Hebrew word · H4087
מַדְמֵנָה
madmenah
dunghill
A dung pit or manure heap. It is related to domen, 'dung, manure' (2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:22), where corpses lie unburied 'like dung on the face of the ground'.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
dung place, dung pit, dung hill
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 Isaiah 25:10
- Range of meaning
A dung pit or manure heap. It is related to domen, 'dung, manure' (2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:22), where corpses lie unburied 'like dung on the face of the ground'.
- Against the English
KJV 'dunghill' and BSB 'dung pile' suggest a dry heap. In context (and especially with the Qere 'waters of', plus the swimmer in v. 11) it is a wet, sloppy manure pit.
- How it drifted
'Dunghill' is an archaic word and today sounds like a rubbish heap. The Hebrew picture is a sloppy cesspit where straw is worked into liquid manure.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The word occurs only here. Jer 48:2 names a Moabite town Madmen and threatens it with a pun ('Madmen, you too will be silenced', nidmi). Isa 15:9 puns on the 'waters of Dimon' (probably Dibon) being full of blood (dam). Prophets clearly played on Moabite place names.
Similar words
Where it appears
Isaiah · 1
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Isaiah 25:10 מַדְמֵנָֽה׃ a dung hill
For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain. But Moab will be trampled in his place as straw is trodden into the dung pile.
Here: A manure pit, where straw was trodden into dung to make fertilizer. It probably puns on Madmen, a Moabite town (Jer 48:2), so Moab is trodden into its own 'Dung-town'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.