The people of Seba are also called Sabeans, "a nation far away" (Joel 3:8). In Job, Sabean raiders carried off the patriarch's oxen and donkeys (Job 1:15). They are usually mentioned in conjunction either with Cush (Isaiah 43:3; 45:14) or Sheba (Psalm 72:10).
Havilah seems to have been in the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps extending northward with or near the land of Uz (see verse 17 in this chapter). Another Havilah was a descendant of Shem (see verse 29). It is that Havilah, not this one, to which Moses refers in his comments about the four rivers flowing from the headwater in the Garden of Eden.
Sabta was a man whose dwelling by the same name is unknown to us. Perhaps it was in southern Arabia.
Raamah became a merchant tribe, dealing with Tyre for “all kinds of spices and precious stones, and gold” (Ezekiel 27:22). Raamah’s descendants, Sheba and Dedan, were influential tribes in their own right.
The people of Sheba were traders in precious stones, incense and slaves (Jeremiah 6:20; Joel 3:8). Their distant land was either in the extreme south of the Arabian peninsula or across the straight in the Horn of Africa. It was the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon 2 Chron. 9:1-12; Mathew 12:42).
Dedan's descendants were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites (Genesis 25:3). The latter were descended from Abraham by Keturah his second wife. But the Asshurites present a difficulty that may not be possible to solve. We will discuss this in the next verse.
Sabteca is not known outside this genealogy and its source in Genesis 10:7.
The Targum on this passage does not really help us since the names become even less comprehensible: Sindi (סינידאי) and Hinduqi (הנדקאי, although here we can recall that "Hindu-Cush" was a place designation at one time for northern India), Semdæi (סמדאי), Lubyæ (לובאי), the Mauritaneans (מווריאטינוס) and the Zingæ (זינגאי). The sons of the Mauritaneans: Zemargad (זמרגד) and Misag (מזג).
We can do no better than quote Jesus himself about these peoples. His words apply to us today every bit as much as they did then:
The Queen of the South (Sheba) will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. (— Jesus, 29 AD)
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