SHEBA, SEBA, SABIEANS. As much con fusion has been introduced by the variety of mean ings which the name Sabeeans has been made to bear, it may be proper to specify in this place their distinctive derivations and use. In our A. V. of Scripture the term seems to be applied to three different tribes To the Sebaiim (b4t:.119, witha samech), the descendants of Seba or Saba, son of Cush, who ultimately settled in Ethiopia (see the article Seba). 2. To the Shebaiim (ni3;1, with a shin), the descendants of Sheba, son of Joktan, the Sabel of the Greeks and Romans, who settled in Arabia Felix. They are the Sabaeans ' of Joel iii. 8, to whom the Jews were to sell the captives of Tyre. The unpublished Arabic version, quoted by Pococke, has the people of Yemen.' Hence they are called a people afar off,' the very designation given in Jer. vi. zo to Sheba, as the country of frankincense and the rich aromatic reed, and also by our Lord in Matt. xii. 42, who says, the queen of Sheba, or the south,' came, bc Tar reparcor rijs -yijs, from the earth's extremes.' 3. To another tribe of Shebans (NZV , also with a shin), a horde of Bedawee marauders in the days of Job (ch. i. 15) ; for whether we place the land of Uz in Idumma or in Ausitis, it is by no means likely that the Arabs of the south would extend their excursions so very far. We must, therefore, look for this tribe in Desert Arabia ; and it is singular enough, that besides the Seba of Cush, and the Shaba of Joktan, there is another Sheba, son of Jokshan, and grandson of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. xxv. 33) ; and his posterity appear to have been men of the wilderness,' as were their kinsmen of Midian, Ephah, and Dedan. To them, however, the above-cited passage in the prophecy of Joel could not apply, because in re spect neither to the lands of Judah nor of Uz could they be correctly described as a people afar off.'
As for the Sabah?: of Ezek. xxiii. 42 (which our version also renders by Sabmans'), while the Keri has inCID, the Kethib has 17'n-41.11D, e.
T• •drunkards,' which better suits the context.
Yet, as if to increase the confusion in the use of this name of Sabxans,' it has also been applied 4. To the ancient star-worshippers of Western Asia, though they ought properly to be styled Tsabians, and their religion not Sabaisin but Tra balm, the name being most probably derived from of heaven (see an excursus by Gesenius in his translation of Isaiah, On the Astral Worship of the Chaldceans). 5. The name of Sabxans, or Sa bians, has also been given to a modern sect in the East, the Mandates, or, as they are commonly but incorrectly called, the 'Christians' of St. John ; for they deny the Messiahship of Christ, and pay superior honour to John the Baptist They are mentioned in the Koran under the name of Sabi onna, and it is probable that the Arabs confounded them with the ancient Tsabians above mentioned. Norberg, however, says that they themselves derive their own name from that which they gave to the baptist, which is Abo Sabo Zakrio ; from Abo, father ;' Sabo, to grow old together ;' and Za krio, ex. gr. Zecharia. The reason they assign for calling him Sabo is because his father, in his old age, had this son by his wife Aneschbat (Elizabeth), she being also in her old age (see Norberg's Coa'ex Nasaraus, Liber Adami Apellatus, and Silvestre de Sacy, in the Yournal des Savans for 1819).