carried into Assyrian captivity twelve years before the fall of Samaria
itself.

The eastern side of Jordan, in fact, belonged of right to the kinsfolk
of the Israelites, the children of Lot. Ammon and Moab derived their
origin from the nephew of Abraham, not from the patriarch himself, the
ancestor of Ammon being Ben-Ammi, "the Son of Ammi," the national god of
the race. It was said that the two peoples were the offspring of incest,
and the cave was pointed out where they had been born. Ammon occupied
the country to the north which in earlier days had been the home of the
aboriginal Zuzini or Zamzummim. But they had been treated as the
Canaanites were treated by the Israelites in later days; their cities
were captured by the invading Ammonites, and they themselves massacred
or absorbed into the conquerors.

To the north the territory of Ammon was bounded by the plateau of Bashan
and the Aramaic kingdoms of Gilead. Southward it extended towards the
frontier of Moab, if indeed the borders of the two nations did not at
one time coincide. When the Israelitish invasion, however, took place,
the Amorites under Sihon had thrust themselves between, and had carved
for themselves a kingdom out of the northern half of Moab. The land
north of the Arnon became Amorite; but the Ammonite frontier was too
well defended to be broken through.

The kingdom of Ammon maintained itself down to the time of David. At one
time, in the days of the Judges, the Ammonites had made the Israelitish
tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan tributary to them, and had even
crossed the river and raided the highlands of Ephraim. Under Saul, Ammon
and Israel were at constant feud. Saul had begun his reign by rescuing
Jabesh in Gilead from the Ammonite king Nahash, who had threatened to