ARABAH (irl); Sept. "Apaga), a Hebrew T, word, signifying in general a desert plain, or steppe. In the Authorized Version it is translated the plain, but in the original it appears to he supplied with the article on purpose, as the proper name (rinyn ha-Arabah, the Arabah), of the great plain or valley in its whole extent, which is tartly occu pied by the Jordan and its lakes, and is prolonged from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf. The name has come down to the present day in the same form in Arabic, el-Arabah but it is now restricted to the part between the lake and the gulf. The more extended application of the name by the Hebrews is successfully traced by Professor Robinson from Gesenius : In connection with the Red Sea and Elath' (Dent. i. 1 ; ii. 8). As extending to the lake of Tiberias' (Josh. xii. 3 ; 2 Sam. ii. 29; 2 Kings xxv. 4). Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea' (Josh. iii. 16; xii. 3; Deut. iv. 49). The arboth (plains) of Jericho ' (Josh. v. o; 2 Kings xxv. 5). Plains (arboth) of Moab,' i. e., opposite Jericho, probably pastured by the Moabites, though not within their proper territory (Deut. xxxiv. 1, 8; Num. xxii. 1) [ARABIA; PALESTINE.] [The term Arabah, which means, according to Gesenius, an arid tract or sterile region, from .7.117,
to be sterile, and is used in the poetical works of the Bible, along with Midbar, to denote a desert, is employed as a proper name in three distinct ap plications :—I. It is used with the article to desig nate the whole of that remarkable depression which reaches from the Sea of Tiberias to the Gulf of Akabah (Josh. xii. 3 ; Dent. i. 7 • iii. 17, etc.) This was called A/Ads by the Greeks, and is de scribed by Eusebins (Onomast. in loc.) as stretching from Lebanon to the desert of Paran. It is termed by EI-Ghor, and he says it stretches from the Lake of Tiberias to Ailah or Akabah. 2. It is used with the article to denote the southern part of this from the Dead Sea to Akabah (Deut. i. ; ii. 8). To this part the term is still applied by the Arabs, who call it Wady El-Arabah ; as they call the northern part El-Ghor. 3. In the plural it is used to describe more particularly certain parts of the valley, always without the article, and with a limiting and qualifying noun added, as nine In14, the plains of Jericho, Josh. v. To ; 2 Kings xxv. 5 ; ZN1/3 the plains of Moab, Num. xxii. ; xxvi. 3, etc.)