Hebrew word · H1776
דִּימוֹנָה
vedimonah
Dimonah
A proper name for a town in the Negev of Judah, found only here. It may be connected with Dibon of Judah in Nehemiah 11:25. Different spellings of a name were common, and Hebrew sometimes swaps m and b. It should not be confused with Dibon/Dimon in Moab (Isaiah 15:2, 9).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
§ Dimonah = "river bed" or "silence"
a town in the south Judah
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Joshua 15:22
- Range of meaning
A proper name for a town in the Negev of Judah, found only here. It may be connected with Dibon of Judah in Nehemiah 11:25. Different spellings of a name were common, and Hebrew sometimes swaps m and b. It should not be confused with Dibon/Dimon in Moab (Isaiah 15:2, 9).
- Against the English
English versions all write 'Dimonah' (KJV and NIV alike). The only risk is that a modern reader takes it to be today's Dimona in Israel.
- How it drifted
The modern Israeli development town of Dimona, founded in 1955, took the biblical name. It does not stand on the ancient site, which has not been identified.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Outside this list there is no sure mention of it. If it is the Dibon of Nehemiah 11:25, Judahites lived there again in the Persian period.
Where it appears
Joshua · 1
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Joshua 15:22 וְדִֽימוֹנָ֖ה and Dimonah
Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah,
Here: Another Negev town of Judah. It is often taken to be the 'Dibon' that Judahites lived in after the exile (Nehemiah 11:25). The site has not been found, and the modern Israeli town of Dimona only borrowed the name; it is not the ancient town.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.