Bible Dictionary
Dumah
Dumah is a name used for an Ishmaelite tribe and region in Arabia, a town in Judah, and an oracle associated with Edom. The name is related to the idea of silence or stillness.
Definition
Dumah, meaning “silence,” is used for an Ishmaelite tribe and its Arabian region, a town in the highlands of Judah, and an emblematic designation in Isaiah. The word can also denote the grave or land of silence.
Biblical Usage
Dumah is named as an Ishmaelite descendant and tribe, as a town of Judah, and in the oracle of Isaiah 21:11. The name also carries the figurative sense of silence or death in the Psalms.
Historical Background
The Judahite town is identified with ed-Daume or ed-Domeh near Hebron. The Arabian Dumah was associated with Dumat-el-Jandal, a settlement in a depression with a great well used to irrigate palms and crops.
Scripture References
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Silence, (comp. Ps. 94:17), the fourth son of Ishmael; also the tribe descended from him; and hence also the region in Arabia which they inhabited (Gen. 25:14; 1 Chr. 1:30). There was also a town of this name in Judah (Josh. 15:52), which has been identified with ed-Domeh, about 10 miles southwest of Hebron. The place mentioned in the “burden” of the prophet Isaiah (21:11) is Edom or Idumea.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(silence).
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>du'-ma (dumah, "silence"): This word occurs in the Old Testament with the following significations:</p><p>(1) the land of silence or death, the grave (Ps 94:17; 115:17);</p><p>(2) a town in the highlands of Judah between Hebron and Beersheba, now ed-Daume (Jos 15:52);</p><p>(3) an emblematical designation of Edom in the obscure oracle (Isa 21:11,12);</p><p>(4) an Ishmaelite tribe in Arabia (Ge 25:14; 1Ch 1:30). According to the Arabic geographies this son of Ishmael rounded the town of Dumat-el-Jandal, the stone-built Dumah, so called to distinguish it from another Dumah near the Euphrates. The former now bears the name of the Jauf ("belly"), being a depression situated half-way between the head of the Persian Gulf and the head of the gulf of Akaba. Its people in the time of Mohammed were Christians of the tribe of Kelb. It contained a great well from which the palms and crops were irrigated. It has often been visited by European travelers in recent times. See Jour. Royal Geog. Soc., XXIV (1854), 138-58; W. G. Palgrave, Central and Eastern Arabia, chapter ii. It is possible that the oracle in Isa (number 3 above) concerns this place.</p><p>Thomas Hunter Weir</p>