Mehunim

AI summary: Mehunim matters because the wider biblical references connect the name both to regional peoples encountered in warfare and to groups absorbed into the service structures of the restored community. Even though this record points only to the post-exilic servant lists, the name carries a broader history of movement, conflict, and incorporation. Taken together, the material presents Mehunim as a people-name whose biblical footprint spans both opposition and service.¹

Habitations, (2 Chr. 26:7; R.V. “Meunim,” Vulg. Ammonitae), a people against whom Uzziah waged a successful war. This word is in Hebrew the plural of Ma’on, and thus denotes the Maonites who inhabited the country on the eastern side of the Wady el-Arabah. They are again mentioned in 1 Chr. 4:41 (R.V.), in the reign of King Hezekiah, as a Hamite people, settled in the eastern end of the valley of Gedor, in the wilderness south of Palestine. In this passage the Authorized Version has “habitation,” erroneously following the translation of Luther. They are mentioned in the list of those from whom the Nethinim were made up (Ezra 2:50; Neh. 7:52). ³