Madmen

Madmen was a Moabite town threatened with destruction in Jeremiah's oracle against Moab (Jeremiah 48:2): "Madmen also shall be silenced; the sword shall pursue thee." The name in Hebrew creates a wordplay with the root damam (to be silent, to be destroyed), as if saying "Silence-town shall be silenced." Its exact location within Moab east of the Dead Sea is uncertain and it has not been positively identified by modern archaeology.

Jeremiah 48 is a long oracle of judgment against Moab predicting the devastation of its cities and the humiliation of its god Chemosh. Madmen appears in a rapid succession of Moabite towns named in the prophecy, each facing divine judgment. The passage reflects the prophetic tradition of using place names for rhetorical effect, a technique also seen in Micah 1:10–15.