Kush had five sons and two grandsons, who were reckoned among the founders of nations.

(19) Seba is associated with Kush Isaiah 43:3; Isaiah 45:14. Josephus (Ant. I. 6, 2; II. 10, 2) places him in Meroe, a country almost insulated by the Nile and its branches, the Astapus (Blue Nile) and Astaboras (Atbarah).

(20) Havilah occurs as the name of a country in the antediluvian times. The present Havilah may refer to a tribe in Africa, called Avalitae, lying south of Bab-el-mandeb, which corresponds very well with the situation of Kush and Seba. This nation, however, may also have a representative in the Χαυλοταῖοι Chaulotaioi of Strabo (xvi. 728), situated on the Persian Gulf, where some other Kushites were to be found. The fragments of this nation may have separated by migration, and left its name in both localities.

(21) Sabtah, Josephus finds in the Astaborans of Ethiopia, others in Sabota, a town in southwest Arabia.

(22) Ramah is traced in Rhegma on the southeast of Arabia.

(23) Sabteka is the third name, beginning with the same syllable. Such names are frequent from the Persian Gulf to the coast of Africa. Some find this place on the coast of Abyssinia, others in Samydake on the east side of the Persian Gulf. From Ramah are two tribes descended.

(24) Sheba, and (25) Dedan, lying in the south of Arabia or on the Persian Gulf. Daden, an island in the gulf, now Barhein, may represent the latter.

Seba - The founder of the Sabaeans. There seem to be three different people of this name mentioned in this chapter, and a fourth in Genesis 25:3.

Havilah - Supposed by some to mean the inhabitants of the country included within that branch of the river Pison which ran out of the Euphrates into the bay of Persia, and bounded Arabia Felix on the east.

Sabtah - Supposed by some to have first peopled an isle or peninsula called Saphta, in the Persian Gulf.

Raamah - Or Ragmah, for the word is pronounced both ways, because of the ע ain, which some make a vowel, and some a consonant. Ptolemy mentions a city called Regma near the Persian Gulf; it probably received its name from the person in the text.

Sabtechah - From the river called Samidochus, in Caramanla; Bochart conjectures that the person in the text fixed his residence in that part.

Sheba - Supposed to have had his residence beyond the Euphrates, in the environs of Charran, Eden, etc.

Dedan - Supposed to have peopled a part of Arabia, on the confines of Idumea.

And the sons of Cush,.... The first born of Ham, who had five sons, next mentioned, besides Nimrod, spoken of afterwards by himself:

Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtecha; the first of these is Seba, the founder of the Sabaeans, according to Josephus (p), a people seated in Arabia Deserta, which seem to be the Sabaeans brought from the wilderness, Ezekiel 23:42 and very probably the same that plundered Job of his cattle, Job 1:14. The second son is Havilah, who, as Josephus (q) says, was the father of the Evilaeans, now called Getuli; but the posterity of Havilah seem to be the same whom Strabo (r) calls Chaulotaeans, and whom he speaks of along with the Nabataeans and Agraeans, a people near Arabia Felix; and by Pliny (s) they are called Chavelaeans, and whom he speaks of as Arabians, and places them to the east of the Arabian Scenites. The third son is Sabtah; from him, Josephus (t) says, came the Sabathenes, who, by the Greeks, are called Astabari; the posterity of this man seemed to have settled in some part of Arabia Felix, since Ptolemy (u) makes mention of Sabbatha as the metropolis of that country, called by Pliny (w) Sabotale, or rather Sabota, as it should be read; Ptolemy places another city in this country he calls Saphtha, which seems to have its name from this man. The fourth son is Raamah or Ragmas, as Josephus calls (x) him, from whom sprung the Ragmaeans he says; and most of the ancients call him Rhegmah, the letter being pronounced as a "G", as in Gaza and Gomorrah: his posterity were also seated in Arabia Felix, near the Persian Gulf, where Ptolemy (y) places the city Rhegama, or as it is in the Greek text, Regma. The fifth son is Sabtecha, whom some make to be the father of a people in the same country, Arabia Felix, near the Persian Gulf, called Sachalitae; but Dr. Wells (z) thinks, that the descendants of this man might be from him regularly enough styled at first by the Greeks, Sabtaceni, which name might be afterwards softened into Saraceni, by which name it is well known the people of the northern parts of Arabia, where he places the descendants of this man, were formerly denominated; though Bochart (a) carries them into Carmania in Persia, there being a short cut over the straits of the Persian Gulf, out of Arabia thither, where he finds a city called Samydace, and a river, Samydachus, which he thinks may come from Sabtecha, the letters "B" and "M" being frequently changed, as Berodach is called Merodach, and Abana, Amana, and so in other names.

And the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan; no account is given of any of the posterity of the other sons of Cush, only of this his fourth son Raamah, who is said to have two sons; the first is called Sheba, from whom came the Sabaeans, according to Josephus (b); not the Sabaeans before mentioned in Arabia Deserta, but those in Arabia Felix, where Pomponius Mela (c) and Strabo (d) seat a people called Sabaeans, and whose country abounded with frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon; the latter makes mention of a city of theirs called Mariaba, and seems to be the same that is now called Mareb, and formerly Saba (e), very likely from this man. The other son, Dedan, is called by Josephus (f) Judadas, whom he makes to be founder of the Judadaeans, a nation of the western Ethiopians; but the posterity of this man most probably settled in Arabia, and yet are to be distinguished from the Dedanim in Isaiah 21:13 who were Arabians also, but descended from Dedan the son of Jokshan, a son of Abraham by Keturah, Genesis 25:3 as well as from the inhabitants of Dedan in Edom, Jeremiah 25:23 it is observed, that near the city Regma before mentioned, on the same coast eastward, was another city called Dedan; and to this day Daden, from which the neighbouring country also takes its name, as Bochart (g) has observed, from Barboza, an Italian writer, in his description of the kingdom of Ormus: so that we need not doubt, says Dr. Wells (h), but that here was the settlement of Dedan the son of Raamah or Rhegma, and brother of Sheba.

(p) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (q) Ibid. (r) Geograph. l. 16. p. 528. (s) Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 11. (t) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (u) Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. (w) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. (x) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (y) Ut supra. (Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.) (z) Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1. p. 198. (a) Phaleg l. 4. c. 4. col. 218. (b) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (c) De Situ Orbis, l. 3. c. 8. (d) Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. (e) Via. Pocock. Specimen Arab. Hist p. 57. (f) Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1.) (g) Phaleg. l. 4. c. 6. col. 219. (h) Ut supra, (Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 1.) p. 197.

Descendants of Cush. Seba: the inhabitants of Mero; according to Knobel, the northern Ethiopians, the ancient Blemmyer, and modern Bisharin. Havilah: the Αὐαλῖται or Ἀβαλῖται of the ancients, the Macrobian Ethiopians in modern Habesh. Sabtah: the Ethiopians inhabiting Hadhramaut, whose chief city was called Sabatha or Sabota. Raamah: Ῥεγμά, the inhabitants of a city and bay of that name in south-eastern Arabia (Oman). Sabtecah: the Ethiopians of Caramania, dwelling to the east of the Persian Gulf, where the ancients mention a seaport town and a river Σαμυδάκη. The descendants of Raamah, Sheba and Dedan, are to be sought in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, "from which the Sabaean and Dedanitic Cushites spread to the north-west, where they formed mixed tribes with descendants of Joktan and Abraham." See notes on Genesis 10:28 and Genesis 25:3.

And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

10:1-7 This chapter shows concerning the three sons of Noah, that of them was the whole earth overspread. No nation but that of the Jews can be sure from which of these seventy it has come. The lists of names of fathers and sons were preserved of the Jews alone, for the sake of the Messiah. Many learned men, however, have, with some probability, shown which of the nations of the earth descended from each of the sons of Noah To the posterity of Japheth were allotted the isles of the gentiles; probably, the island of Britain among the rest. All places beyond the sea from Judea are called isles, Jer 25:22. That promise, Isa 42:4, The isles shall wait for his law, speaks of the conversion of the gentiles to the faith of Christ.