word Nodab, in the Arabic idiom, is "the vibration of a spear or dart;" 2. the natives of the coast of the Persian Gulf, in the vicinity of Kadema, were famous for the manufacture of spears: and, 3. Nodab is expressly mentioned by the author of the Kamouz, a writer of the ninth century of the Hedjra, and fifteenth of the Christian era, as a then existing Arab tribe.*

With the learned Calmet, therefore, I conclude this tribe to be that of Kedemah: surnamed Nodab, from its celebrity in the manufacture, or its skill in the use, of the spear. The case of Kedemah is but a fresh instance of the adoption of warlike surnames by the tribes of the desert; a custom already illustrated in a kindred and neighbouring example, that of Kedar, surnamed Harb, from the Arabic, Harb, "War."

The alliance commemorated in the fifth chapter of 1 Chronicles, between Jetur, on the border of the Hauran, and Kedemah, on the shore of the Persian Gulf, receives curious and conclusive illustration from the fact, communicated by Burckhardt, respecting the inter-communication still maintained, by the roving tribes of the great northern desert, between these widely-separated

Jaculatio, vibramen teli. — Gi. et Nom. tribus Arabicæ.

parts. "Wady Haouran, which has been mentioned in a preceding account of this desert, seems a part of those wadys. During the last century, this ground was the continual scene of conflict, between the Mowaly Arabs, who were then very powerful, but at present inhabit the desert about Aleppo, and the Beni Khaled tribe, from Basra. On those grounds, both tribes were accustomed to meet in winter, and contend for the right of pasture." Substitute only for the names, Mowaly and Beni Khaled, those of the Israelite tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, on the one hand, and of the Ishmaelite tribes of Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab or Kedemah, on the other, and you have the same conflict renewed, on the same ground, and for the same cause, at the interval of more than three thousand years.

*Notes on Bedouins and Wahabys, p. 217.

SECTION IV.

SETTLEMENTS OF KETURAH.

"THEN, again, Abraham took a wife, and her

name was Keturah. and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And Jokshan begat Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were, Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim. And the sons of Midian, Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abidah, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts; and sent them away from Isaac his son (while he yet lived) eastward, unto the east country."*

And she bare him Zimran,

In the case of Hagar, we have already seen, that the posterity of Abraham by her, through Ishmael, were denominated, not after "the father of the faithful," but, by the name of the mother of the race, Hagarites or Hagarenes. The object, in the intention of Providence, being apparently

this, to distinguish between all other children of the patriarch, and "his only son, Isaac,” the heir of the promises, and "his son indeed." Upon the same principle, accordingly, the same line of distinction is preserved, in the Mosaic account of the posterity of Abraham, by his second wife, Keturah; who are styled, in Genesis, "the children of Keturah," and "the sons of the concubines whom Abraham had," in contradistinction to "Isaac, his son after the spirit:" the natural being thus again severed, at the outset, from the spiritual seed.

But the distinction is not more important in its spiritual, than it is valuable in a historical point of view: in which light, it becomes a clue for the recovery of the Abrahamic tribes from Keturah, who dwelt in Arabia intermixed with the Ishmaelites or Hagarenes; and also, as shall elsewhere be shown, for the restoration to their place in history of the still more numerous and powerful Arab tribes of the race of Esau.

By the expressions, "the east," and "the east country," as there has been already occasion to notice, the Jews topographically meant the Arabian peninsula: a large part of which lay nearly due east, and a still larger portion east-southeast, of Palestine. When Scripture history, therefore, relates, that Abraham sent the sons of

Keturah, and of his other wives, "eastward into the east country," it literally instructs us to seek their settlements in Arabia; where the learned, accordingly, are unanimous in placing them.

Before, however, we prosecute our researches in this quarter, after the particular tribes descended from the several sons, or grandsons, of Keturah, enumerated in the Mosaic record, it seems incumbent on us to inquire whether, as in the instance of Hagar, traces of this stock are recoverable in the historical geography of Arabia, ancient or modern, under a generic name, derived, like that of Hagarenes or Agræi, from the mother of the race.

Now, in the Arabian geography of Ptolemy, we find the city of Katara; a town placed by him upon the Persian Gulf, in the same latitude, and nearly in the same longitude, as Gerra, or in the neighbourhood of the Bahrein islands. In the Arabian geography of Pliny, we further meet independent mention of a people called the Katarai, in this very quarter. The inference to be drawn is plain: the Katara of Ptolemy was the seat of the Katarai of Pliny. And when, on turning from the ancient to the modern geography of Arabia, we see, in d'Anville and others, the town of Katura, in the longitude and latitude of the ancient Katara, or in the