Reference: Sheba (2)
Fausets
from whom the country derives its name.
1. Grandson of Cush and son of Raamah (Ge 10:7).
2. Son of Joktan (Ge 10:28).
3. Grandson of Abraham by Keturah; son of Jokshan (Ge 25:3). This is an instance of the intermingling of the early descendants of Shem and Ham. SHEBA was a wealthy region of Arabia Felix or Yemen (1Ki 10:1; Ps 72:10,15, where "Sheba" is Joktanite, "SEBA" Cushite; Job 1:15, the Keturahite Sheba, Job 6:19; Isa 60:6; Jer 6:20; Eze 27:22, it was the Sheba son of Raamah and grandson of Cush that carried on the Indian traffic with Palestine in conjunction with the Keturahite Sheba (Joe 3:8). The Sabeans were famed for myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon, their chief city being Mariaba (Strabo 16:777), named also Seba, the one being the city the other the fortress (near the famous dyke el 'Arim, built to store water and avert mountain torrents.)
This was afterward the celebrated Himyeritic Arab kingdom, called from the ruling family of Himyer. The Cushite Sheba and his brother Dedan settled along the Persian gulf, but afterward were combined with the Joktanite Sabean kingdom. (See RAAMAH.) The buildings of Mariaba or Seba are of massive masonry, and evidently of Cushite origin. The Joktanites (Semitics) were the early colonists of southern Arabia. The Himyerites Strabo first mentions in the expedition of A. Gellius (24 B.C.); the Arabs however place Himyer high in their list. Himyer may mean "the red man," related to the "Red Sea" and "Phoenician." The kingdom probably was called "Sheba" (Seba means "turned red"), its reigning family Himyer; the old name was preserved until the founding of the modern Himyeritic kingdom about a century B.C.
The queen of Sheba (1Ki 10:1-2,10) ruled in Arabia, not Ethiopia, as the Abyssinian church allege; Sheba being in the extreme Sheba of Arabia, "she came (a distance of nearly a thousand miles) from the uttermost parts of the earth," as then known, to hear the wisdom of Solomon (Mt 12:42; Lu 11:31). Four principal Arab peoples are named: the Sabeans, Atramitae or Hadramaut, Katabeni or Kahtan or Joktan, and the Mimaei. SHEBA. A town of Simeon (Jos 19:2). Possibly the SHEMA of Jos 15:26. Now Saawe (Knobel). Or Sheba is a transcriber's error, repeating the end of Beer-sheba; for the number of names in Jos 19:2-6 including Sheba is 14, whereas 13 is the number stated, and in 1Ch 4:28 Sheba is omitted in the list of Simeon. But Conder (Palestine Exploration, January 1875) identifies Sheba with Tell el Seba, two miles of Beersheba, and on the line to Moladah (Jos 19:2); its well is a quarter of a mile W. of it.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Smith
She'ba
(seven, or all oath).
1. A son of Raamah son of Cush.
2. A soil of Joktan.
3. A son of Jokshan son of Keturah.
We shall consider, first, the history of the Joktanite Sheba; and secondly, the Cushite Sheba and the Keturahite Sheba together. I. The Joktanites were among the early colonists of southern Arabia, and the kingdom which they there founded was for many centuries called the kingdom of Sheba, after one of the sons of Joktan. The visit of the queen of Sheba to King Solomon.
is one of the familiar Bible incidents. The kingdom of Sheba embraced the greater part of the Yemen, or Arabia Felix. It bordered on the Red Sea, and was one of the most fertile districts of Arabia. Its chief cities, and probably successive capitals, were Seba, San'a (Uzal), and Zafar (Sephar). Seba was probably the name of the city, and generally of the country and nation. II. Sheba, son of Raamah son of Cush settled somewhere on the shores of the Persian Gulf. It was this Sheba that carried on the great Indian traffic with Palestine, in conjunction with, as we hold, the other Sheba, son of Jokshan son of Keturah, who like Dedan appears to have formed, with the Cushite of the same name, one tribe.