NODAB nobility ktI Naceot ; Nodab). We read in / Chron. v. 19 that the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites, made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Nephish, and Nodab,' conquered them, captured immense booty, and the children of the half tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land' (ver. 23). It appears that the land thus acquired lay on the east side of Hermon, nordering on the plain of Bashan. The name Nodab is not elsewhere mentioned. They are called Hagarenes, and must consequently have been descended from Ishmael, though they are not enumerated among the tribes in Gen. xxv. Calmet (after Jerome, Quaest. Heb. in Lib. a Paralip.) has suggested that Nodab is another name for Kedemah, and this appears to derive some probability from the fact that the list in Genesis mention:; in order Jetur, Naphish, and Keriennah;' while in Chron icles we have ` Jetur, Nephish, and Nadab.' Forster, who adopts this view, advances another argument in its favour. He says, This Ishmaelite tribe, agreeable to a very general Arab usage, being designated, in the one instance by its patronymic, in the other by its non: de guertx. For, I. The
signification of the word Nodab, in the Arabic idiom, is the vibration of a spear ;' 2. The natives of the coast of the Persian Gulf, in the vicinity of Kadema, were famous for the manufacture of spears ; and, 3. Nodab is expressly mentioned by the author of the Kamouz, a writer of the 15th century, as a then existing Arab tribe' (Geogr. of Arabia, i. 314, seq.) This reasoning is scarcely con clusive ; but there is at least some probability in the theory. If Kedemah and Nodab were not identical, then Nodab must have been a sub-tribe of Ishmaelites who had united themselves to Jetur and Nephish. When conquered by the Israelites it is probable the greater part of them retreated into the desert of Arabia, where the great nation of Agraei, or Hagarites, are located by the Greek and Roman geographers. [HAGARITES ; ISHMAEL ; JETUR.] No Arab tribe of Arabia, so far as the writer can discover, now bears the name Nodab. J. L. P.