ISHBAH (nvei; Sept. 6 'Iccrd; Alex. 'Ieo- apd), the father of Eshtemoa, and apparently the son of Ezra by his Egyptian wife Bithiah (t Chron. iv. 17 ; comp. Bertheau, Exegct. Ha'b. in loc.)—t.
ISHBAK 1€0-gd. and lopcin; Yesboc), a son of Abmham by Keturah, and founder of one of the tribes of Arabia. His brethren Midian and. Jokshan arc bettcr known. We are told that Abraham gave gifts' to the sons of Keturah, and sent them away from Isaac his son, eastward, unto the east country' (Gen. xxv. 1-6). They settled in the region east of the Arabah, in and near Mount Seir, and southward in the peninsula of Sinai (Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36 ; Exod. ; Num. xxxi. 9, 10). On the top of the mountain range which bounds the valley of Arabah on the east, and about twelve miles north of Petra, stands the great castle of SIzobek, on the crest of a peak com manding a wide view. It was built by Baldwin king of Jerusalem in A.D. 1115, on the site of a much more ancient fortress and city, and it was one of the chief strongholds of the Crusaders. The name they gave it was Mons Regalis ; but by fhe Arabs, both before and since, it has been uniformly called Shobek. It was finally taken from the
Fmnks by Saladin in A.D. 1I88 (Gesta Dei Per Francos, pp. 426, 611, 812 ; Bohadin, Vita Sala dini, pp. 38, 54, and Index Geographicus, s. v. Sjanbachum). The castle is still in tolerable pre servation, and a few families of Arabs find within its walls a secure asylum for themselves and their flocks. It contains an old church, with a Latin inscription of the Crusading age over its door (Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 4.16 ; Handbook for S. and P., p. 58).
It seems highly probable that in Shobek we have still preserved the name and first possession of Abraham's son Ishbak. The words (Robinson spells it and pri+ are radi. cally identical. And as the descendants of Ke.
turah unquestionably settled in this region, and were closely connected with the Ishmaelites and Moabites, we may safely identify Shobek and Ish bah (see Forster, Geography of Arabia, i. 352; Robinson, B. R. ii. 164; Bunsen, Bibdwerh, I.
ii. 53).—J. L. P.