Dumah in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE
du'-ma (dumah, "silence"): This word occurs in the Old
Testament with the following significations: (1) the land of
silence or death, the grave (Ps 94:17; 115:17); (2) a town in
the highlands of Judah between Hebron and Beersheba, now ed-
Daume (Josh 15:52); (3) an emblematical designation of Edom in
the obscure oracle (Isa 21:11,12); (4) an Ishmaelite tribe in
Arabia (Gen 25:14; 1 Ch 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.
Thomas Hunter Weir
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