DEDAN (DADAN) and DEDANIM. — Name of a locality and of a tribe. The latter is listed in Gen. 10:7 alongside the Sabeans among the descendants of Cush (Ethiopians) beyond the Red Sea; it is mentioned again alongside the Medanites (Gen. 35:3), whose territory lay to the north of the Hejaz.
The D. are named in Isa. 21:13; Jer. 25:23; Ezek. 38:13; 25:13 and Jer. 49:8. The last two texts consider D. to lie south of Edom (q.v.); this would be a place corresponding to the position of the one called Dedan. An inscription in Minaean script indicates that a temple sacred to the god Wadd was located at Dedan. According to Ezek. 27:15, 20 the D. were in commercial relations with Tyre.
Bibl.: F. Hommel, *Grundriss der Geogr. u. Geschichte des Alten Orients*, 2nd ed., Munich 1926 (q.V. index); A. Janssen-R. Savignac, *Mission archéologique en Arabie*, II, Paris 1914, pp. 29 ff.; M. Lidzbarski, *Ephemeris*, III, Giessen 1915, p. 273.