Arabia
Arabia is a region mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Arabia in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Known today as Arabian Peninsula. It appears across 6 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
The Arabian Peninsula appears throughout the Old Testament as a vast and somewhat mysterious land of traders, nomadic peoples, and exotic wealth. Its inhabitants are frequently associated in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) with the descendants of Shem and Ham, and various Arab tribes appear as trading partners and occasional adversaries of Israel. The Queen of Sheba's magnificent visit to Solomon (1 Kings 10:1–13), bearing spices, gold, and precious stones from the south, almost certainly from ancient South Arabia (modern Yemen), represents the most celebrated biblical encounter with the peninsula's wealth. The prophet Isaiah includes oracles against Arabian peoples such as the Dedanites and Kedarites (Isaiah 21:13–17), while Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention Arabians among the nations engaged in trade with Tyre and Judah (Ezekiel 27:21; Jeremiah 25:24). In the postexilic period, Nehemiah faced opposition from Geshem the Arab alongside Sanballat and Tobiah (Nehemiah 2:19; 6:1), reflecting Arab settlement in the regions surrounding Judah.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Arabian Peninsula encompasses one of the most archaeologically rich yet underexplored regions in the Near East. Southern Arabia, modern Yemen and Oman, preserves remains of the ancient kingdoms of Saba, Qataban, Hadramawt, and Ma'in, which were major producers and traders of frankincense and myrrh. Inscriptions in Old South Arabian script illuminate these civilizations from the first millennium BCE onward. Ongoing excavations at sites such as Marib in Yemen have revealed monumental temple complexes. Northwestern Arabia (the Hejaz and Dedan/al-Ula) has yielded abundant Lihyanite and Dadanitic inscriptions, while Nabataean remains dominate the northwest. The broader peninsula is increasingly the subject of large-scale survey projects.
Verse Appearances (6)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]