DUMAR (diVmah), leg. doo-maw% si lence).
' 1. A son of Ishmael, most probably the founder of an Ishmaclite tribe of Arabia, ;old so giving name to the principal place or district inhabited by that tribe (Gen. xxv :t4; t Citron. i:30; Is. xxi:11).
2. The region occupied by the Ishnetelites in Arabia (Gen. xxv:14 ; Is. xxi :it) It is less the same that is still called by the Arabs !hlm, the Stony, and the Syrian Puma, situ ated on the confines of the Arabian and Syrian deserts, with a fortress (Niebuhr, Besehreibung, P. 344)• 3. Mullah was also the name of a town in the tribe of Judah (Josh. xv :52). which Eusebtus and Jerome place seventeen Roman miles from Elcu thcropolis, in Daroma.
Figurative. As employed in Is. xxi:11, Du malt appears to lie symbolical, meaning deep, complete "silence," and therefore the land of the dead ( Ps. xciv:17; cxv:i7).
DUMB (aim), Web. =7.$, lame', speechless; Dab. ii:19; Cr. Meock, kudos', blunted, as to tongue).
It denotes (I) Such as cannot speak for want of natural abilities (Exod. iv a ; i Cor. :2). (2) Such as cannot teach others for want of grace, knowledge, and courage (Is. lei :to). (3) Submissive and silent under the dispensations of Providence (Ps. xxxix :9)• (4) Such as do not speak ( l's. xxxtx :2; Ezek. (5) Such as cannot speak in their own cause by rea son of ignorance, fear, etc. (Pow. xxxi :8). (0) Rendered speechless by a divine ecstasy of won der and amazement ( Dan. x :15). (7) Zachanah's dumbness during his wife's pregnancy might fig ure out the silencing and abolition of the cere monial laws by Christ's appearance in our nature: or that by means of his birth, and what followed. their true language and signification should be made known (Luke i :2o). (8) A dumb and deaf spirit is one who, by his possession of persons, renders them dumb and deaf (Mark ix :17, 25).
DUNG (dang), (Het). ash'Poth, dung, dirt, rubbish). Among the Israelites, as with the modern Orientals, dung was used both for manure and for fuel.
In a district where wood is scarce, dung is so valuable for the latter purpose, that little of it is spared for the former.
(1) The use of dung for manure is indicated in Is. xxv:to, front which we also learn that its bulk was increased by the addition of straw, which was, of course, as with us, left to rot in the dunghill. Some of the regulations connected with this use of dung we learn front the Talmud. The heaping up of a dunghill in a public place exposed the owner to the repair of any damage it might occasion, and any one was at liberty to take it away (Bora-kali:a, i :3, 3). reg ulation forbade the accumulation of the dung hill to be removed, in the seventh or sabhatic year, to the vicinity of any ground under culture (Sabi). which was equivalent to an
diction of the use of manure in that year ; and this must have occasioned some increase of labor in the year ensuing.
(2) The use of dung for fuel is collected in cidentally front the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel, being commanded, as a symbolical action, to bake his bread with human dung. excuses himself from the use of an unclean thing. and is permitted to employ cows' dung instead (Ezek. iv:12-15). This shows that the dung of animals, at least of clean animals, was usual, and that no ideas of ceremonial unclean ness were attached to its employment for this pur pose. The use of cow dung for fuel is known to villagers in the west of England, who prefer it in baking their bread 'under the crock.' on ac count of the long-cont limed and equable heat which it maintains.
(3) In many thinlv wooded parts of M.11111 WCSt ern Asia the dung of cows. cameIC, burst's. asses, whichever may happen to be the most common, is collected with great zeal and dili gence from the streets and highways, chiefly by young girls. They also hover on the skirts of the encampments of travelers, and there are often amusing scrambles among them for the droppings of the cattle. The dung is mixed up with chopped straw, and made into cakes, which are stuck up by their own adhesiveness against the walls of the cottages, or are laid upon the de clivity of a hill, until sufficiently dried. It is not unusual to see a whole village with its walls thus garnished, which has a singular and not very agreeable appearance to a European trav eler. Towards the end of autumn, the result of the summer collection of fuel for winter is shown in large conical heaps or stacks of dried dung upon the top of every cottage. The usages of the Jews in this matter were probably similar in kind, although the extent to which they pre vailed cannot now be estimated.
Figurative. (1) Wicked men are likened to dung ( Jer. xvi : Job xx :7). (2) To fall like dung, and handfuls of corn, is to be slain in multi tudes (Ps. lxxxiii:to; Jer. ix :22). (3) Idols are called about forty-nine times dung-gods, or gillu lim, to denote how useless and abominable they are (Dent. xxix :17, etc). (4) God spreads the dung of men's sacrifices and solemn feasts on their faces when he rejects their religious services. be cause of their hypocrisy and wickedness (Mal. ii :3). (5)The saints count all things but dung, or dogs' meat, to win Christ ; altogether worthless and abominable in comparison of him, and utterly insufficient to recommend them to the favor of God as a judge (Phil. iii :8).