Madmannah of Joshua 15:31 In his
Onomasticon, a gazetteer of Biblical place names, Eusebius of Caesarea, who was himself of the Roman province of Palaestina Prima, said that Menois was the town mentioned in , whose Hebrew name, according to the
Masoretic Text, is
Madmannah, a variation for "Madmenah". Different manuscripts of the
Septuagint give the name as ΜΑΧΑΡΕΙΜ (Macharim), ΒΕΔΕΒΗΝΑ (Bedebena), and ΜΑΡΑΡΕΙΜ (Mararim). The
Encyclopaedia Biblica of Cheyne and Black says that the name Madmannah is a corruption of
Marcaboth (in Beth-marcaboth takes the place of Madmannah), and that Marcaboth itself is a corruption of
Rehoboth. Eusebius, writing in Greek, called the town of Joshua 15:31
Medebena: Μηδεβηνά. φυλῆς Ἰούδα. καὶ ἔστι νῦν Μηνοεὶς πλησίον Γάζης πολίχνη. κεῖται καὶ ἐν Ἡσαΐᾳ (Medebena of the tribe of Judah, now Menois, a little town near Gaza, mentioned also in Isaiah). When
Jerome translated the
Onomasticon into Latin, he gave the name as
Medemena, a change that
Negev and
Gibson consider to be a correction. On the 6th-century
Madaba Map an image of a city gate flanked by two towers and a segment of city wall on the left marks Menois. With a slight change of spelling from that of Eusebius, but in full agreement with the name that the Septuagint gives to the place mentioned in Isaiah 10:31 that Eusebius also refers to, the Madaba Map calls the town "
Madebena, which is now Menois" (Μαδεβηνὰ ἡ νῦ[ν] Μηνοΐς). Those who do not accept the identification of Madmannah with Minois give estimates of its current location that include
Kh. Umm Deimneh (southwest of
Dhahiriya) and Kh. Tatrit. Simsons equated Madmannah with
Meconah, but this has not received unanimous agreement.
Madmenah of Isaiah 10:31 Eusebius stated that the town which he called Medebena is mentioned also in Isaiah, referring to , where the Masoretic text has
Madmenah as the name of the town. The Septuagint manuscripts uniformly give the name as
Madebena. Scholars have taken the context of the mention of Madmenah in Isaiah 10:31 as indicating that it was a place whereby an army approached
Jerusalem from the north. In that interpretation, its site is supposed to be
Shu‘fat, 2 kilometres north of
Mount Scopus.
Michael Avi-Yonah rejects this interpretation of the passage of Isaiah. In the entry "Madmena" in the
Encyclopaedia Judaica, he accepts Eusebius's identification of Menois with the Madmenah of Isaiah 10:31 (but not with the town mentioned in Joshua 15:31) and locates Menois near
Nirim, southeast of Gaza. Speaking of "Madmenah (מדמנה; ΜΑΔΕΒΗΝΑ [
BאAQ ]), a supposed village of
Benjamin, mentioned with
Gebim, Is 10:31", the
Encyclopaedia Biblica says: "Probably the name is corrupt (cp MADMEN), and we should read רמנה,
Rimmonah." == Bishopric ==