‘For thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because you have clapped your hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the malice of your heart against the land of Israel, therefore behold I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a spoil to the nations, and I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish from among the countries. I will destroy you, and you will know that I am Yahweh.” '
The charge is extended to the fact that they had not only said the knowing ‘Aha' but had actually shown great glee and delight in Jerusalem's misery. Indeed their malice is stressed. And this was against the people of Yahweh, and therefore a slight on Yahweh Himself. Thus Yahweh, Who deals righteously with all nations, would stretch out His hand and hand them over as spoil to the nations, and would have them removed for ever from the list of nations. As this occurred to them they would then know that He is Yahweh, and that they were wrong to say ‘Aha' at what they thought was His defeat. It would now be His turn to say ‘Aha'.
According to Josephus it was an historical fact that Ammon no longer existed as a nation after Nebuchadnezzar had first destroyed it, and then the Bedouins from the east had plundered it and taken it over. The ‘bringing again' of the captivity of the children of Ammon (Jeremiah 49:6) may refer to the Persian period (Nehemiah 2:10; Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:7), but more probably it is God's way of saying that finally none of these nations go beyond His purview even in their extremity. When God reaches out to the new Israel, the ‘Israel of God' (Galatians 6:16), with the Gospel (Isaiah 61:1-2), it will include many from all these countries.