Beth-Baal-Meon

Beth-baal-meon is a town east of the Jordan that the UPDV names under four forms: Beon (Num 32:3), Baal-meon (Num 32:38; 1 Chr 5:8; Eze 25:9), Beth-baal-meon (Jos 13:17), and Beth-meon (Jer 48:23). It belongs to the table of trans-Jordan cities that Reuben and Gad asked to occupy, was allotted to Reuben at the conquest, and reappears centuries later among the Moabite frontier towns named in the prophetic oracles against Moab.

A Town in the Reubenite Petition

The settlement first appears as Beon in the inventory the cattle-owning tribes lay before Moses: "Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon" (Num 32:3). The chapter records the building program that follows the petition, where Reuben rebuilds the same cluster of towns; the closing roll names "Nebo, and Baal-meon (their names being changed), and Sibmah" (Num 32:38). The parenthetical notice that the names were changed is preserved in UPDV as an ancient gloss.

Allotment to Reuben

When Joshua distributes the trans-Jordan land, the city is folded into the Reubenite share with the full toponym: "Heshbon, and all its cities that are in the plain; Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon" (Jos 13:17). The Chronicler later remembers the same boundary by pairing it with the neighboring height: the descendants of Reuben "dwelt in Aroer, even to Nebo and Baal-meon" (1 Chr 5:8).

A Moabite Frontier in the Oracles

By the time of the writing prophets the town has passed back into Moabite hands, and it is named under shorter forms in two oracles against Moab. Ezekiel hears Yahweh announce, "I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim" (Eze 25:9). Jeremiah's catalogue of doomed Moabite cities adds the contracted form: "and on Kiriathaim, and on Beth-gamul, and on Beth-meon" (Jer 48:23).