Mattanah

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Numbers 21:18,19

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

A station on Moab's border between Beer, the well which God gave (Mattanah means a gift) and which is commemorated in Israel's song, and Nahaliel (Numbers 21:18). Maschana on the Arnon (Eusebius).

Holman Bible Dictionary

Numbers 21:18-19

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

A place where Israel encamped, Numbers 21:18. The name means a gift.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

MATTANAH. A ‘station’ of the Israelites ( Numbers 21:18; Numbers 21:13 ). No satisfactory identification has been made.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Halting place of Israel near Moab. Numbers 21:18,19 .

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Mat'tanah. (gift of Jehovah). A station in the latter part of the wandering of the Israelites. Numbers 21:18-19, It was probably situated to the southeast of the Dead Sea.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

mat´a - na ( מתּנה , mattānāh  ; Codex Vaticanus, Μανθαναείν , Manthanaeı́n  ; Codex Alexandrinus, Μανθανείν , Manthaneı́n ): A station of the Israelites which seems to have lain between Beer and Nahaliel ( Numbers 21:18 f). The name means "gift," and might not inappropriately be applied to a well in the wilderness (Budde translates "Out of the desert a gift"; see The Expository Times, VI, 482). Some would therefore identify it with Beer. This is improbable. There is now no clue to the place, but it must have lain Southwest of the Dead Sea.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. ilattanah', מִתָּנָה, a gift, as in Genesis 25:6, etc.; Sept. Μανθαναείν), the fifty-third station of the Israelites on the south-eastern edge of Palestine, between the well (Beer) in the desert and Nahaliel (Numbers 21:18-19). It was no doubt a Moabitish, or rather Ammonitish city, and is placed by Eussebius and Jerome (Onomast. s.v.) in the region of Arnon, twelve miles eastward of Medebah, which Hengstenberg corrects to "southward" (Bileam, p. 240), i.e. apparently in the plain of Ard Ramadan, perhaps between the branches of wady Waleh. Leclerc (ad loc.) suggests that Mattanah may be the same with the mysterious word Vaheb (Numbers 21:14; A.V. "what he did"), since the meaning of that word in Arabic is the same as that of Mattanah in Hebrew. This is nearly the same with the explanation of the Targums of Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan, who make it an appellative for the well or Beer just mentioned, as being a gift of God (see Kennicott, Remarks on O.T. p. 60). (See Exode).