Maon

Maon is a town in the hill country of Judah, the surrounding wilderness that bears its name, and — in the Chronicler's victory-list under Uzziah — a people called the Meunim associated with the Arabian frontier. The place anchors two narrative scenes in 1 Samuel: David hiding from Saul in its desert, and Nabal the great sheep-master living in it.

A Town in the Hill Country of Judah

Maon belongs to the city-allotment catalog of Joshua 15. The Judah list pairs it with the neighboring towns Carmel, Ziph, and Jutah: "Maon, Carmel, and Ziph, and Jutah," (Jos 15:55).

The Wilderness of Maon: David in Hiding

The same place gives its name to a stretch of desert that hides David from Saul. After the Ziphite informers move to Ziph, the narrative locates David and his men separately: "And they arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah on the south of the desert" (1Sa 23:24). Saul follows: "And Saul and his men went to seek him. And they told David: therefore he came down to the rock, and remained in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard [that], he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon" (1Sa 23:25). The location-noun is repeated three times in the two verses — the wilderness is fixed by name as the Maon-desert, with David along the Arabah on the south edge of the open desert-land.

Nabal of Maon

The town is also the residence of the great sheep-master whose flock-shearing at Carmel sets up the David-and-Abigail episode: "And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel" (1Sa 25:2). Maon is the man's seat; Carmel is the holding where the property and the shearing are.

The Meunim Under Uzziah

In the Chronicler's three-front victory-list attached to Uzziah, a people called the Meunim are named alongside the Philistines and the Gur-baal Arabians: "And God helped him against the Philistines, and against the Arabians who dwelt in Gur-baal, and the Meunim" (2Ch 26:7). The Arabians-who-dwelt-in-Gur-baal locative-qualifier sits between the Philistines and the Meunim in the help-verb tally, placing the Meunim on the same desert-frontier roster the Chronicler credits to Uzziah's reign.