the repentance of Manasseh according to a lost Jewish apocryphal writing, reads:
"No sin is more grievous than idolatry, for it is treason against God. Yet even this has been forgiven upon sincere repentance; but he that sins from a mere spirit of opposition, to see whether God will punish the wicked, shall find no pardon, although he say in his heart, 'I shall have peace in the end (by repenting), though I walk in the stubbornness of my evil heart'" (Deut. xxix. 19). Such a one was Amon, the son of Manasseh, for the (Apocryphal) Scripture says: "And Amon reasoned an evil reasoning of transgression and said: 'My father from his childhood was a great transgressor, and he repented in his old age. So will I now walk after the lust of my soul and afterward return to the Lord.' And he committed more evil in the sight of the Lord than all that were before him; but the Lord God speedily cut him off from this good land. And his servants conspired against him and slew him in his own house, and he reigned two years only."
It is noteworthy that this very midrashic fragment casts light upon the emphatic teaching of the Mishnah (Yoma, viii. 9): "Whosoever says, 'I will sin and repent thereafter,' will not be granted the time for repentance."ccording to Louis Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews ".. For repentance he was given no time, for death cut him off in the fullness of his sinful ways...That the full measure of punishment was not meted out to Amon-his evil deeds were such that he should have forfeited his share in the World to come-was due to the circumstance of his having a pious and righteous son..". Se Legends of the Jews p.281 /ref>