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Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

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NO. Jeremiah 46:25 , Ezekiel 30:14-16 , the name of Thebes (Diospolis Magna), Egyp. Nç : also No-amon , Nahum 3:8 , Amon (Ammon) being the god of the city. Nahum seems to imagine Thebes as resembling the cities of the less remote Delta surrounded by canals, which were their chief protection; in reality it lay on both banks of the Nile, with desert bounding it on either side, and water probably played little part in its defence. Thebes was of no importance until the Middle Kingdom (Dyns. 11, 12), during which the royal families were much connected with it. It was the capital of the local 17th Dyn., struggling against the Hyksos in the name of its god Ammon; and the great warriors of the succeeding 18th Dyn. enriched Thebes with the spoils of conquest, built temples there that surpassed all others in size and magnificence, and made it the greatest city of the Empire. Under the 19th and 20th Dynasties, Ammon was still the national god, and Thebes the capital of Egypt. Later, Memphis again took the first place, but Thebes was at least the religious centre of the wide-spread Ammon worship, and the temples retained much of their wealth until the sack of the city by king Ashurbanipal (about b.c. 666), referred to in Nahum. The temples of Thebes continued to be added to until insurrections under the Ptolemys led to its destruction and final abandonment as a city. In Jeremiah 46:25 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) ‘I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt with her gods and their kings,’ Amon is probably not taken as the representative god of Egypt, a position which he no longer held in the 6th cent. b.c.: the passage rather indicates the completeness of Egypt’s fall by the punishment of the remote Thebes, which could not be accomplished till Lower Egypt was prostrate. The Theban Ammon was often entitled ‘Amen-Rç, king of the gods,’ being identified with the sun-god Rç. His figure is that of a man, generally coloured green. The ram was his sacred animal. In Ethiopia he was adopted as the national god, and his worship was established in the Oases, especially in the Oasis of Ammon (Siwa), where his oracle was visited by Alexander.

F. Ll. Griffith.