the Babylonians (Ἐρυθρὴ Θάλασσα = the Persian Gulf). Neither is it altogether natural to suppose that Canaan is thus placed because it had for a long time been a political dependency of Eg.: in that case, as Di. observes, we should have expected Canaan to figure as a son of Mizraim. The belief that Canaan and Israel belonged to entirely different branches of the human family is rooted in the circumstances that gave rise to the blessing and curse of Noah in ch. 9. When, with the extension of geographical knowledge, it became necessary to assign the Canaanites to a larger group (p. 187 above), it was inevitable that they should find their place as remote from the Hebrews as possible.
Of the descendants of Kush (v.7) a large proportion—all, indeed, that can be safely identified—are found in Arabia. Whether this means that Kushites had crossed the Red Sea, or that Arabia and Africa were supposed to be a continuous continent, in which the Red Sea formed an inland lake (KAT3, 137, 144), it is perhaps impossible to decide.
(5) (
Hebrew characters) (Σαβα)] Is. 433 4514, Ps. 7210; usually taken to be Meröe[1]
(between Berber and Khartoum). The tall stature attributed to the
people in Is. 4514 (but cf. 182. 7) is in favour of this view; but it has
nothing else to recommend it. Di. al. prefer the Saba referred to by
Strabo (xvi. iv. 8, 10; cf. Ptolemy, iv. 7. 7 f.) on the African side of
the Red Sea (S of Suakim). Je. (ATLO2, 265) considers the word as
the more correct variant to (Hebrew characters) (see below).
(6) (Hebrew characters) (Εύ[ε]ιλα[τ])] often (since Bochart) explained as 'sand-land'
(fr. (Hebrew characters)); named in v.29 (J) as a Joḳṭanite people, and in 2518 (also J) as
the eastern limit of the Ishmaelite Arabs. It seems impossible to
harmonise these indications. The last is probably the most ancient,
and points to a district in N Arabia, not too far to the E. We may
conjecture that the name is derived from the large tract of loose red
sand (nefūd) which stretches N of Teima and S of el-Ǧōf. This is
precisely where we should look for the Χαυλοταῖοι whom Eratosthenes
(Strabo, XVI. iv. 2) mentions (next to the Nabateans) as the second of
three tribes on the route from Egypt to Babylon; and Pliny (vi. 157)
gives Domata (= Dûmāh = el-Ǧōf: see p. 353) as a town of the Avalitæ.
The name might easily be extended to other sandy regions of Arabia,
(perhaps especially to the great sand desert in the southern interior):
of some more southerly district it must be used both here and v.29
(see Mey, INS, 325 f.). To distinguish further the Cushite from the
Joktanite (Hebrew characters), and to identify the former with the Ἀβαλῖται, etc., on the
African coast near Bab-el-mandeb, is quite unnecessary. On the other
hand, it is impossible to place either of these so far N as the head of the
Persian Gulf (Glaser) or the ENE part of the Syrian desert (Frd. Del.).
Nothing can be made of Gn. 211; and in 1 Sa. 157 (the only other occurrence)
the text is probably corrupt.
(7) (Hebrew characters) (Σαβαθα)] not identified. Possibly Σάβατα, Sabota, the
capital of Ḥaḍramaut (see on v.26) (Strabo, XVI. iv. 2; Pliny, HN, vi. 155,
xii. 63),—though in Sabæan this is written (Hebrew characters) (see Osiander, ZDMG,
- ↑ Jos. Ant. ii. 249. In i. 134 f. he seems to confuse (
Hebrew characters) and (Hebrew characters).
