Saba

“ Indeed, Saba is one of those quiet secluded nooks, which are sometimes unexpectedly discovered in different parts of the world, where the people, generation after generation, live in a sort of primitive simplicity, and pride themselves upon their peculiarities and seclusion from mankind. The traveller in quest of novelties would do well to visit Saba.
In a few days after I became one of the crew of the Lapwing, that vessel was ready for sea. Captain Lordick manifested toward me a friendly feeling ”

“ For weeks has the San Saba mission-house been the theme of their thoughts, and topic of discourse. They will re-people the deserted dwelling, restore it to its pristine splendour; bring its long neglected fields under tillage—out of them make fortunes by the cultivation of cotton.
There is no cloud to darken the horizon of their hopes. ”

“ According to Joel, 4: 8, the Jews sold slaves to the Saba nation, dwelling afar off. Ezekiel, 38: 13, refers to the trade relations between the Saba and the merchants from Tarshish. Isaiah, 60: 6, promises that young camels shall come to Zion from Madian and ʻÊfa’ bearing gold and incense of the Saba traders. From this reference it is clear that the great transport route from Saba proper, or southwestern Arabia, passed through the territory of the tribes of Madian and ʻÊfa ”

“ The queen of Saba having made these laws irrevocable to all her posterity, died, after a long reign of forty years, in 986 before Christ, placing her son Menilek upon the throne, whose posterity, the annals of Abyssinia would teach us to believe, have ever since reigned. ”

“ Big males with long manes displayed their teeth at Saba or stretched out their jaws in sign of amazement and rage, and at the same time jumped about, blinking with their eyes and scratching their sides. ”

“ WHILE these improvements were going on so prosperously in the central and northern territory of the descendents of Cush, their brethren to the south were not idle, they had extended themselves along the mountains that run parallel to the Arabian Gulf; which was in all times called Saba, or Azabo, both which signify South, not because Saba was south of Jerusalem, but because it was on the south coast of the Arabian Gulf, and, from Arabia and Egypt, was the first land to the southward which bounded the African Continent, then richer, more important, and better known, than the rest of the world. ”

“ Here and there are a few plants in pots, or a feeble attempt at rearing vegetables in little garden patches which fill in any foot of level among the many-cornered buildings; while in one cranny grows the solitary date-palm which Saint Saba planted more than 1300 years ago. At every few yards you pause to look over a low balustrade into the gorge, which here is a sort of yellow-ochre gulf, with all the horror but none of the rich depth of colouring that belongs to frightful abysses. Over these walls the monks throw meat to the jackals which come and fight for it below. ”

“ On the hills there is sometimes an inch of soil over the rock; in the valleys there are torrents of stones over the inch of soil. Between our mid-day halt at Derbinerbeit (the highest land in Judæa) , and the evening rest at Mar Saba, our whole march had been in utter solitude; not a village, a tent, a caravan, a human being in sight. Not a tree or bush. Of living creatures hardly a bird to break the dead silence of the world, 239only a large and venomous snake crawling beside our track. Thus, far from human haunts, in the heart of the wilderness, lies Mar Saba. ”

“ And they demonstrated at length how the men of Saba had misapplied the parable of the hare and the elephant, and again adjured them to believe. But the men of Saba continued refractory, and would not, accept the Prophets' counsels. They plied the prophets with the arguments of the Compulsionists (Jabriyan) , and refused to be convinced of the fallacy of their reasoning. So at last the prophets despaired of them, and left them to their doom.
Not every one can properly use similitudes and parables in divine matters. ”

“ There can be no doubt of this expedition, as Pagan, Arab, Moor, Abyssinian, and all the countries round, vouch it pretty much in the terms of scripture.
Many321 have thought this queen was an Arab. But Saba was a separate state, and the Sabeans a distinct people from the Ethiopians and the Arabs, and have continued so till very lately. We know, from history, that it was a custom among these Sabeans, to have women for their sovereigns in preference to men, a custom which still subsists among their descendents. ”

“ Sabeans, descendants from Joktan, may very well be those mentioned by Ezekiel, xxvii, 23: “Saba, Assur, and Chelmad, thy dealers.” They are thought to have inhabited beyond the Euphrates; whence they are connected with Asshur and Chilmad, Gen. x, 28; 1 Chron. i, 22. 5. Sabeans are also placed in Africa, in the isle of Meroë. Josephus brings the queen of Sheba from thence, and pretends that it had the name of Shebah, or Saba, before that of Meroë.
SABELLIANS were so called from Sabellius, a presbyter, or, according to others, a bishop, of Upper Egypt, who was the founder of the sect. ”

“ The Sabaeans are thus connected with this Saba, a descendant of Jerah, and not with Sheba, son of Joktan, who is referred rather to Central Arabia; whom Glaser and Hommel would make a colony from Yemen, while Weber would reverse the process, having the Sabaeans migrate southward for the conquest of the Minaeans. ”

“ When the last priest, Samah'ali Darrahh, became king of Sabâ, we do not yet know, but the age must be sufficiently remote, if the kingdom of Sabâ already existed when the Queen of Sheba came from Ophir to visit Solomon. The visit need no longer cause astonishment, notwithstanding the long journey by land which lay between Palestine and the south of Arabia. ... As we have seen, the inscriptions of Ma'in set before us a dialect of more primitive character than that of Sabâ. ”

“ One of the sights which affected me most in the course of our pilgrimage through Judæa was beheld after a night spent by the ladies of our party in our tent pitched among the sands (and centipedes!) of the desert of the Mar Saba. (Our gentlemen-friends were privileged to sleep in the vast old monastery whence they brought us next morning the most excellent raki.) As we rode out of the little valley of our encampment and down by the convent of Mar Saba, we obtained a complete view of the whole hermit burrow; for such it may properly be considered. Mar Saba is the very ideal of a desert. ”

“ There is an account of such a plundering expedition in Job, 1: 14–15. This narrative is entirely probable and shows not only that the writer was well acquainted with the habits and customs of the Sabaeans but also that we should locate the residence of Job near some Sabaean oasis and thus to the southeast of the Dead Sea, where their caravans passed.
Other Biblical writers refer to the tribe of Saba only as traders. Ezekiel, 27: 22, records that the traders from Saba and Raʻama conveyed the best balsam, various precious stones, and gold to the market at Tyre. ”

“ But Saba was immovable and imperturbably pressed his petition for five concessions, remission of taxes, rebuilding and subsidies for ruined churches, the foundation of a hospital at Jerusalem, the completion of a church to the Virgin in that city, and the erection of a fort in the desert to protect his monasteries from the Saracens. Finally Justinian yielded at every point, and the Holy City was enriched with an infirmary to receive two hundred sick and a magnificent church to the Theotokos, which it took twelve years to build, as a part of the tangible outcome of the mission. ”

“ This city of "Soba" probably takes its name from "Saba," the son of Cush, who first colonized this country, which is called, in the Hebrew Bible, "the land of Cush and Saba."—See Gen. x. 7. See the references in a Concordance to the Hebrew Bible, under the heads of "Cush," and "Saba." ”

“ The inscriptions in the other dialect were engraved by the princes and people of Sabâ, the Sheba of the Old Testament, the Sabæans of classical geography. The Sabæan kingdom lasted to the time of Mohammed, when it was destroyed by the advancing forces of Islam. Its rulers for several generations had been converts to Judaism, and had been engaged in almost constant warfare with the Ethiopic kingdom of Axum, which was backed by the influence and subsidies of Rome and Byzantium. ”

“ The valley of the Nile is very narrow, not capable of containing a great and powerful people. Sheba and Saba were either one or two cities of the Cushites or Ethiopians, and Pliny says, that the Sabæans extended from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, thus giving them the whole of Arabia ”

“ From thence, it is twenty days journey to Asvan [26] , through the deserts of Saba, on the Phison, which river comes from the country of Chus, in the dominions of Shah-Abasch, or the king of Abyssinia. Part of the inhabitants of this country live like beasts, going entirely naked, and feeding only on the grass and herbs that grow by the river side, and propagate with their sisters and nearest relations, without shame or scruple. ”

“ All Abyssinia was thereupon converted, and the government of the church and state modelled according to what was then in use at Jerusalem.
By the last act of the queen of Saba's reign, she settled the mode of succession in her country for the future. First, she enacted, that the crown should be hereditary in the family of Solomon for ever. Secondly, that, after her, no woman should be capable of wearing that crown or being queen, but that it should descend to the heir male, however distant, in exclusion of all heirs female whatever, however near ”

“ The nature and value of that loss can hardly be estimated in these days, but you can draw your own conclusions when you learn that the city of Saba is more familiar to us under its Biblical name, Sheba. It was thence that the famous queen came who visited Solomon. Nearly a thousand years later, when the Roman legion sacked it with fire and sword, it was at the height of its glory."
Von Kerber, fairly launched in a recital glib on his lips, regained the dominance of manner which the attitude of his subordinates had momentarily imperiled. ”

“ Our Saviour calls her Queen of the South, without mentioning any other name, but gives his sanction to the truth of the voyage. "The Queen of the South (or Saba, " or Azab) shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here * [4] ." No other particulars, however, are mentioned about her in scripture ”

“ Map of Yemen.
Sabæans.—The ancient name of the people of Yemen was Saba (Saba’ with final hemza) ; and the oldest notices of them are in the Hebrew Scriptures. The list of the sons of Joktan in Gen. x. 26–29 contains in genealogical form a record of peoples of South Arabia which must rest on good information from Yemen itself. Many of these names are found on the inscriptions or in the Arabic geographers,—Sheba (Saba’) , Hazarmaveth (Ḥaḑramaut) , Abimael (Abime‘athtar) , Jobab (Yuhaibib, according to Halévy) , Jerah (Waráḥ of the geographers) , Joktan (Arab Ḳaḥtan; waḳata = ḳaḥata) . ”

“ Thus we can understand how in Gen. xxv. 2–3 Sheba and Dedan appear among the North-Arab “sons of Keturah.” Again, the Sabæans had colonies in Africa and there mingled with the black Africans; and so in Gen. x. 7 Sheba and Dedan, the sons of Raamah (Raghma) , appear in the genealogy of the Cushites. With the Ethiopians Saba’ means “men,” a clear indication of their Sabæan descent.
The queen of Sheba who visited Solomon may have come with a caravan trading to Gaza, to see the great king whose ships plied on the Red Sea. ”

“ And as for her being an Arab, the objection is still easier got over. For all the inhabitants of Arabia Felix, especially those of the coast opposite to Saba, were reputed Abyssins, and their country part of Abyssinia, from the earliest ages, to the Mahometan conquest and after. They were her subjects; first, Sabean Pagans like herself, then converted (as the tradition says) to Judaism, during the time of the building of the temple, and continuing Jews from that time to the year 622 after Christ, when they became Mahometans. ”

“ The account they give of themselves, which is supported only by tradition among them, is, that they came with Menilek from Jerusalem, so that they agree perfectly with the Abyssinians in the story of the queen of Saba, who, they say, was a Jewess, and her nation Jews before the time of Solomon; that she lived at Saba, or Azaba, the myrrh and frankincense country upon the Arabian Gulf. They say further, that she went to Jerusalem, under protection of Hiram king of Tyre, whose daughter is said in the xlvth Psalm to have attended her thither ”

“ She died at the birth of the heir to the thrones of Portugal and Spain, August 24th, 1498, and the Infante died two years later. One of the remnant dismissed was Abraham Saba, a preacher and Kabbalist author, whose two children were baptized by force and taken from him. The companions of Simon Maimi and his sons-in-law remained in prison a long time, were afterwards sent to Arzilla, in Africa, there condemned to work at the trenches on the Sabbath, and died at last a martyr's death. ”

“ The monastery of San-Saba stands on a narrow, deep ravine. It takes in part of the ridge on both sides, and has a very high and strong wall, which crosses the ravine at two places, so as to include the valley for a considerable distance. In the valley within the walls, is a small spring, the only one that is near. On the hills are towers connected with the walls. There are many buildings within, and rooms sufficient to hold several thousand persons. ”