We find the name Z1J1 Arab, first beginning to occur about the time of Solomon. It designated a portion of the country, an inhabitant being called Arabi, an Arabian (Is. xiii. 20), or in later Hebrew, Arbi (Neh. ii. is), the plural of which was Arbim (2 Chron. xxi. 16), or Arbiim (Arabians) (2 Chron. xvii. ii). In some places these names seem to be given to the Nomadic tribes generally (Is. xiii. 20; Jer. iii. 2), and their country (Is. xxi. 13). The kings of Arabia from whom Solomon (2 Chron. ix. 14) and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii. H) 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. 20, 24, mingled people,' but which Gesenius, following the Chaldee, understands to mean foreign allies.' It is to be remarked, however, that in all the passages where the word grab 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 Arabian tribes that traded with Tyre, mention is specially made of Arab (comp. Jer. xxv. 24). In 2 Chron. xxi. 16 ; xxii. I ; xxvi. 7 ; Neb. iv. 7, we find the Arabians classed with the Philistines, the Ethiopians e., the Asiatic Cushites, of whom they are said to have been neighbours), the Me hunims, 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 'Apal3i.a, which occurs twice in the New Testament ; in Gal. i. 17, in re ference probably to the tract adjacent to Damascene Syria, and in Gal. iv. 25, in reference to the penin sula of Mount Sinai. Among the strangers assembled at Jerusalem at the Pentecost there were 'Apapes, Arabs (Acts ii. II), the singular being 'Apatp.
As to the etymology of the name Arab various opinions have been expressed. Hezel (Bib. Real Lex.) and Bellermann (Handbuch d. Bib. Liter. th. iii. p. 219) absurdly derive it from a transposition of letters in the name of Eber, the father of Joktan; Pococke follows the native writers in thinking the name was taken from Araba, a district of Yemen, so called from Yarab, Joktan's son ; some suppose that as this country was called by the Israelites Kedem, east,' so by the Shemetic tribes who dwelt beyond the Euphrates it was termed Arab in the sense of the west ; ' while others derive it from the same word in the sense of mixed people,' or merchants.' But dismissing these conjectures as groundless and unsatisfactory, the most obvious etymology of the name is from rizir Arabak a steppe, i. e., a desert plain or wilderness. That was, in point of fact, the name given by the ancient Hebrews to the tract of country extending north ward from Elath, on the Arabian Gulf, to the Dead Sea (Dent. i. r ; 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 (Asboth) of Jericho and Moab (Josh. v. 10; Deut. xxxiv. I, 8). In the list of the cities of Judah contained in the book of Joshua we find (xv. 6r), in the wilderness, Beth-Arabah,' in the Hebrew rinyri e., house of the plain.' It had been mentioned at v. 6, as on the northern borders ; and hence at xviii. 22, it appears also as a city of Benjamin, one of whose boundaries it is said at v. 18, passed over against [the] Arabah northward, and went down into [the] Arabah.' Now it is a remarkable circumstance that the southern part of this great valley is still known by the name of Arabah, 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' (pro bably 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. [ARABAH.] The modern name, yeshirat-el-Arab, i. t., peninsula of the Arabs,' applies to the southern part of the region only. Another native appella tion is Beled-el-Arab, i. e., 'the land of the Arabs the Persians and Turks call it Ambistan. Mr. Lane informs us that in Egypt the term Arab is now generally limited to the Bedawees, or people of the desert ; but formerly it was used to desig nate the townspeople and villagers of Arabian origin, while those of the desert were called Arab or Arabees : the former now call themselves Ow lad-el-Arab, or sons of the Arabs.
The early Greek geographers, such as Erato sthenes and Strabo, mention only two divisions of this vast region, Happy and Desert Arabia. But after the city of Petra, in had become celebrated as the metropolis of a commercial people, the Nabathmans, it gave name to a third division, viz., Arabia Petraa (improperly translated Stony Arabia) ; and this threefold division, which first occurs in the geographer Ptolemy, who flourished in the second century, has obtained throughout Europe ever since. It is unknown, however, to native or other Eastern geographers, who reckon Arabia Dcscrta as chiefly belonging to Syria, and to Irak-Arabi, or Babylonia, while they include a great part of what we call Arabia Petraea in Egypt.