Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/265

 all the kings of the land of ʻÛṣ. Hence the land of ʻÛṣ must have been adjacent to the area of the nomads.

In his illness Job is visited by four friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite (Job, 2: 11 f.), and Elihu the Buzite (Job, 32: 2, 6).

The Septuagint designates Eliphaz as the king of Têmân, in agreement with Genesis, 36: 15, 42, where it is stated that Têmân was a duke, belonging to the clan of Eliphaz through the descendants of Esau (Gen., 36: 11). In Genesis, 36: 34, there is a reference to Husham, king of Edom, from the land of Têmân. From this it is clear that Têmân must be located in Edom, where so many scattered clans settled down.

References are quite frequently made in the Bible to the Têmân settlements which connected the settlements with Boṣra, a city of Edom. Hence it would appear that they were situated in the northern part of eastern Edom. For instance:

Amos, 1: 12, threatens that the Lord will send a fire upon Têmân, which shall devour the palaces of Boṣra.

Jeremiah, 49: 20, exhorts all to hear the counsel of the Lord, which he had taken against Edom and his purposes against the inhabitants of Têmân. In verse 22 he describes an eagle rising, soaring, and spreading its wings over Boṣra, so that the hearts of the mighty men of Edom tremble with fear.

The men of Têmân held sway over the rest of the inhabitants of Edom, both by their sagacity and by their heroism. Nevertheless, Obadiah, 1: 8–9, threatens that the Lord will “destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau” and that the mighty men of Têmân “shall be dismayed to the end that everyone of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.” The same threat also occurs in Jeremiah, 49: 7, in the form of a question: “Is wisdom no more in Têmân?,” the reply being: “Counsel is perished from the prudent, their wisdom is vanished.” And there follows an exhortation: “Flee ye, turn back, hide in deep basins, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him.”

It is interesting that the same fate which threatens the men of Têmân is to befall Dedan as well. The dwelling place of the men of Dedan was the oasis of the same name, the modern al-ʻEla’, situated 425 kilometers south of the extreme border of Edom, whereas the men of Têmân owned the northern border of Edom and were thus at least 525 kilometers away from Dedan. It cannot be supposed that the enemy who subdued Têmân would undertake an expedition across five hundred kilometers of desert in order to gain possession of Dedan also; nor in the sources hitherto discovered is there the slightest reference to any such martial achievement. We must therefore assume that the men of Dedan were in direct touch with the men of Têmân and that this was the result of their trade journeys. The settlement of Dedan was situated on the great transport route connecting southwestern Arabia with Egypt and Syria. It was the residence of the representative of the south Arabian merchants, who equipped the trade caravans which set out from there