Dinhabah

Dinhabah (meaning robbers' den or he gives judgment) was the capital city of Bela son of Beor, the first named king of Edom, whose reign predated the Israelite monarchy (Gen. 36:32; 1 Chr. 1:43). The city appears only in the genealogical and royal list of Edomite kings, which records eight successive rulers of Edom without dynastic succession—each from a different family or city—suggesting an elective or competitive kingship structure rather than hereditary rule.

The location of Dinhabah is entirely unknown; no extrabiblical source or archaeological identification has been proposed with confidence. The ISBE notes the difficulty of locating Edomite cities from this early period. Dinhabah's significance is solely that it represents the administrative center of the earliest documented Edomite royal government in the Genesis genealogy.