MAONITES Op: ; masmiA; Chanaan). It is to be observed that, though in our A. V. the name Maonites occurs in Judg. x. 12, yet the Hebrew word so rendered is the same elsewhere translated MA0N ( Josh. xv. 55 ; a Sam. xxiii. 24), and ap plied to a city and wilderness in the south of Judah. There can be no doubt that in this passage Maon' oyn), like 'Amalek' (p/n1/), though in the sin gular, is applied to a people, and not to a place ' The Sidonians also, and Amalek, and Maon did oppress you.' The Septuagint reads (Malida) Miclian, and the Vulgate Chanaan, doubtless from a desire to reconcile this statement with previous history ; but this is against the rules of sound criti cism. Where there is no MS. authority, the read ing of versions can never warrant a change in the sacred text. It is quite true that the Maonites are nowhere mentioned as having oppressed Israel before this period ; but the Bible was never in tended to contain a complete history.
Traces of the name Maon are found in several localities. It is given to a town in the south of Judah, now identified with the ruins of Tell Main (MAorr ; Handbook for S. and P., p. 64 It is given to the bleak and hilly pasture-lands' (He brew "inn ; DESERT) which extend away to the southward of the town of Maon (a Sam. xxiii. 25). In pronouncing a prophetic curse upon Moab, Jeremiah mentions Beth- Neon (f)3m 23), which may perhaps be the same as the Beth of Josh. xiii. 17, and the Baal-Meon of Num. xxxii. 38, and would thus be identical with the ruin Main, three miles south of lIeshbon. Still another Moon is mentioned in 2 Chron. xxvi.
7, where it is said of King Uzziah, that God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians that dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Meunbn' (A. V. Mehunims; but Heb. ?snynri, which is the plural of 1112n ; Mentiot). The LXX. also renders the word translated habitations' (crvinvi.
Ken ?ynn ; which in form is identical with 2 Chron. xxvi. 7) in the A. V. of a Chron. iv. 41,
Minaioi (MLvaioL); and both the form of the He brew word, and the sense of the passage, seem to show that it is a proper name. It is probable that all these names indicate the presence of an ancient and powerful nomad tribe, which was allied to the Phoenicians (or Sidonians), whose earliest settle ments were in the vale of Sodom, and with the Amalekites who dwelt in the wilderness south of Palestine. These Maonites migrated eastward, leaving their name at Maon in the south of Judah, where they may have had their head-quarters for a time, and again at Beth-Meon, on the plateau of Moab ; and also at the large modern village of on the eastern border of Edom, about fifteen miles from Petra. Ma'an is one of the most important stations on the Syrian Haj (` pilgrim caravan') route. It contains an old castle and some other remains of antiquity among the modern houses ; and around it are gardens and orchards (Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 436 ; Handbk., p. 5S ; Ritter, Pal. nod .Syr., 1004, seg. ; Winer, R. W., s. v. ; Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 14 ; and especially Wallin, in your nal of R. G. S., vol. xxiv. pp. 121-128). This was perhaps one of the chief stations of the Maon ites. It is not uncommon at the present day to find the names of great Arab tribes attached to their principal camping-grounds, though very far apart. One of the most celebrated of the Arabian tribes at the commencement of our era was the Mineri (Strabo, xvi. pp. 768, 776 ; Pliny, vi. 32 ; Ptolemy, vi. 7) ; but they seem to have resided in southern or south-eastern Arabia, much too far distant from Palestine to be identified with the Maonites, as has been shown by Bochart (Opp., i. 121 ; Forster's Arabia, ii. 254, sey.)—J. L. P.