SHE'BA HO). Sheba, Ar. Sabo, Assyr. Sab`a). llehrew eponym of the Sab:can people, represented in Gen. x. 28 as one of the thirteen (originally twelve) sons of Joktan. Eber's son; in Gen. xxv. 3 as a son of Jokshan, Abraham's son by Keturan; in Gem x. 7, as a son of Raamah. Ham's grandson. That some Sab:cans were made Hamites by the priestly redactor may be due to the knowledge of Sab:ean settlements along the caravan route from to the Erythriean Sea in the Persian period. The de sire to make Abraham the father of a mul titude of peoples accounts for the divergent genealogy in Gen. xxv. 3. Sheba is correctly associated with southwest Arabian tribes in the oldest documents. In I. Kings x. I et seq. there is a story of a visit to Solomon by a queen of Sheba not mentioned by name. While it is difficult to account for a queen on the throne of Sheba in the tenth century n.c. (see SAB.EANS ) it is conceivable that such a queen, cherishing de signs to wrest the ancestral home in Yemen from the Min:cans (q.v.). should have sought alliance with Solomon, who on the Elamitic Gulf was the neighbor and rival of the Kingdom of Main. In this way a nucleus of historic fact may be as sumed. Legendary embellishments naturally be gan at an early date, and the notion of the riddle may go back to Hebrew antiquity. Accord ing to the late Arabic version of the story the queen's name was Bilkis, and it was Solomon who visited her in Yemen, where she tried him with many riddles. From the Hebrews or the
Arabians the Abyssinians learned the story. They give the name of the queen as Makeda, and main tain in their lists of kings that lbn al-Hakim was the son of Makeda and Solomon, and that consequently the legitimate rulers of Abyssinia are Solomonitie. Frankincense from Sheba is referred to in Jer, vi, 20 and Job vi. 19. Sabmans appear in caravans; in Ezek. xxv. 22 they are mentioned with Raamah as traders in jewels, balms, and gold: in Isa. Ix. 6 they bring gold and incense. Consult: Gunkel, Genesis (Giittingen, 1901) Glaser, Gcsehichtc mud Geographic A cc hien s (Berlin, 1S90) ; Stade, Gcseh (chi(' des Israel (ib., 1889) ; Winekler, Gesehichte lsracls, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1900). For the story of Bilkis, consult Brfinnow, Chrestomathy of Ara bic Prose I'ieces (Berlin. 1895) ; for the story of Makeda, Prfetorim,., Fabian de Regina Sulam apud .Ethioprs 1870) ; on the occurrence of the name Shabat in Egyptian inscriptions of the Persian and Greek period, consult W. Max 'Midler, in Mittheilungen der vorder-asiatischen Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1898). See SA.B.EANS.