Kings iv :3o). In more modern times a name of similar import was applied to the Arabs gen erally; they were called Saracens (Sharakiyun, i. e., Orientals) from the word shark, 'the east,' whence also is derived the term sirocco, the east wind.
It is to be remarked here that though in Scrip ture Kedem most commonly denotes Northern Arabia, it is also used of countries farther east, e. g. of the native country of Abraham (Is. :2 ; comp. Gen. xxix :I), of Balaam (Num. xxiii :7), and even of Cyrus (Is. xlvi :1 1) ; and, therefore, though the Magi who came to Jerusalem (Matt. ii :I) were from the east, it does not thence follow that they were natives of Arabia.
(2) Ancient Name. We find the name Arab first beginning to occur about the time of Solo mon. It designated a portion of the country, an inhabitant being called Arabi, an Arabian (Is.xiii: 20), or in later lIebrew, Arbi (Nth. ii:19), the plural of which was Arbim (2 Citron. xxi :to), or Arbiim (Arabians) (2 Chron. xvii:11). In sonic places these names seem to be given to the No madic tribes generally (Is. xiii :2o; Jer. :2) and their country (Is. xxi:13). The kings of Arabia from whom Solomon (2 Chron. ix:14) and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii :11) received gifts were, probably, Bedouin chiefs; though in the place parallel to the former text (1 Kings x:15), instead of Arab we find Ereb, rendered in Jer. xxv:2o, 24, 'mingled people,' but which Gesenius, fol lowing the Chaldee, understands to mean 'foreign allies.' In all the passages where the word Arab occurs it designates only a small portion of the territory known to us as Arabia. Thus, in the account given by Ezekiel (xxvii :21) of the Ara bian tribes that traded with Tyre, mention is specially made of Arab (comp. Jer. xxv.24). In 2 Chron. xxi:16; .xxii:t; xxvi:7; Nell. iv:7, we find the Arabians classed with the Philistines, the Ethiopians e., the Asiatic Cushites, of whom they are said to have been neighbors), the Mehu nims, the Ammonites, and Ashdodites. At what period this name Arab was extended to the whole region it is impossible to ascertain. From it the Greeks formed the word 'Apailla, which occurs twice in the New Testament ; in Gal. 1:17, in ref
erence, probably, to the tract adjacent to Damas cene Syria, and in Gal. iv:25, in reference to the peninsula of Mount Sinai. Among the strangers assembled at Jerusalem at the Pentecost there were Arabs (Acts ii n, the singular being Arab.
As to the etymology of the name Arab, various opinions have been expressed.
The most obvious etymology of the name is from Arabah, a steppe, a desert, plain or wilder ness. That was, in point of fact, the name given by the ancient Ilehrews to the tract of country extending northward from Elath, on the Arabian Gulf to the Dead Sea ( Deut. ii :8), and even as far as the Lake of Tiberias (Josh. xii:3). It was called Ha-Arabah, commonly rendered in our version by 'the plain' (hence the Dead Sea was styled the 'sea of the Arabah,' Josh. iii :16) ; and it included the plains (Arboth) of Jericho and Moab (Josh. v:io; Deut. xxxiv:1, 8). In the list of the cities of Judah contained in the book of Joshua we find (xv :on, 'in the wilderness, Beth-Arabah; in the Hebrew Beth-Ha-Arabah, the house of the plain. It had been mentioned in v. 6, as on the northern borders; and hence, in xviii :22, it appears also as a city of Benjamin, one of whose boundaries, it is said in v. 18, 'passed over against [the] Arabah northward, and went down into [the] Arabah.' Now it is a re markable circumstance that the southern part of this great valley is still known by the name of 11'ady-e/-'/Irtzhah,and there is no improbability in the conjecture that this designation, which was applied at so early a period as the days of Moses to one particular district, was gradually extended to the entire region. No designation, indeed, could be more comprehensive or correct ; for, looking to Arabia as a whole, it may fitly be described as one vast desert of arid and barren plains, intersected by chains of rocky mountains, where the oases, or spots of living green (prob ably a corruption of the Arabic word wady, a valley or watercourse), exist but in a very small proportion to the sterility and desolation which reign around.