We must now glance at the great offshoots from the patriarchal line. t. The western and southern regions of Arabia were colonized by the thirteen sons ofJoktan (Gen. x. 26). Of this there is ample evidence both in the traditions of the Arabians themselves and in the names of places in their country. Uzal and Sheba were two of Joktan's sons, Azal and Sheba were the ancient names of Sana and Mareb, the two chief cities of Yemen. In another of its Zafari, or possibly in Dhafar, on the south west of Arabia, we recognize Sephar, one of their boundaries. According to the sacred historian— ' their dwelling was from Mesha as thou goest unto ,-kphar, a mount of the East' (Gen. x. 3o). The position of Mesha has not been settled, though some have thought it to be Mecca. Sheba was probably the ancestor of the rulers of the kingdom of Sheba (the modern Yemen), whose queen came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Hazarmaveth, Jaktan's third son, gave his name to the province of Hadramaut, and the district of Khawlan in the Yemen preserves an evident trace of Havilah, his twelfth. His eldest son, Almodad, must have been the original of the Mudads of the Arabian genealo gists, one of them being reputed seventh, and the other ninth in descent from Joktan.
2. A daughter of this second Mudad is said by the Arabs to have been the wife of Ishmael, and there is every reason to believe that the Egyptian g-iven to him by his mother Hagar was not his only wife, for his daughter Mahalath, who became the wife of Esau, is called the sister of Nebaioth, Gen. xxviii. 9, which seems to intimate that his other sons were by a different mother. Thus a matrimonial connection between the first and second, as well as between the second and third offshoot from the patriarchal line is not improbable. The Nabatheans who at one time occupied the country about Petra were probably descended from Nebaioth, as their neighbours the Cedrcans vvere from Kedar. His twelve sons (Gen. xxv. x3) dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, which is before Egypt, as those goest toward Syria,' e., across the Arabian desert from the north shore of the Persian Gulf (Havilah) to the north point of the Gulf of Akaba (Shur). The descendants of two of them, Jetur and Naphish, occupied that part of the desert bordering on the Jordan, and were in the course of time defeated with great slaughter and dis possessed by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and hall Manasseh (1 Chron. v. 18).
The sons of Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2) by Abraham were sent by their father with gifts eastward into the east country.' In a desert 600 miles across there was room both for them and the children of Ishmael, and there, like the children of Ishmael,Ahey led the half-warrior half-shepherd life which has ever characterised the sons of the desert. Zimram, the eldest, may perhaps be recognised as the ancestor of the Zamaremians of Pliny. Jokshan, the second, had two sons, Dedan and Sheba, the same names as the sons of Raamah. It has already been stated as probable that Nimrod was the grandson of Raamali, and there is evidence of a migration of Cushites about his time from Ethiopia to the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. There are also indications of the names Dedan and Sheba both in the Persian Gulf and in the neighbourhood of Idumea, whence it has been conjectured that Jokshan, the son of Keturah, when he went east ward into the east country' may have intermarried with a daughter or descendant of Dedan, the son of Raarcah, thus the recurrence of the names Dedan and Sheba would be accounted for as well as the existenoe of places called by these names both on the borders of Idumea and in the Persian Gulf.
The sons of Dedan are said to have been Ashurim, Letushim, Leummim, which Onkelos interprets as persons dwelling in camps, tents, or islands, and it may be noticed in connection with this, that the traces of the names Sheba and Dedan are to be found in two islands of the Persian Gulf.
3. We pass on to the family of Esau, the third off shoot from the patriarchal line. While Abraham and Isaac were wanderers in the land of Canaan, the descendants of Seir were occupying the heights and cultivating the fertile glens and terraces of Mount Seir, a lofty highland that stretched away to the east from the side of the valley of Akaba. This chief and his people were called Horites from their dwelling in caves, and one of his descendants, Aholibamah, became a wife of Esau. By another wife, Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, Esau had a son, Eliphaz, who afterwards became the father of Amalek by Timna, the daughter of Seir. It is a singular thing that the son should have taken Seir's a'aughter for his concubine (Gen. xxxvi. 12), when the father had married his great-granddaughter (ver. 2); but it may probably be accaunted for by the long lives of men at that time. And Tirana, who is called the sister of Lotan, and was therefore probably not by the same mother as Seir's other sons, may have been the daughter of his old age, while the grandfather of Aholibamah was the child of his youth. One of the sons of Eliphaz, by another wife, was Teman, whence we may infer that Eliphaz the Temanite was his de scendant. The seven sons of Seir, the Horite, are called dukes' in our translation. Each probably dwelt in some mountain fastness, and was the chief or shiekh of a particular tribe ; and we see how completely the old Horite power was displaced by that of Esau, in the fact that seven of Esau's sons and six of his grandsons (nine of them sprung from females of Seir's house) had this title when it was no longer borne by Seir's male descendants. This is technically called the first aristocracy of dukes, and is followed in the Bible by a list of eight elective kings, who are said to have reigned in Edom before there was any king in Israel.' If this enumeration of kings is in its right place, the king of Israel at whom the statement points must have been Moses, and the whole dynasty must have come to an end before the Exodus. Some are, however, of opinion that this passage was not originally in Genesis, but was copied into it from Chronicles. After the list of kings there follows another list of dukes, apparently descended from the former ones, as there is a re currence of three of the names of the earlier family. This has been called the second aristocracy of dukes, and is supposed to have succeeded thc kings in order of time. The better opinion, however, seems to be that the dukes or heads of tribes were contemporaneous with the kings or paramount chiefs of the collective body.