FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
dominated all of southern Arabia), and was labeled in Matthew 12:42 as
the ‘Queen of the South.’ The historian Josephus referred to her as the
“Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia.” Dedan was the name of a Sabaean
oasis in the northern part of Saudi Arabia, which was one of their many
colonies in northern Arabia.Another identifying indication again comes from Biblical genealogy.
Cush, the son of Ham, was the father of Ethiopia, and other tribes who
settled south of Egypt, in Arabia, Babylonia and India. Cush’s sons are
identified as Seba (who in Psalms 72:10 is associated with the kings of
Sheba, and in Isaiah 43:3 are mentioned with Ethiopia, which indicates
that he is the father of the Sabaeans); Havilah (a name associated with
the area of the Sinai and northwestern Arabia); Sabtah, Raamah, and
Sabtechah (all three of which were associated with tribes in southern
Arabia). Sheba and Dedan are listed as sons of Raamah. Thus, the
reference to Sheba and Dedan actually identifies the country of Saudi
Arabia (as well as the countries of Oman, Yemen, the United Arab
Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain). They were an ally of the Coalition
against Iraq during the Gulf War.The “merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof” are also
named with them. According to Jeremiah 10:9, Tarshish is identified
as a land rich with precious metals; and in other passages, such as
Isaiah 2:16, are associated with possessing a prominent shipping
empire which was used to export goods to places all over the
Mediterranean. Some researchers have tried to connect Tarshish with
Tartessus (located in the Guadalquivir Valley) in southwestern Spain,
where the Phoenicians founded colonies to capitalize on the wealth of
minerals found there.The Phoenicians established the city of Carthage on Africa’s northern
coast (in what is now Tunisia), and it was these Carthaginians who
began colonizing Spain in 654 BC (until they were driven out by the
Romans in 206 BC), and exploring the Atlantic coastline from western
Africa to Britain. Recent archaeological evidence has shown that they
possessed sailing capabilities far beyond what was originally known.
An inscription discovered in 1780 on a cliff above Mount Hope Bay in
Bristol, Rhode Island, which was written in Tartessian Punic, reads:
“Voyagers from Tarshish this stone proclaims.” It is believed that this
inscription was made about 533 BC. Howard University’s Dept. of