Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/175

 connects with the name give in the Arabian legends to the ancestor of the tribes Themûd and Ghadis. Mash: for which we find Meshech in 1Ch 1:17, a tribe mentioned in Psa 120:5 along with Kedar, and since the time of Bochart generally associated with the πορος Μάσιον above Nisibis.

verses 25-29
Among the descendants of Arphaxad, Eber's eldest son received the name of Peleg, because in his days the earth, i.e., the population of the earth, was divided, in consequence of the building of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:8). His brother Joktan is called Kachtan by the Arabians, and is regarded as the father of all the primitive tribes of Arabia. The names of his sons are given in Gen 10:26-29. There are thirteen of them, some of which are still retained in places and districts of Arabia, whilst others are not yet discovered, or are entirely extinct. Nothing certain has been ascertained about Almodad, Jerah, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, and Jobab. Of the rest, Sheleph is identical with Salif or Sulaf (in Ptl. 6, 7, Σαλαπηνοί), an old Arabian tribe, also a district of Yemen. Hazarmaveth (i.e., forecourt of death) is the Arabian Hadhramaut in South-eastern Arabia on the Indian Ocean, whose name Jauhari is derived from the unhealthiness of the climate. Hadoram: the Ἀδραμῖται of Ptol. 6, 7, Atramitae of Plin. 6, 28, on the southern coast of Arabia. Uzal: one of the most important towns of Yemen, south-west of Mareb. Sheba: the Sabaeans, with the capital Saba or Mareb, Mariaba regia (Plin.), whose connection with the Cushite (Gen 10:7) and Abrahamite Sabaeans (Gen 25:3) is quite in obscurity. Ophir has not yet been discovered in Arabia; it is probably to be sought on the Persian Gulf, even if the Ophir of Solomon was not situated there. Havilah appears to answer to Chaulaw of Edrisi, a district between Sanaa and Mecca. But this district, which lies in the heart of Yemen, does not fit the account in 1Sa 15:7, nor the statement in Gen 25:18, that Havilah formed the boundary of the territory of the Ishmaelites. These two passages point rather to Χαυλοταῖοι, a place on the border of Arabia Petraea towards Yemen, between the Nabataeans and Hagrites, which Strabo describes as habitable.

verses 30-31
The settlements of these Joktanides lay “ from Mesha towards Sephar the mountain of the East,” Mesha is still unknown: according to Gesenius, it is Mesene on the Persian Gulf, and in Knobel's opinion, it is the valley of Bisha or Beishe in the