ARABIA (a-ra'bi-a), (Heb.:7, ar-awb', wilder ness), an extensive region occupying the south western extremity of Asia, between 12° 45' and N. lat. and and 6o° E. long, from Greenwich; having on the W. the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea (called from it the Arabian Gulf), which separate it from Africa ; on the S. the Indian Ocean, and on the E. the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates.
1. Description and Designation. The bound ary to the north has never been well defined, for in that direction it spreads out into interminable deserts, which meet those of Palestine and Syria on the west, and those of Irak-Arabi (i. e., Baby lonia) and Mesopotamia on the east ; and hence some geographers include that entire wilderness in Arabia. The form of the peninsula is that of a trapezoid, whose superficial area is estimated at four times the extent of France.
With the history of no country save that of Palestine are there connected so many hallowed and impressive associations as with that of Arabia. Here lived and suffered the holy patriarch Job; here Moses, when 'a stranger and a shepherd,' saw the burning, unconsuming bush; here Elijah found shelter from the rage of persecution; here was the scene of all the marvelous displays of divine power and mercy that followed the deliver ance of Israel from the Egyptian yoke, and ac companied their journeyings to the Promised Land ; and here Jehovah manifested himself in visible glory to his people. From the influence of these associations, combined with its proximity to Palestine, and the close affinity in blood, man ners, and customs between the northern portion of its inhabitants and the Jews, Arabia is a region of peculiar interest to the student of the Bible; and it is chiefly in its relation to subjects of Bible study that we are now to consider it. The sacred historian of the children of Israel will never be thoroughly understood so long as we are not minutely acquainted with everything relating to the Arab Bedouins and the countries in which they move and pasture.
(1) Early and Vague Names. In early times the Hebrews included a part of what we call Arabia among the countries they vaguely desig nated as Kedcm, the East, the inhabitants being numbered among the Beni-Kedem, Sons of the East. But there is no evidence to show (as is asserted by Winer, Rosentniiller, and other Bible geographers) that these phrases are ever applied to the whole of the country known to us as Arabia.
They appear to have been commonly used in speaking of those parts which lay due east of Palestine, or on the northeast and southeast; though occasionally they do seem to point to tracts which lay indeed to the south and southwest of that country, but to the east and southeast of Egypt. Hence Joseph Mede (who is followed by Bellermann, Handbuch d. Bib. Litcrat. th. iii. p. 22o) is of opinion that the phraseology took its rise at the period when the Israelites were in Egypt, and was retained by them as a mode of speech after they were settled in Canaan. That conjecture would, doubtless, considerably extend the meaning of the term; yet even then it could scarcely embrace the extreme south of Arabia, a queen of which (on the supposition of Yemen being identical with Sheba) is, in the New Testa ment, styled not 'a queen of the East,' but a queen of the South. Accordingly, we find that whenever the expression Kedem has obviously a reference to Arabia, it invariably points to its northern divi sion only. Thus in Gen. xxv :6, Abraham is said to have sent away the sons of Hagar and Kcturah to the Eretz-Kedem—Kedemah, i. e., the East country eastward; and none of them, so far as we know, were located in peninsular Arabia ; for the story which represents Ishmael as settling at Mecca is an unsupported native tradition. The patriarch Job is described (Job i :3) as 'the great est of all the men of the east,' and though opin ions differ as to the precise locality of the land of Uz, all are agreed that it was in some part of Arabia. but certainly not in Arabia Felix. In the Book of Judges (vi :3; vii :12; viii :to) among the allies of the Al idianites and Amalekites (tribes of the north) are mentioned the 'Beni Kedem,' which Josephus translated by the Arabs. In Is. xi :14, the parallelism requires that by 'sons of the east' we understand the No 'nudes of Desert Arabia, as corresponding to the Philistines 'on the west ;' and with these are con joined the Edoniites, Moabites, and Ammonites, who were all northern Arabians. The command was given (Jer. xlix :28) to the Babylonians `to smite the Beni-Kedem; who are there classed with the Kedarenes, descendants of Ishmael (comp.