Who were the Sabeans?

Sheba, son of Jokshan. Gen. 25:3.

The first two are descendants of Ham, and the last two descendants of Shem. For their localities see SEBA and SHEBA. Some were marauders who swept away the oxen and asses of Job. Job 1:15. In Isa. 45:14 they were travelling merchants. In Joel 3:8 they are represented as a people 'far off,' to whom Judah will sell their enemies. These passages may not all refer to the same people. In Ezek. 23:42 the chethib reads 'drunkards,' as in the margin of the A.V. and the text of the R.V.

Sheba needs the greater care because in the inspired history we hear of no less than three heads of tribes who bore the name, the tenth of Joktan's sons now in question, preceded by the Cushite Raamah's son (ver. 7), and followed by the Abrahamic son of Keturah, Jokshan, who begat another Sheba (Gen. 25:2-3).

But we may also distinguish Seba's posterity, Cush's eldest son, the Sebaim of eastern Arabia, to which they seem to have migrated from Chuzestan on the eastern side of the Persian gulf. They were dark-coloured, and very tall (Isa. 45:14), the Dowaser or Danasir Arabs of modern times. C. Ptolemy draws the line between these, the oldest, or amongst the oldest, settlers, and Sabeans in the province of Sabié (who appear to be descended of Sheba, Raamah's son), and calls them Sabai as distinct from those in the east coast of Oman, whom he names Sabi (or Asobi, the common Arabic prefix). Of the Jokshanite Sheba the less need be said, as they had their seat far north and were more obviously distinct.

The race from Joktan's son Sheba had their kingdom in the S.W. of Yemen; and these were the Sabeans, familiar to the Greeks and Romans, who had high notions of their wealth attributed to their own products without adequate account of their Indian trade. Their capital was called by Eratosthenes Mariaba, and by C. Ptolemy Sabatha Metropolis. The Arabs used both Mâreb and Saba. It is Abulfeda, as Mr. Forster shows (i. 155, 156), who in his geography expressly states that Mâreb was the central seat of the Beni Kahtan, i.e. the sons of Joktan. This can only be Sheba's posterity when we come to specify to which of Joktan's numerous sons in particular it belonged.

Nor is there any reasonable doubt that the Queen of Sheba, or as our Lord said "of the south," whose visit to King Solomon holds so interesting a place in scripture, ruled the Sabean kingdom of which we have last spoken. Indeed "Yemen" means the south generally, and that quarter of Arabia, Felix in particular. But scripture carefully distinguishes the Shemitic lines of Sheba, Joktanite or Jokshanite (distinct as they are in themselves), from the Rahmanite Sheba in Yemen and the kindred Seba on or near the Persian gulf. It was the last race which gave its name to the kingdom of Meroe, far as its seats might be apart. Pliny confounded these races, as if one and the same ruled the entire south of the peninsula from west to east; but C. Ptolemy as usual shows more exactness and discrimination. The "Sheba and Raamah" of Ezekiel 27:27 would seem to be the Cushite race in the west, as being spice merchants; whereas Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad in ver. 23 point to the Keturah family as dealers in choice clothes or wares and bales of broidered work. This too was the Sheba that first plundered Job's possessions.

There were four of these, suggesting by their number the trial to which the Lord's servant was subjected. The first blow fell upon his oxen and asses, the means of labor which is the chief source of wealth. "Much increase is by the strength of the ox" (Prov. 14:4); "That our oxen may be strong to labor" (Ps. 144:14). The Sabeans, a mixed nomadic race of near-by Arabians, swooped suddenly down, slew all the servants except the fugitive who told the tale, and made off with all the spoil. We can see Satan's work in stirring up the cupidity of these people, ever ready to murder and to rob, but the supernatural part was that along with all the rest, it took place at just this time, God permitting it all.

Four calamities overtake Job's possessions and household. Satan stirred up the Sabeans (Hebrew: Sheba), a nomadic people, probably robber tribes and under his direction they plunder Job of his most valuable cattle and murdered the servants. No sooner had this happened than another messenger announced that the fire of God, probably not lightning, had fallen from heaven and the sheep and servants who were there had been completely destroyed. Then came the third calamity. The Chaldeans robbed Job of his camels and killed his servants who had charge of them. And then the last affliction which is the greatest of them all. A hurricane tore down the house and his loved ones were killed. His wife is not mentioned. Satan did not touch her for he intended to use her as a tool and as his mouthpiece. Thus suddenly, without any warning whatever, in the midst of earthly happiness, yea, real piety, Job, the great and prosperous Job had been stripped of all he had. Satan had done his work well. He knew how to be cruel and reserve the worst blow to the last. And all this happened not only under the all-seeing eye of God, but with His own permission.

The man Seba gave his name to the country and people afterwards known as Meroë between Ethiopia and Egypt. The ruins of the metropolis also so called are not far from the Nubian tower of Dschendi or Shendy, as Gesenius tells us (Thes. Ll. H. and Ch. ii. 993). Bruce in his travels (See. Ed. v. 317) says, "If we are not to reject entirely the authority of ancient history, the island of Meroe, so famous in the first ages, must be found somewhere between the source of the Nile and this point where the two rivers unite; for of the Nile we are certain, and it seems very clear that the Atbara is the Asaboras of the ancients." In his vol. vi. 445, 446, he confirms the former statement, and gives its latitude as 16 deg. 26 min. for the city, adding that there are four remarkable rivers that contribute to form the island Meroe, the Astusaspes (or Mareb), the Astaboras (or Tacazzé), the Astapus (or White river), and the Nile (or Blue River). It is rather of course a Mesopotamian tract than an island proper; but no one need wonder that it was so called. Strabo (xviii. 823) corrects Diodorus Sic. (i. 23) in that 375 miles would be not the length but the circumference, and 125 miles the diameter. It was rich in mines of gold, copper, iron, and salt; possessed woods of ebony, date-palm, almond-trees, etc., and abounded in pasture-lands and millet fields of double harvest, to say nothing of forests where game and wild beasts were caught.

But its fame was long after the first ages of the Pharaohs; and the derivation (Diodorus Sic., Josephus, etc.), of Meroë from a sister of Cambyses who died during his expedition, is very doubtful. It is rather an adoption from the native designation Meru, which in ancient Egyptian means island, as shown in Smith's Dict. B. iii. 1189. Our Auth. and Rev. Vv. have "Sabeans," in Isa. 45:14, where it should surely be Sebeans (Sebaim), as the country is named with Cush or Ethiopia in Isa. 43:3. In Job 1:15 the error occurs of calling the men of Sheba "Sabeans." Both Sheba and Seba are brought together in Ps. 72:10; and we shall find a Cushite Sheba presently, as well as a Joktanite and a Jokshanite of the Shemitic line later on, both of whom found their settlements in Arabia, not in Africa.

There are four persons who have been regarded as progenitors of the Sabeans.

That was the first trial. Here we have light upon a very important thing. Satan showed himself to God, but he hides himself from men, to deceive all the more. We read that a messenger came, when everything was prosperous. No man in that part of the East was so prosperous as Job; he was the man that must be brought down to the dust. The same thing with his sons and daughters. There they were. We have a beautiful picture here of social happiness and family enjoyment, which is a thing that God takes pleasure in, but it all came to naught, and it all came to naught also as to his substance. Everything — children, the dearest of all that Job had — and also all his property. "The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them" — they were a people in that part of the country who used to keep moving upwards from the south to the north — "and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." While that man was speaking, word came — and this was not the Sabeans, nor the Chaldeans — "The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and has burned up the sheep." The flocks, of course, were vast compared with the herds, and they were all consumed, and the servants too. And while he was speaking, there came one and told him about the Chaldeans. They were enemies, plunderers at that time from the east, as the Sabeans were from the south; and they fell upon the camels, a very valuable part of Job's property, and carried them away. He only was escaped to tell the sad tale. And then came the last stroke of all — a whirlwind that attacked the house on all four sides. No ordinary wind would do that. And it fell upon and destroyed all assembled there on that very day — the festal day that they were holding together.

The picture is painted for us in a few brief touches: the insensate profligate sitting upon a stately bed, with a table prepared before it whereon were placed the incense and the oil that belonged to her forsaken God. Around her the voices of a loose crowd in utter abandonment, even the Sabeans of the wilderness, the men who lived by pillage, as their name here may indicate, brought in to join with them, and all this when plainly old age was come upon her, hastened by her excesses. The two sisters, every way such, are joined together in this count, and men of mere human righteousness are called to pronounce the judgment upon them which they so well deserve. Thus a divine judgment is executed, but with the approbation of the human conscience everywhere. God and man are united together against them, but with the end in God's thoughts still of getting rid, by whatever severe measures, of the wickedness which else would never end, but which shall at last make them recognize their covenant-God in the holiness which compels Him thus to afflict them. The end for Israel and for the nations alike is ever that they shall know that He is the Lord Jehovah.

Son of Cush, a son of Ham, and the territory where his descendants were located. Gen. 10:7; 1 Chr. 1:9; Ps. 72:10; Isa. 43:3. The descendants have been traced to Meroe, on the west of Abyssinia, and Josephus says that Meroe was at one time called Saba, or Seba. Its ruins lie between lat. 16 and 17 N. It is, however, believed by some that this tribe first settled near the Persian Gulf (probably along with the descendants of SHEBA, another descendant of Ham), and afterwards migrated into Africa. See SABEANS.

Son of Joktan, a descendant of Shem. Gen. 10:28; 1 Chr. 1:22. His descendants have been traced to Southern Arabia, or Arabia Felix. The metropolis of the district was at or near the modern Mareb, about 15 45' N, 45 35' E.

Son of Jokshan, a son of Abraham and Keturah. Gen. 25:3; 1 Chr. 1:32. Some judge his descendants to have settled 'far north'; others place them 'somewhere in Arabia.' (The name 'Sheba' occurs also in Job 6:19; Ps. 72:10, 15; Isa. 60:6; Jer. 6:20; Ezek. 27:22-23; Ezek. 38:13; but it is uncertain to which of the above three races each passage refers.)

The country from whence the queen came who visited Solomon. She brought gold, precious stones, and a great store of spices. The Lord spoke of her as 'the queen of the south.' 1 Kings 10:1-13; 2 Chr. 9:1, 3, 9, 12; Matt. 12:42; Luke 11:31. The 'south' well agrees with the locality of the descendants of Sheba, the son of Joktan.