Genesis 10:28
And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba,
And Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba. The first of these, Obal, or Aubal, as the Arabs pronounce, Bochart {t} is obliged to make his posterity pass over the straits of the Arabian Gulf out of Arabia Felix into Arabia Troglodytice; where he finds a bay, called by Pliny {u} the Abalite bay, which carries in it some trace of this man's name, and by Ptolemy {v} the Avalite bay; and where was not only an emporium of this name, but a people called Avalites and also Adulites, which Bishop Patrick believes should be read "Abulites", more agreeably to the name of this man, but Pliny {w} speaks of a town of the Adulites also: Abimael is supposed by Bochart {x} to be the father of Mali, or the Malitae, as his name may be thought to signify, Theophrastus {y} making mention of a place called Mali along with Saba, Adramyta, and Citibaena, in spicy Arabia, which is the only foundation there is for this conjecture: Sheba gave name to the Sabaeans, a numerous people in Arabia; their country was famous for frankincense; the nations of them, according to Pliny {z}, reached both seas, that is, extended from the Arabian to the Persian Gulf; one part of them, as he says {a}, was called Atramitae, and the capital of their kingdom Sabota, on a high mountain, eight mansions from which was their frankincense country, called Saba; elsewhere he says {b}, their capital was called Sobotale, including sixty temples within its walls; but the royal seat was Mariabe; and so Eratosthenes in Strabo {c} says, the metropolis of the Sabaeans was Mariaba, or, as others call it, Merab, and which, it seems, is the same with Saba; for Diodorus Siculus {d} and Philostorgius {e} say, the metropolis of the Sabaeans is Saba; and which the former represents as built on a mountain, as the Sabota of Pliny is said to be,
{t} Ut supra, (Phaleg. l. 2.) c. 23.
{u} Nat. Hist. l. 26. c. 29.
{v} Geograph. l. 4. c. 7, 8.
{w} Nat. Hist. l. 26. c. 29.
{x} Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 2. c. 24.)
{y} Ut supra, (Hist. Plant. l. 9.) c.4.
{z} Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28.
{a} Ib. l. 12. c. 14.
{b} Ut supra. (Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28.)
{c} Geograph. l. 16. p. 528.
{d} Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 180.
{e} Hist. Ecclesiast. l. 3. p. 477.