Sheba in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

from whom the country derives its name. 1. Grandson of Cush and son of Raamah (Genesis 10:7). 2. Son of Joktan (Genesis 10:28). 3. Grandson of Abraham by Keturah; son of Jokshan (Genesis 25:3). This is an instance of the intermingling of the early descendants of Shem and Ham. SHEBA was a wealthy region of Arabia Felix or Yemen (1 Kings 10:1; Psalm 72:10; Psalm 72:15, where "Sheba" is Joktanite, "SEBA" Cushite ; Job 1:15, the Keturahite Sheba, Job 6:19; Isaiah 60:6; Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:22, it was the Sheba son of Raamah and grandson of Cush that carried on the Indian traffic with Israel in conjunction with the Keturahite Sheba (Joel 3:8). The Sabeans were famed for myrrh, frankincense, and cinnamon, their chief city being Mariaba (Strabo 16:777), named also Seba, the one being the city the other the fortress (near the famous dyke el 'Arim, built to store water and avert mountain torrents.) This was afterward the celebrated Himyeritic Arab kingdom, called from the ruling family of Himyer. The Cushite Sheba and his brother Dedan settled along the Persian gulf, but afterward were combined with the Joktanite Sabean kingdom. (See RAAMAH.) The buildings of Mariaba or Seba are of massive masonry, and evidently of Cushite origin. The Joktanites (Semitics) were the early colonists of southern Arabia. The Himyerites Strabo first mentions in the expedition of A. Gellius (24 B.C.); the Arabs however place Himyer high in their list. Himyer may mean "the red man," related to the "Red Sea" and "Phoenician." The kingdom probably was called "Sheba" (Seba means "turned red"), its reigning family Himyer; the old name was preserved until the founding of the modern Himyeritic kingdom about a century B.C. "The queen of Sheba" (1 Kings 10:1-2; 1 Kings 10:10) ruled in Arabia, not Ethiopia, as the Abyssinian church allege; Sheba being in the extreme Sheba of Arabia, "she came (a distance of nearly a thousand miles) from the uttermost parts of the earth," as then known, to hear the wisdom of Solomon (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). Four principal Arab peoples are named: the Sabeans, Atramitae or Hadramaut, Katabeni or Kahtan or Joktan, and the Mimaei. SHEBA. A town of Simeon (Joshua 19:2). Possibly the SHEMA of Joshua 15:26. Now Saawe (Knobel). Or Sheba is a transcriber's error, repeating the end of Beer-sheba; for the number of names in Joshua 19:2-6 including Sheba is 14, whereas 13 is the number stated, and in 1 Chronicles 4:28 Sheba is omitted in the list of Simeon. But Conder (Israel Exploration, January 1875) identifies Sheba with Tell el Seba, two miles of Beersheba, and on the line to Moladah (Joshua 19:2); its well is a quarter of a mile W. of it.