Mattanah
Mat'tanah (Heb. ilattanah', מִתָּנָה, a gift, as in Ge 25:6, etc.; Sept. Μανθαναείν), the fifty-third station of the Israelites on the south-eastern edge of Palestine, between the well (Beer) in the desert and Nahaliel (Nu 21:18-19). It was no doubt a Moabitish, or rather Ammonitish city, and is placed by Eussebius and Jerome (Onomast. s.v.) in the region of Arnon, twelve miles eastward of Medebah, which Hengstenberg corrects to "southward" (Bileam, p. 240), i.e. apparently in the plain of Ard Ramadan, perhaps between the branches of wady Waleh. Leclerc (ad loc.) suggests that Mattanah may be the same with the mysterious word Vaheb (ver. 14; A.V. "what he did"), since the meaning of that word in Arabic is the same as that of Mattanah in Hebrew. This is nearly the same with the explanation of the Targums of Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan, who make it an appellative for the well or Beer just mentioned, as being a gift of God (see Kennicott, Remarks on O.T. p. 60). SEE EXODE.
