BENEI-KEDEM (n-12 B'ney-Kedem)., This Hebrew appellation (with its English, LXX.„ and Vulgate versions) occurs in the passages fol lowing :—(x.) Genesis xxix. i, The people of the East, baroNal (terra), orientalis ; (2.) Judges vi. 3, The children of the East, of viol dvaroXi3v, (alai orientalium nationum ; (3.) Judg. vi. 33; (4.) vii. T2 ; (5.) viii. TO, The children of the East, of viol civa.roNtii a, orientales Mull; (6.) t Kings iv. 30, The children of the East countg, dpvtiot orientates; (7.) Job i. 3, Me men of Me East, of ct95' dvaroX4iv, orientates; (8.) Is. xi. 14, They' of the East, of Vika, avaroXi2w, fdii orientis ; (9.) Jer. xlix. 28, The memo! the .East, of uloiKc&4i, filar orientis ; (to.) Ezek. XXV. 4; (I I.) xxv. to, The men of the East, of idol KeSelz, filii orientates.
Under the general designation alp, Xea'em, the sacred writers include the whole tract of country east of Palestine, and not only so much as is coex tensive with the Holy Land itself in latitude, and immediately contiguous with it, but the trans. tuphratean Mesopotamia, north, and the upper* ?arts of the Arabian peninsula, south. In the first passage Kedem (called also Aram—LXX. 2',vp/a in Hosea xii. 12) refers to Haran, in Mesopotamia, whither Jacob fled to his mother's kindred, who had settled there when Terah migrated from Ur of the Chaldees, and who are here included among the B'ney Kedem. In the four next passages (in Judges) the B'ney Kedem appear conspicuous among the oppressors of the children of Israel whom Gideon destroyed. The Midianites, who were at the head of this formidable confederacy, were probably very near akin to the B'ney Kedem. From Gen. xxv. 6, it would appear that the descendants of Abraham and Ketural. (the sons of Midian being included) migrated eastward, to the land of Kedem, or the East ; accordingly in one of our passages (Judg. viii. to) the appellation B'ney Zedent, used in a generic sense, actually includes the Midianites as well as the Amalekites, whereas in the preceding passages they are specifically mentioned apart from these latter nations. The prominence given in the sacred history to the hostile relations of these nations with the children of Israel is apt to make us forget their near kindred to them. This affinity, and their proximity of residence, would naturally account for that identity or similarity of language in an early age, previous to dialectic divergence, which is indicated in the remarkable incident narrated in Judg. vii. r- is. In the sixth passage the wisdom of King Solomon is described as ex celling the wisdom of all the B'ney Kedem. Now as the countries of the East in general, especially the Chaldeans (Dan. i. 2o ; iv. 7), are noted for wisdom, it is not obvious at once what people the B'ney Kedem here indicate. Not to say, however, that the wisdom ' of the Chaldeans was probably undeveloped at so early a period as Solomon's, it is certain that Arabia was the home of that pro verbial philosophy for which the wise king of Israel is celebrated (see Freytag, Arabum Prover bia, tom. iii. prof., who says :—` Apud Arabes proverbiorum origo usque ad tempora antiquissima . prrecipue sapientibus, poetis, heroibusque regibusque vindicantur); we conclude, therefore, that the nip +=, whose wisdom Solomon excelled, were the Arabian tribes east of the Israelites, stretching, it may be, to the Euphrates in one direction, and south-east into the peninsula, in another. These are they whom Baruch (iii. 23)
calls ' the Hagarenes, that seek after wisdom upon earth, the merchants of Meran and of Theman, the authors of fables and the searchers out of un derstanding.' But the LXX. renders 1:11r) in this our sixth passage, by cipxaiot tivb-punrot, putting Solomon in comparison with ancient worthies ; and accordingly Aharbanel makes the phrase refer to men of old who used to live to a greater age. Al though Kedem has this temporal meaning (and even oftener than the local, see Fuerst, Concord., sub voce), it would be a very forced construction so to render it here. In our seventh passage, Job is described as `the greatest of all the B'nry Kedem. Job was of the land of Uz; and Uz is placed in the neighbourhood of the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, and the Edomite and Arab tribes of Teman, Naama and Shuah (see Job i. 15, 17; ii. t I, com pared with Lam. iv. 2z). These notices fix Job's residence with tolerable precision, and justify the statement of Rosemmiller (on i. 3), that by Nn Dip here, are meant those miscellaneous tribes, especially Arabian, which lie between Egypt and the Euphrates (see also Winer, Bibl. Realwhrt, s. v. Uz). Ewald places Uz a little more north, in the district south of Bashan. M. J. E. Muller reconciles these slight discrepancies of opinion by supposing Uz to have been a large country of tri partite division ; the first part near Damascus, the second (where he supposes Job to have in fact lived) near Chaldea, on the eastern border of the Arabian desert, and the third in the region of Arabia Petrma : thus making the whole land of Uz of equivalent meaning with KEDEM, as we defined it at first (see Muller, De Terra 7obi, largely quoted in Forster's Geogr. of Arabia, ii. 61). We come now to the last four passages, from the prophets, which mention the B'ney A'edent. We observe at once this great difference among the said passages, that in those from Isaiah and Jere miah the B'ney Kedem are the spoiled, whereas in the two from Ezekiel they are the spoilers. The first passage is unconnected with the others, and refers to the ultimate triumphs of Israel when they shall be victorious over western and eastern ene mies alike (in this sense the B'ney Kedenz are op posed to the Philistines of the west). In the three other passages the two prophets announce the downfall of the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and (under the name Kedar and Hazor, cf. Gen. xxv. 13) the contiguous Arab nomade tribes, which dwelt east of the children of Israel, and had been ever their malignant foes. The mention of ' their tents,' their flocks', ' their camels,' etc., is quite suitable in a description of these wander ing nations. But the remarkable point is, that the appellation nip men of the east ') is now shifted from those who are most naturally designated by it in Jeremiah, namely the Arabs whom Nebuchadnezzar smites and spoils, to the spoilers themselves in the places of Ezekiel. We cross the river at last (as we did at first, only farther south), and bring our B'ney Kedem again from be yond the Euphrates ; for undoubtedly Nebuchad nezzar and his Chaldees are now the 'children of the East,' the swift avengers of God upon the nations which had so lately exulted over the fall of Judah (So Jarchi and Grotius ; and substantially similar St. Jerome, as quoted by Rosenmfiller on Ezekiel xxv. 4. See also Fairbaim's Ezekie/, p. 274. )—P. H.
BEN appears also in the proper names of mo dern Jews.