it is sometimes given as a proper name : thus in Num. xxi. 20, The top of Pisgah, which looketh toward In this place, however, it ap pears to signify the wilderness of Arabia. In I Sam. xxiii. 19, and xxvi. 1, it evidently means the wilderness of Judah ; while in the following poetical passages it is applied to the wilderness of Sinai—Deut. xxxii. to; Ps. lxviii. 7 ; lxxviii. 40 ; cvi. 14. It would appear from the reference in Deuteronomy—' waste, howling wilderness,' that this word was intended to be more expressive of utter wasteness than any of the others. In the A. V. it is rendered by the words wilderness,' desert,' and solitary.' 4. il213/ (Sept. 'Apaiia, and avolt7)), Alabah ; desert,' from znr, 'to be dry or sterile.' This term is employed to denote any dry or sterile region, as in Job. xxiv. 5, and Is. xl. 3. It is thus used, however, only in poetry, and is equivalent to Midbar, to which it is the poetic parallel in Is. xxxv. t : The wilderness (Midbar) shall be glad for them ; and the desert (Arabah) shall rejoice, etc. ;' also in xli. 19. illidbar may be regarded as describing a region in relation to its use by man— a pastoral region ; Arabah, in relation to its phy sical qualities—a wilderness (Stanley, S. and P.
480. But in the vast majority of cases in which it occurs in the Bible, Arabah is the specific name given either to the whole, or a part of the deep valley extending from Tiberias to the Gulf of Aka bah. With the article it denotes, in the historical portions of Scripture, the whole of the valley, or at least that part of it included in the territory of the Israelites (Dent. i. 7 ; iii. 17 ; Josh. xii. ; etc.); when the word is applied to other districts, or to distinct sections of the valley, the article is omitted, and the plural number is used. Thus we find the plains of Moab' MI:1V), Num. xxii. 1; etc.); 'the plains of Jericho (Josh. iv. 13); ' the plains of the wilderness' (2 Sans. xvii. r6). The Dead Sea is called the Sea of the plain' 0' riznyro. The southern section of this sterile valley still retains its ancient name, el-Arabah (Robinson, B. R. i. 169; ii. 186; Stanley, S. and P. [ARABAH.]—J . L. P.