amon Summary and Overview

builder. (1.) The governor of Samaria in the time of Ahab. The prophet Micaiah was committed to his custody (1 Kings 22:26; 2 Chr. 18:25). (2.) The son of Manasseh, and fourteenth king of Judah. He restored idolatry, and set up the images which his father had cast down. Zephaniah (1:4; 3:4, 11) refers to the moral depravity prevailing in this king's reign. He was assassinated (2 Kings 21:18-26: 2 Chr. 33:20-25) by his own servants, who conspired against him. (3.) An Egyptian god, usually depicted with a human body and the head of a ram, referred to in Jer. 46:25, where the word "multitudes" in the Authorized Version is more appropriately rendered "Amon" in the Revised Version. In Nah. 3:8 the expression "populous No" of the Authorized version is rendered in the Revised Version "No-amon." Amon is identified with Ra, the sun-god of Heliopolis. (4.) Neh. 7:59.

(builder). 1. One of Ahab's governors. #1Ki 22:26; 2Ch 18:25| 2. King of Judah, son and successor of Manasseh, reigned two years, from B.C. 642 to 640. Amon devoted himself wholly to the service of false gods, but was killed in a conspiracy, and was succeeded by his son Josiah.

A'MON or A'MEN (the hidden), an Egyptian god, one of the eight of the first order, and the chief of the Theban triad. Nah 3:8, margin. He is Amon. (After Wilkinson.) represented as a man clad in a linen tunic, gathered about the waist by a belt. In one hand he holds the symbol of life, in the other the staff of authority, and on his head is a cap with two high Plumes.

(Nahum 3:8). No-Amon, i.e. Thebes, or No, the city of Amon, an Egyptian god (Jeremiah 46:25), "the multitude of No," else "Amon of No" ("the nourisher", Hebrew). The Egyptian name is Amen, "the hidden," or "mysterious"; one of the eight gods of the first order; thief of the Theban triad, worshipped as Amen-ra (i.e. the sun), represented as a man wearing a cap with two plumes, both male and female; accompanied with sacred trees, like the "groves" connected with Baal's worship. In the great Oasis he was worshipped as the ram-headed god Num, and in Meroe as Kneph. The Greeks called him Jupiter Ammon.