also מהעמּונים. This statement is obscure. Since מן has unquestionably a partitive or local signification, we might take the word to signify, enemies who dwelt aside from the Ammonites (מן as in 1Sa 20:22, 1Sa 20:37), which might possibly be the designation of tribes in the Syro-Arabic desert bordering upon the country of the Ammonites on the north and east; and מארם in 2Ch 20:2 would seem to favour this idea. But 2Ch 20:10 and 2Ch 20:22. are scarcely reconcilable with this interpretation, since there, besides or along with the sons of Ammon and Moab, inhabitants of Mount Seir are named as enemies who had invaded Judah. Now the Edomites dwelt on Mount Seir; but had the Edomites only been allies of the Ammonites and Moabites, we should expect simply אדם בּני or אדומים, or שׂעיר בּני (cf. 2Ch 25:11, 2Ch 25:14). Nor can it be denied that the interpretation which makes מהעמּונים to denote peoples dwelling beyond the Ammonites is somewhat artificial and far-fetched. Under these circumstances, the alteration proposed by Hiller in Onomast. p. 285 commends itself, viz., the change of מהעמונים into מהמּעוּנים, Maunites or Maonites, - a tribe whose headquarters were the city Maan in the neighbourhood of Petra, to the east of the Wady Musa; see on 1Ch 4:41. Maan lay upon Mount Seir, i.e., in the mountainous district to the west of the Arabah, which stretches upwards from the head of the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf, now called Jebâl (Gebalene) in its northern part, and es-Sherah in the south. The Maunites were consequently inhabitants of Mount Seir, and are here mentioned instead of the Edomites, as being a people dwelling on the southern side of the mountain, and probably of non-Edomitic origin, in order to express the idea that not merely the Edomites took part in the campaign of the Ammonites and Moabites, but also tribes from all parts of Mount Seir. In 2Ch 26:7 the מעוּנים are mentioned along with Arabs and Philistines as enemies of Israel, who had been conquered by Uzziah. These circumstances favour the proposed alteration; while, on the contrary, the fact that the lxx have here ἐκ τῶν Μιναίων for מהעמּונים proves little, since these translators have rendered העמּונים in 2Ch 26:8 also by οἱ Μιναῖοι, there erroneously making the Ammonites Minaiites.
Verse 2
Then they came and announced to Jehoshaphat, sc. messengers or fugitives; the subject is indefinite, and is to be supplied from the context. “Against thee there cometh a great multitude from beyond the (Dead) sea.” מארם also has no suitable sense here, since in the whole narrative nothing is said of enemies coming out
