Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1211

with certainty, the only other place specially referred to in the Old Testament besides Ophir as being celebrated as a gold country is Saba, in the south-western portion of Yemen. The Sabaeans bring gold, precious stones, and incense (Isa 60:6; Eze 27:22); and the queen of Saba presented Solomon with 120 talents of gold, with perfumes and with precious stones (1Ki 10:10). This agrees with the accounts of the classical writers, who describe Arabia as very rich in gold (cf. Strabo, xvi. 777f. and 784; Diod. Sic. ii. 50, iii. 44; also Bochart, Phaleg, l. ii. c. 27). These testimonies, which we have already given in part at Exo 38:31, are far too distinct to be set aside by the remark that there is no gold to be found in Arabia at the present time. For whilst, on the one hand, the wealth of Arabia in gold may be exhausted, just as Spain no longer yields any silver, on the other hand we know far too little of the interior of Southern Arabia to be able distinctly to maintain that there is no gold in existence there. - Silver, the other metal brought from Ophir, was also found in the land of the Nabataeans, according to Strabo, xvi. p. 784, although the wealth of the ancient world in silver was chiefly derived from Tarshish or Tartessus in Spain (cf. Movers, Phöniz. ii. 3, p. 36ff., where the different places are enumerated in which silver was found). - That precious stones were to be found in Arabia is evident from the passages cited above concerning the Sabaeans. - On the other hand, however, it has been supposed that the remaining articles of Ophir could only have been brought from the East Indies.
According to 1Ki 10:12, the Ophir ships brought a large quantity of אלמגּים עצי (almuggim wood: 2Ch 2:7, אלגּמּים). According to Kimchi (on 2Ch 2:7), the אלמוּג or אלגוּם is arbor rubri coloris, dicta lingua arabica albakam (Arabic ‛l'-'bqm), vulgo brasilica. This tree, according to Abulfadl (Celsius, Hierob. i. p. 176), is a native of India and Ethiopia; and it is still a question in dispute, whether we are to understand by this the Pterocarpus Santal., from which the true sandal-wood comes, and which is said to grow only in the East Indies on Malabar and Java, or the Caesalpinia Sappan L., a tree which grows in the East Indies, more especially in Ceylon, and also in different parts of Africa, the red wood of which is used in Europe chiefly for dyeing. Moreover the true explanation of the Hebrew name