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Bible Dictionaries
Arabia
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Arabia (a-râ'biah), arid, sterile. A peninsula in the southwestern part of Asia, between the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. Its extreme length from north to south is about 1300 miles, its greatest breadth about 1500 miles, though from the northern point of the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf is only about 900 miles. It has the sea on all sides except the north. Its area is estimated at 1,030,000 square miles; and of the three ancient divisions of the country, that known as Arabia Felix was by far the largest and most important. Its main features are a coast range of low mountains or table land, seldom rising over 2000 feet, broken on the eastern coast by sandy plains; this plateau is backed up by a second loftier range of mountains in the east and south. The Sinaitic peninsula is a small triangular region in the northwestern part, or corner, of Arabia. See Sinai. The ancients divided it into Petræa, Deserta, and Felix; or the stony, the desert, and the happy or fertile. The principal animals are the horse, famed for its form, beauty, and endurance; camels, sheep, asses, dogs, the gazelle, tiger, lynx, and monkey; quails, peacocks, parrots, ostriches; vipers, scorpions, and locusts. Of fruits and grains, dates, wheat, millet, rice, beans, and pulse are common. It is also rich in minerals, especially in lead. Arabia in early Israelitish history meant a small tract of country south and east of Palestine, probably the same as that called Kedem, or "the east." Genesis 10:30; Genesis 25:6; Genesis 29:1. Arabia in New Testament times appears to have been scarcely more extensive. Galatians 1:17; Galatians 4:25. The chief inhabitants were known as Ishmaelites, Arabians, Idumeans, Horites, and Edomites. The allusions in the Scripture to the country and its people are very numerous. Job is supposed to have dwelt in Arabia. The forty years of wandering by the Israelites under Moses was in this land. See Sinai. Solomon received gold from it, 1 Kings 10:15; 2 Chronicles 9:14; Jehoshaphat flocks, 2 Chronicles 17:11; some of its people were at Jerusalem at the Pentecost, Acts 2:11; Paul visited it, Galatians 1:17; the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah frequently refer to it. Isaiah 21:11-13; Isaiah 42:11; Isaiah 60:7; Jeremiah 25:24; Jeremiah 49:28-29. The Minnaean country to which Moses fled, according to recent discoveries, was among the most cultured of ancient times, having alphabetic writing and literary works earlier than the Phœnicians. It has been said, that if any people in the world afford in their history an instance of high antiquity and great simplicity of manners, the Arabs surely do. Of all peoples, the Arabs have spread farthest over the globe, and in all their wanderings have preserved their language, manners, and peculiar customs more perfectly than any other nation.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Arabia'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/a/arabia.html. 1893.
