Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

RABBAH OF THE AMMONITES

Capital of the ancient Ammonite kingdom. Located near the sources of the Jabbok River, it stood about 25 miles (40.2 kilometers) east of the Jordan and lay astride the main caravan route leading from Damascus south along the length of the Transjordanian plateau. This road was also known as the King’s Highway (Nm 20:17; 21:22). Modern Amman, the capital of Jordan, covers the ancient city. During the third century BC, Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt rebuilt the city and renamed it Philadelphia. After the Romans took Palestine in 63 BC, the city became part of the Decapolis, and after AD 106 was part of the Roman province of Arabia.

Rabbah first appears in Scripture as the place where the great iron bedstead of Og, king of Bashan, was kept (Dt 3:11; KJB “Rabbath of the children of Ammon”). When Transjordan was divided among the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, the territory of Gad extended to the vicinity of Rabbah but did not include it (Jos 13:25).

Rabbah figured most significantly in Scripture during David’s reign. At that time Joab laid siege to the city, and during the battle, Uriah the Hittite lost his life by the specific command of the king (2 Sm 11:1; 12:26-29). The city was built in two parts—the upper city and the lower city, called the “city of waters” (12:27). Joab took the lower city and perhaps gained control of the water supply, and then waited for David to come and complete the conquest (vv 27-28). After a thorough sack of Rabbah, David did not station troops in the city but left it under the control of the Ammonites, who became vassals of Israel.

About 250 years later, Amos pronounced judgment on the then-prosperous city (Am 1:13-14). When Nebuchadnezzar stopped at Rabbah during his invasion of Transjordan, it was a significant place (Ez 21:20). It was at Rabbah that Baalis, king of the Ammonites, later plotted the attack that resulted in the death of Gedaliah (Jer 40:14ff.), the Babylonian governor of Judea, and the exile of Jeremiah into Egypt. Jeremiah’s prophecy against Rabbah is recorded in Jeremiah 49:2-3.

Since modern Amman covers ancient Rabbah, no excavation of the ancient city is possible. The Roman theater stands in the center of the city, with seating for 6,000 people. Dilapidated remains of an odeum, or music hall, and a fountain, also of the Roman period, stand nearby. Everything visible on the ancient citadel is Roman, Byzantine, or Arab, except at the northeast corner, where part of the Iron Age town wall is still exposed. The Roman temple at the southwest corner of the citadel was dedicated to Hercules.