Dibon

Dibon is a place-name carried by two distinct sites in the UPDV: a Moabite town on the northern banks of the Arnon (also styled Dibon-gad and, in one Isaiah oracle, Dimon), and a town in the territory of Judah identified with Dimonah. The Moabite Dibon dominates the references — it appears in the Amorite victory-song, the wilderness itinerary, the Reubenite border-description, the Gadite construction-list, and the prophetic burdens against Moab — while the Judahite Dibon surfaces only in the post-exilic settlement-list and the Joshua town-roll of the Negeb.

A town on the edge of the Amorite war-song

Dibon first enters the record as a southern reach of devastation in the taunt-song that Numbers reports after Israel's defeat of Sihon: "Heshbon is perished even to Dibon" (Num 21:30). The line places Dibon at the far end of an Amorite strip whose ruin spans from Heshbon in the north down through Dibon and across to Medeba, marking the city as a known terminus-point along the Moabite frontier even before Israel arrives.

The wilderness itinerary then logs Dibon as a halt under its compound name: "they journeyed from Iyim, and encamped in Dibon-gad" (Num 33:45). The Dibon-gad form ties the site to the tribe of Gad already at the camp-stage, before any allotment is recorded.

Allotted to Gad and Reuben

When the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben petition Moses for the trans-Jordan, Dibon stands second in the cattle-suited list they cite: "Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon" (Num 32:3). The same chapter then records that "the sons of Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer" (Num 32:34), pairing Dibon with the construction-work of Gad on the freshly granted territory.

Joshua's later border-description lists Dibon as the upper limit of the Medeba-plain inside Reuben's allotment: "all the plain of Medeba to Dibon" (Jos 13:9). A few verses on, the Reubenite town-list itself names "Heshbon, and all its cities that are in the plain; Dibon, and Bamoth-baal, and Beth-baal-meon" (Jos 13:17). The two Numbers traditions (Gad-built Dibon, Gad-encamped Dibon-gad) and the two Joshua lines (Reuben's plain-terminus, Reuben's plain-city) together place Dibon in the contested overlap-zone where the Gadite and Reubenite holdings touch.

Taken by Moab and lamented in the prophets

By the time of Isaiah's burden-of-Moab, Dibon is a Moabite town again — and one of the high-place centers where the people climb to weep when the night-blow falls: "Ha-Bayith went up, and Dibon, to the high places to weep" (Isa 15:2). Dibon is exhibited here as a named Moabite town that joins Ha-Bayith in mounting the high places to lament the chapter's overnight devastation.

The same oracle pivots later in the chapter to a variant of the name: "For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; for I will bring yet more on Dimon, a lion on those of Moab who escape, and on the remnant of the land" (Isa 15:9). The Dimon form — distinct in spelling from Dibon a few verses earlier — extends the judgment from the high-place weeping to the city's own waters, with a lion-strike threatened against any Moabite escape.

Jeremiah's oracle against Moab takes up the same daughter-figure and addresses the city directly: "O you daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst" (Jer 48:18). The address forces Dibon down from her former exalted-station; the sit-in-thirst paired-imperative grades the post-descent state as deprivation; the destroyer-of-Moab grounding-clauses identify the cause as the strongholds-already-pulled-down. The same chapter rolls Dibon into the catalog of Moabite towns under the wider judgment: "and on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth-diblathaim" (Jer 48:22).

A second Dibon in the territory of Judah

A separate Dibon belongs to Judah. Joshua's town-list of the Judahite Negeb names "Kinah, and Dimonah, and Aradah" (Jos 15:22), and Nehemiah's resettlement-record places sons of Judah back in the same town under its other spelling: "And as for the villages, with their fields, some of the sons of Judah dwelt in Kiriath-arba and its towns, and in Dibon and its towns, and in Jekabzeel and its villages" (Neh 11:25). The two passages line up the Judahite Dibon (Nehemiah) with the Judahite Dimonah (Joshua), distinct in location and tribal-association from the Moabite Dibon on the Arnon.