THE NATIONS OF THE SOUTH-EAST
Israel was cut in two by the Jordan. The districts east of the Jordan
were those that had first been conquered; it was from thence that the
followers of Joshua had gone forth to possess themselves of Canaan. But
this division of the territory was a source of weakness. The interests
of the tribes on the two sides of the river were never quite the same;
at times indeed they were violently antagonistic. When the disruption of
the monarchy came after the death of Solomon, Judah was the stronger for
the fact that the eastern tribes followed those of the north. The
eastern tribes were the first to lose their independence; they were
carried into Assyrian captivity twelve years before the fall of Samaria
itself.
The eastern side of Jordan, in fact, belonged of right to the kinsfolk
of the Israelites, the children of Lot. Ammon and Moab derived their
origin from the nephew of Abraham, not from the patriarch himself, the
ancestor of Ammon being Ben-Ammi, "the Son of Ammi," the national god of
the race. It was said that the two peoples were the offspring of incest,
and the cave was pointed out where they had been born. Ammon occupied
the country to the north which in earlier days had been the home of the
aboriginal Zuzini or Zamzummim. But they had been treated as the
Canaanites were treated by the Israelites in later days; their cities
were captured by the invading Ammonites, and they themselves massacred
or absorbed into the conquerors.
To the north the territory of Ammon was bounded by the plateau of Bashan
and the Aramaic kingdoms of Gilead. Southward it extended towards the
frontier of Moab, if indeed the borders of the two nations did not at
one time coincide. When the Israelitish invasion, however, took place,
the Amorites under Sihon had thrust themselves between, and had carved
for themselves a kingdom out of the northern half of Moab. The land
north of the Arnon became Amorite; but the Ammonite frontier was too
well defended to be broken through.
The kingdom of Ammon maintained itself down to the time of David. At one
time, in the days of the Judges, the Ammonites had made the Israelitish
tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan tributary to them, and had even
crossed the river and raided the highlands of Ephraim. Under Saul, Ammon
and Israel were at constant feud. Saul had begun his reign by rescuing
Jabesh in Gilead from the Ammonite king Nahash, who had threatened to
treat its inhabitants with innate Semitic barbarity. When civil war
broke out in Israel, Nahash naturally befriended David, and the alliance
continued after David's accession to the throne. Common interests
brought them together. Esh-Baal, the successor of Saul in Gilead, was
the enemy of both: his frontier adjoined that of Ammon, while between
him and the King of Judah there was perpetual war. David had
strengthened himself by marrying the daughter of the king of the Aramaic
district of Geshur, which bounded Gilead on the north, and Ammonites and
Aramæans were in close alliance with each other.
As long as Nahash lived, there was peace between him and David. But with
the accession of his son Hanun came a change. The King of Judah had
become King of Israel, and his general, Joab, had subdued the
neighbouring kingdom of Moab, and was looking out for a fresh field of
fame. Hanun determined to forestall the war which he believed to be
inevitable, and, in alliance with the Aramæans, to crush the rising
power of David. Family quarrels also probably conspired to bring about
this resolution. In the after days of Absalom's rebellion we find David
entertained in Gilead by Shobi the brother of Hanun;[6] it may be,
therefore, that Hanun had had a rival in his brother, who had received
shelter and protection at David's court. At all events the Israelitish
ambassadors were grossly insulted, and a long war with Ammon began.
Campaign followed upon campaign; the City of Waters, Rabbah, the
"capital" of Ammon, was closely invested, and the Aramaic allies of
Hanun were put to flight. Rabbah fell at last; its defenders were
tortured and slain, and the kingdom of Ammon annexed to the Israelitish
empire.
When it recovered its independence we do not know. In the days of
Assyrian conquest in the West it was already again governed by its own
kings. One of them, Baasha, the son of Rehob, was, like Ahab of Samaria,
an ally of Damascus against the Assyrian invader, and we hear of two
others, one of whom bears the same name as "Shinab, King of Admah." The
storm of Babylonian conquest which overwhelmed Judah spared Ammon; after
the destruction of Jerusalem Baalis was still king of the Ammonites, and
ready to extend his power over the desolated fields of Judah.[7]
The language of Ammon, if we may argue from the proper names, was, like
that of Moab, a mere dialectal variety of that of Israel. The "language
of Canaan" must have been adopted by the Ammonites and Moabites just as
it was by the Israelitish tribes. The Moabite Stone has proved this
conclusively. Moabite and Ammonite, Phoenician and Hebrew, were all
alike dialects of one language, which differed from one another merely
as one English dialect differs from another. Hebrew had retained a few
"Arabisms," a few traces of its ancient contact with Arabic-speaking
tribes; that was all. In other respects it was the same as "the language
of Canaan" on either side of the Jordan.
The Ammonites believed themselves to be the children of the national god
Ammi. But Ammi was usually worshipped under the title of Malcham or
Milcom, "the King." It was to Milcom that Solomon erected an altar at
Jerusalem, in honour of that Ammonite wife whose son Rehoboam succeeded
him on the throne, and it was from the head of his image at Kabbah that
his crown of gold and precious stones, 131 pounds in weight, was removed
to grace the triumph of David.[8]
Moab was more exposed to the inroads of its nomadic neighbours from the
wilderness than its sister-kingdom of Ammon. It lay along the eastern
shores of the Dead Sea, and was a land of lofty mountains and fertile
river-plains. Its wadis were coveted by the tribes of the desert; the
well-watered valley of the Arnon attracted more powerful foes. When the
Israelites encamped in "the plain of Moab," Balak, the Moabite king,
sent in terror to Balaam, the seer of Pethor. He had indeed cause for
alarm. The Amorites had already robbed him of the fairest portion of his
dominions; Moab north of the Arnon had fallen into their hands. The
Amorite song of triumph has been preserved in the Book of Numbers. "Come
unto Heshbon," it said; "let the city of Sihon be built and fortified.
For a fire has gone forth from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon;
it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the Baalim of the high-places of Arnon.
Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh: [Chemosh] hath
given his sons that escaped [the battle], and his daughters, into
captivity unto Sihon, King of the Amorites."[9]
Moab was avenged by Israel. The Amorites were crushed by the Israelitish
forces, though the lands they had taken from Moab were not restored to
their original owners. The conquerors settled in them, and a mixed
Israelitish and Moabite population was the result. The Moabites, in
fact, were powerless to resist. The southern portion of the kingdom had
been overrun by Midianite hordes; the enemy with whom the Israelites had
to contend on Moabite soil was Midianite and not Moabite. Those who
corrupted Israel on the high-place of Peor were Midianites in race.
The Midianites seem to have continued in occupation of Moabite territory
for several generations. Reuben was enabled to pasture his flocks in
peace in its valleys, and it is probable that it was not till Hadad, the
King of Edom, "smote Midian in the plain of Moab" that Midianitish
supremacy came finally to an end. It may be that Gideon's success
against the Midianite oppressors of Gilead was one of the results of
their overthrow by the Edomite prince.
At the same time, Midianitish supremacy did not mean the destruction of
the Moabite kingdom. Moab was still governed by its own kings, tributary
vassals though they were to the foreigner. One of them, Eglon, made
himself master of southern Palestine shortly after the Israelitish
conquest of the country, and was murdered by the Benjamite Ehud. Between
Moab and Judah there was, as might be expected from their geographical
position, constant intercourse. A Moabitess was the ancestress of David,
and it was to the court of the King of Moab that David entrusted his
parents when hard pressed by Saul. Possibly the Moabite prince was not
ill pleased to befriend the enemy of his own enemy, the King of Israel.
It had been better for the Moabites, however, had David never lived to
succeed Saul. The conquest of the Philistines by his troops was followed
by the conquest of Moab. The vanquished people were decimated, every
second man being mercilessly slain. So thoroughly was the country
subdued that it was more than a century before it ventured to break away
from its Israelitish master. After the disruption of Solomon's heritage
it fell to the share of the northern kingdom, though native kings once
more sat upon its throne. Now and again they revolted, to be brought
back to obedience, however, when Israel recovered its strength. Such was
the case when Omri founded his dynasty at Samaria; Moab again became a
dependency of the Israelitish monarch, and its ruler was forced to pay
tribute and homage to his over-lord. The tribute consisted in sheep, or
rather in their skins, which were tanned by the Israelites into leather,
while the fleeces upon them were woven into cloth. In the time of Ahab,
Mesha, the son of Chemosh-melech, sent each year 100,000 lambs and
100,000 rams.
Mesha subsequently succeeded in shaking off the foreign yoke. He has
left us a record of his victories, the so-called Moabite Stone, which
was discovered among the ruins of his capital, Dibon. The country north
of the Arnon was wrested from Israelitish hands, and the King of Israel,
in spite of help from Judah and Edom, failed to recover it. Moab was
permanently lost to the kingdom of Samaria. The Assyrian texts mention
some of its later rulers. One of them was Shalman, who may be the
spoiler of Beth-Arbel referred to by Hosea;[10] another was
Chemosh-nadab, the contemporary of Hezekiah.
Chemosh-nadab signifies "Chemosh is noble." Chemosh was the national god
of Moab, as Milcom or Ammi was of Ammon. Like Yahveh of Israel, he stood
alone, with no wife to share his divinity. So entirely, in fact, had the
conception of a goddess vanished from the mind of the Moabite, that, as
we learn from the Moabite Stone, the Babylonian Istar, the Ashtoreth of
Canaan, had been transformed into a male deity, and identified with
Chemosh. It was to Ashtar-Chemosh, Mesha tells us, and not to Ashtoreth,
that he devoted the captive women of Israel.
The older population, expelled or enslaved by the conquering Moabites,
went by the name of Emim. It is probable that they belonged to the same
stock as the Zamzummim or Zuzim whose country had been seized by the
Ammonites. We may gather from the narrative in Genesis that the invaders
forced their way eastward and northward from the valley of the Jordan
and the shores of the Dead Sea.
South of Moab were the rugged and barren mountains of Seir, the seat of
the kingdom of Edom. In prehistoric days they had been the home of the
Horites, whose name may denote that they were of the "white" Amorite
race or that they were dwellers in "caves." To the Egyptians it was
known as "the Red Land," along with the desert that stretched westward;
"Edom" is merely the Hebrew or Canaanitish translation of the Egyptian
title. The title was one which well befitted the red cliffs of Seir.
Through the centre of the mountains a rift extended from the Dead Sea to
the Gulf of Aqaba. In geological times it had been the channel of the
Jordan; now it is called the Wadi el-Araba. It was this rift which
brought wealth to Edom; through it passed the highroad of commerce which
connected Syria with the harbours at the head of the gulf. The spices of
Arabia, the gold of Africa, were unshipped at Elath and Ezion-gaber, and
carried from thence on the backs of camels to the nations of the north.
The tolls levied on the merchandise made the kingdom of Edom wealthy,
and at the same time an object of envy to its poorer neighbours. In
conquering Edom, David doubtless desired to secure the trade with the
Red Sea and the ports through which the trade passed.
Edom was the elder brother of Israel. The two nations never forgot that
they were of one blood and one parentage. Their languages were the same,
as we may gather from the Edomite proper names; indeed, it would seem
that the dialect of Edom agreed with Hebrew in those Arabising
peculiarities which marked it off from the language of the Canaanites.
Edomites took part in the Israelitish conquest of Palestine, and both
Caleb and Othniel were Kenizzites by race.
The Edomite occupation of Seir was long subsequent to the settlement of
the Ammonites and Moabites in the regions which bore their names, though
it preceded the Israelitish settlement in Canaan. While Israel was
herding its flocks in Egypt, Edom was establishing itself in the
mountains of Seir. Esau, the brother of Jacob, had already gathered
around him a body of followers, and had married into the family of a
Horite chief. His descendants, partly by conquest, partly by absorption,
planted themselves securely in the country which was henceforth to be
called Edom. Horite and Amalekite Bedâwin were alike absorbed into the
new-comers, whose position in Edom resembled that of the Israelites in
Canaan.
How long the work of conquest and settlement lasted we do not know. It
resulted in the formation of numerous tribes, each under its chieftain,
the _alûph_ or "duke" as he was termed. These "dukes" corresponded with
the "princes" of the tribes of Israel. But whereas the "princes" of the
Israelitish tribes did not survive the life in the desert, the "dukes"
of Edom give way only to kings. For this there was a good reason. The
invasion of Canaan and the promulgation of the Mosaic Law changed the
whole organisation of the Hebrew people. On the one hand, the Israelites
required a leader who should lead them in the first instance against the
Canaanites, in the second against the foreign oppressors who enslaved
them from time to time. On the other hand, the high-priests at Shiloh
exercised many of the functions which would naturally have belonged to
the head of the tribe. Neither "judge" nor high-priest was needed in
Edom. There the native population was weak and uncivilised; it possessed
neither cities nor chariots of iron, and its subjugation was no
difficult task. Once in possession of the fastnesses of Seir, the
Edomites were comparatively safe from external attack. It was a land of
dangerous defiles and barren mountains, surrounded on all sides by the
desert. There was no central sanctuary, no Levitical priesthood, no
Mosaic Law. The "duke" consequently had no rival; the history of Edom
knows nothing of judges or high-priests.
The law of evolution, however, which governed other Semitic communities
prevailed also in Edom. The dukes had to give place to a king. The
tribes were united under a single leader, and the loosely federated
clans became a kingdom. As in Israel, so too in Edom the kingdom was
elective. But, unlike Israel, it remained elective; there was no
pressure of Philistine conquest, no commanding genius like David, no
central capital like Jerusalem to make it centralised and hereditary.
Several generations had to pass before the Edomites were called upon to
fight for their independence against a foreign invader, and when they
did so the struggle ended in their subjugation. The elective principle
and the want of a common centre and feeling of unity that resulted from
it had much to do with the victory of David.
The song of triumph with which the Israelitish fugitives celebrated the
overthrow of their Egyptian enemies mentions the _alûphím_ or "dukes" of
Edom. But before the Israelites had emerged from the wilderness the
dukes had been supplanted by a king. It was a king who refused a passage
through his dominions to Moses and his followers, and in this king some
scholars have seen the Aramæan seer Balaam the son of Beor. At all
events, the first Edomite king is said to have been Bela or Balaam the
son of Beor, and the name of the city of Din-habah, from which he came,
has a close resemblance to that of Dunip in northern Syria.
A list of the kings of Edom is given in the thirty-sixth chapter of
Genesis, extracted from the state annals of the country. It seems to be
brought down to the time when Saul was elected king over Israel. The
chronicles of Edom were probably taken to Jerusalem at the time of its
conquest by David; at any rate, they would then have become accessible
to an Israelitish writer. The conquest was very thorough, all the male
population being put to the sword, and a few only escaping to Egypt.
Among these was a member of the royal house, Hadad by name, who grew up
at the Egyptian court, and, after marrying the sister-in-law of the
Pharaoh, returned to his native mountains, where he played the part of a
bandit chief. The caravans which passed from the Gulf of Aqaba to the
north were attacked and plundered, and Solomon up to the end of his
reign failed to suppress the brigands. With the disruption of the
Israelitish monarchy, Edom, as was natural, fell to the lot of Judah,
and for many years was governed by a viceroy. It was not until after the
death of Jehoshaphat that the Edomites succeeded in revolting from their
masters, and in recovering their ancient independence. Three of their
rulers are mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions, from which we learn
that there was a city of Edom, as well as a country of that name.
Of the religion of the Edomites we know but little. The supreme Baal was
the Sun-god Hadad; another god worshipped by them was Qaus or Kos. Of
goddesses we hear nothing. The Israelites, however, recognised in the
Edomites brethren of their own, whose religion was not far removed from
that of the descendants of Jacob. An Edomite of the third generation
could enter "into the congregation of the Lord," and we hear of no rival
deity in Edom to Yahveh of Israel. Indeed, in the old poetry of Israel
Yahveh was said to have risen up "from Seir," and the charge brought
against Edom by the prophet Obadiah is not that of idolatry or the
worship of a "strange god," but of standing on the side of the
"foreigners" on the day that Jerusalem was destroyed.
The southern part of Edom was known as Teman; it was to the east of
Teman that the Kadmonites or "children of the East" pitched their tents.
We first hear of them in an Egyptian papyrus of the age of the Twelfth
dynasty (B.C. 2500). Then they received with hospitality a political
fugitive from Egypt; he married one of their princesses and became one
of their chiefs. Their wisdom was celebrated in Palestine like that of
their Edomite neighbours of Teman, and the highest praise that could be
bestowed on Solomon was that his "wisdom excelled all the wisdom of the
children of the East."
Not far from the camping-places of the Kadmonites was the land of Uz,
famous as the home of Job. Uz, in fact, was a province of Edom; Edomite
colonists, so we are told in the Book of Lamentations,[11] inhabited it.
Indeed, it has been suggested that the difficulties presented by the
language of the Book of Job are due to the fact that it is the language
of Edom rather than of the Jews, differing from the latter only as an
English dialect may differ from that of a neighbouring county. At all
events, Job was as much a hero of Hebrew as of Edomite tradition, while
the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs contains the wise sayings of a
king whose territory adjoined the land of Edom. Lemuel, according to the
Hebrew text, which is mistranslated in the Authorised Version, ruled
over Massa, and Massa, the Mash of Genesis, is described in the Assyrian
inscriptions as that part of northern Arabia which spread eastward from
Edom. The Hebrew of Palestine doubtless included it in the country of
"the children of the East."
The larger part of northern Arabia, however, was the home of the
Ishmaelites. They lived, it is said, "from Havilah unto Shur," like the
Amalekites or Bedâwin. But whereas the Amalekites were the wild,
untamable natives of the desert, the Ishmaelites came of a cultured
ancestry, half Babylonian, half Egyptian, and the traditions of it were
never forgotten. They lived a settled life in fenced villages and
fortified castles, as their descendants still do to-day. Like the
Israelites, they were divided into twelve tribes, the eldest and most
important of which were the Nabatheans, who spread from the frontiers of
Babylonia to Petra in the far west. Kedar was another powerful tribe; in
the days of the later Assyrian empire its kings contended in battle with
the armies of Nineveh.
The name of Ishmael is met with in Babylonian contracts of the age of
Abraham. It is a name which belongs to Canaan rather than to Babylonia
or Arabia. The Ishmaelite tribes, in fact, spoke dialects in which
Canaanitish and Arabic elements were mingled together. They are the
dialects we term Aramaic, and represent a mixture of Arabic with
Canaanitish or Hebrew. As we go northwards into Syria the Canaanitish
element predominates; southward the Arabic element is the more
pronounced.
The Ishmaelites were merchants and traders. They lived on the
caravan-road which brought the spices of southern Arabia to Canaan and
Egypt, and the trade was largely in their hands. In the history of
Joseph we hear of them carrying the balm of Gilead and the myrrh of the
south on their camels to Egypt, and in the second century before the
Christian era the merchant princes of Petra made their capital one of
the wealthiest of Oriental cities. It was not until 105 A.D. that the
Nabathean state was conquered by Rome, and the Ishmaelites of northern
Arabia transformed into Roman subjects. They have left their tombs and
inscriptions among the rocks of Petra, while the cliffs of the Sinaitic
Peninsula are covered with the scrawls of Nabathean travellers.
Southward of the Ishmaelites came the Midianites. Midianites and
Ishmaelites were alike of the same blood. Both traced their descent from
Abraham; it was only on the side of the mother that their origin was
different. While the Ishmaelites claimed connection with Egypt, the
Midianites were more purely Arabic in race. The name of Keturah their
ancestress means "incense," and points to the incense-bearing lands of
the south. Midian was properly the district which stretched along the
western coast of the Gulf of Aqaba towards Mecca, if not towards Yemen.
But Midianite tribes had also pushed northwards and mingled with the
descendants of Ishmael. "Ishmaelites" and "Midianites" seem convertible
terms in the story of Joseph, and the Midianites who swarmed into the
north of Israel in the days of Gideon, along with the Amalekites and
"the children of the East," must have been as much Ishmaelite as
Midianite in descent.
Between the Midianites and the Israelitish fugitives from Egypt there
had been close affinity. Moses had found a refuge in Midian, and his
wife and children were Midianite in race. His father-in-law, "the priest
of Midian," had visited him under the shadow of Sinai, and had given him
his first lessons in political organisation. A Midianite remained to
guide the Israelites through the wilderness, and the Kenites, who took
part with the tribe of Judah in the conquest of Canaan, appear to have
migrated from Midian. It was not until just before the invasion of
Palestine that the old bonds of friendship and mixture between Israel
and Midian were broken asunder. Midianite hosts had overrun the land of
Moab as at a later time they overran the land of Israel, and the
Israelites had forsaken Yahveh for the worship of the Midianite
Baal-Peor. This was the result of intermarriage; the Israelites had
taken Midianite wives and conformed to the licentious rites of a
Midianite god.
Israel, however, was saved by its Levite priests. They rallied round
Yahveh and Moses, and in the struggle that ensued the forces on the side
of the national God proved the stronger. The Midianitish faction was
annihilated, its leaders put to death, and the Midianites themselves
attacked and despoiled. Among the slain was the seer of Pethor, Balaam
the son of Beor.
The Moabites must have hailed the Israelites as saviours. They had
delivered them from their two assailants, the Amorites on the north, the
Midianites on the east. But the Midianite power was broken only for a
time. We hear at a subsequent date of the Edomite king Hadad "who smote
Midian in the field of Moab," and a time came when Midianite shêkhs
overran Gilead, and penetrated into the valleys and villages of Manasseh
on the western side of the Jordan. After their defeat by Gideon,
however, we hear of them no more. They passed out of the Israelitish
horizon; henceforth their raiding bands never approached the frontiers
of Israel. The land of Midian alone is mentioned as adjoining Edom; the
Midianites who had traversed the desert and carried terror to the
inhabitants of Canaan become merely a name.
Midian was originally governed by high-priests. This was the case among
other Semitic peoples as well. In Assyria the kings were preceded by the
high-priests of Assur, and recently-discovered inscriptions show that in
southern Arabia, in the land of Sheba, the high-priest came before the
king. Jethro, "the priest of Midian," represented a peculiarly Arabian
institution.
The name of "Arab" was applied to certain tribes only of northern
Arabia. We hear of them in the Old Testament as well as in the Assyrian
inscriptions. In the Old Testament the name seems to include the
Ishmaelite clans to the east of Edom. Their "kings," it is said, brought
tribute to Solomon; a colony of them was established at Gur-Baal in the
south of Judah. We learn from the Assyrian texts that they could be
governed by queens; two of their queens indeed are mentioned by name.
It was also a "queen of the south," it will be remembered, who came to
hear the wisdom of Solomon. Sheba, the Saba of classical antiquity, was
an important kingdom of south-western Arabia, which had grown wealthy
through its trade in spicery. From time immemorial Egypt had imported
frankincense from the southern coasts of the Arabian peninsula, and the
precious spices had been carried by merchants to the far north. The
caravan-road of trade ran northward to Midian and Edom, touching on the
one side on the frontier of Egypt, on the other on that of Palestine.
The road and the country through which it passed were in the hands of
the south Arabian kings. Their inscriptions have been discovered at
Teima, the Tema of the Old Testament, not far inland from El-Wej, and in
the days of Tiglath-pileser the kings of Saba claimed rule as far as the
Euphrates. It was no strange thing, therefore, for a queen of Sheba to
have heard of the power of Solomon, or to have sought alliance with so
wealthy and luxurious a neighbour. His province of Edom adjoined her own
possessions; his ports on the Gulf of Aqaba were open to her merchants,
and the frankincense which grew in her dominions was needed for the
temple at Jerusalem.
The people of Sheba belonged to the south Arabian stock. In both blood
and language they differed considerably from the Semites of the north.
Physically they bore some resemblance to the Egyptians, and it has been
suggested that the Egyptians were originally emigrants from their
shores. They lived in lofty castles, and terraced the slopes of the
mountains for the purpose of cultivation, as they still do to-day.
Civilisation among them was old; it was derived, at least in part, from
Babylonia, and the dynasty which reigned over Babylon in the age of
Abraham was of south Arabian descent. Some of them crossed the Red Sea
and founded colonies in Africa, in the modern Abyssinia, where they
built cities and introduced the culture of their former homes. Like the
Egyptians and the Babylonians, they were a literary people; their
inscriptions are still scattered thickly among the ruins of their towns,
written in the letters of the alphabet which is usually termed
Phoenician. But it is becoming a question whether it was not from south
Arabia that Phoenicia first borrowed it, and whether it would not be
more truthfully called Arabian.
The religion of southern Arabia was highly polytheistic. Each district
and tribe had its special god or gods, and the goddesses were almost as
numerous as the gods. Along with Babylonian culture had come the
adoption of several Babylonian divinities;--Sin, the Moon-god, for
instance, or Atthar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan. How far westward the
worship of Sin was carried may be judged from the fact that Sinai, the
sacred mountain whereon the law of Israel was promulgated, took its name
from that of the old Babylonian god.
In the tenth chapter of Genesis Sheba is one of the sons of Joktan, the
ancestor of the south Arabian tribes. Foremost among them is
Hazarmaveth, the Hadhramaut of to-day; another is Ophir, the port to
which the gold of Africa was brought. But the same chapter also assigns
to Sheba a different origin. It couples him with Dedan, and sees in him
a descendant of Ham, a kinsman of Egypt and Canaan. Both genealogies are
right. They are geographical, not ethnic, and denote, in accordance with
Semitic idiom, the geographical relationships of the races and nations
of the ancient world. Sheba belonged not only to south Arabia but to
northern Arabia as well. The rule of the Sabæan princes extended to the
borders of Egypt and Canaan, and Sheba was the brother of Hazarmaveth
and of Dedan alike. For Dedan was a north Arabian tribe, whose home was
near Tema, and whose name may have had a connection with that sometimes
given by the Babylonians to the whole of the west.
Such, then, was Arabia in the days of the Hebrew writers. The south was
occupied by a cultured population, whose rule, at all events after the
time of Solomon, was acknowledged throughout the peninsula. The people
of the north and the centre differed from this population in both race
and language, though all alike belonged to the same Semitic stock. The
Midianites on the western coast perhaps partook of the characteristics
of both. But the Ishmaelites were wholly northern; they were the kinsmen
of the Edomites and Israelites, and their language was that Aramaic
which represents a mixture of Arabic and Canaanitish elements. Wandering
tribes of savage Bedâwin pitched their tents in the desert, or robbed
their more settled neighbours, as they do to-day; these were the
Amalekites of the Old Testament, who were believed to be the first
created of mankind, and the aboriginal inhabitants of Arabia. Apart from
them, however, the peninsula was the seat of a considerable culture. The
culture had spread from the spice-bearing lands of the south, where it
had been in contact with the civilisations of Babylonia on the one side
and of Egypt on the other, and where wealthy and prosperous kingdoms had
arisen, and powerful dynasties of kings had held sway. It is to Arabia,
in all probability, that we must look for the origin of the alphabet--in
itself a proof of the culture of those who used it; and it was from
Arabia that Babylonia received that line of monarchs which first made
Babylon a capital, and was ruling there in the days of Abraham. We must
cease to regard Arabia as a land of deserts and barbarism; it was, on
the contrary, a trading centre of the ancient world, and the Moslems who
went forth from it to conquer Christendom and found empires, were but
the successors of those who, in earlier times, had exercised a profound
influence upon the destinies of the East.
[Footnote 6: 2 Sam. xvii. 27.]
[Footnote 7: Jer. xl. 14.]
[Footnote 8: Rehoboam is an Ammonite name, compounded with that of the
god Am or Ammi. Rehob, which is the first element in it, was also an
Ammonite name, as we learn from the Assyrian inscriptions.]
[Footnote 9: Numb. xxi. 27-29.]
[Footnote 10: x. 14.]
[Footnote 11: iv. 21.]