du'-ma (dumah, "silence"): This word occurs in the Old Testament
with the following significations: (1) the land of silence or
death, the grave (Psalm 94:17; Psalm 115:17); (2) a town in the
highlands of Judah between Hebron and Beersheba, now ed-Daume
(Joshua 15:52); (3) an emblematical designation of Edom in the
obscure oracle (Isaiah 21:11, 12); (4) an Ishmaelite tribe in
Arabia (Genesis 25:14 1 Chronicles 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;