John Gill Commentary Genesis 10:30

"And their dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest toward Sephar, the mountain of the east." — Genesis 10:30 (ASV)

And their dwelling was from Mesha, as you go unto
Zephar, a mount of the east .

Mesha, which is thought to be the Muza of Ptolemy and Pliny, was a famous port in the Red sea, frequented by the merchants of Egypt and Ethiopia, from which the Sappharites lay directly eastward; to whose country they used to go for myrrh and frankincense, and the like, of which Saphar was the metropolis, and which was at the foot of Climax, a range of mountains, which perhaps might be formerly called Saphar, from the city at the bottom of it, the same with Zephar here:

by inspecting Ptolemy's tables ^F15 , the way from one to the other is easily discerned, where you first meet with Muza, a port in the Red sea, then Ocelis, then the mart Arabia, then Cane, and so on to Sapphar or Sapphara;

and so Pliny says ^F16 , there is a third port which is called Muza, which the navigation to India does not put into, only the merchants of frankincense and Arabian odours: the towns in the inland are the royal seat Saphar; and another called Sabe;

now the sons of Joktan had their habitations all from this part in the west unto Zephar or Saphar eastward, and those were reckoned the genuine Arabs:

Hillerus ^F17 gives a different account of the situation of the children of Joktan, as he thinks, agreeably to these words of Moses; understanding by Kedem, rendered the east, the mountains of Kedem, or the Kedemites, which sprung from Kedem or Kedomah, the youngest son of Ishmael, (Genesis 25:15) and Zephar, the seat of the Sepharites, as between Mesha and Kedem; for, says he, Mesha is not Muza, a mart of the Red sea, but Moscha, a famous port of the Indian sea, of which Arrian and Ptolemy make mention; and from hence the dwelling of the Joktanites was extended, in the way you go through the Sepharites to the mountainous places of Kedem or Cadmus:

Perhaps nearer the truth may be the Arabic paraphrase of Saadiah ^F18 , which is ``from Mecca till you come to the city of the eastern mountain, or (as in a manuscript) to the eastern city,'' meaning perhaps Medina, situate to the east;

so that the sense is, according to this paraphrase, that the sons of Joktan had their dwelling from Mecca to Medina; and so R. Zacuth ^F19 says, Mesha in the Arabic tongue is called Mecca;

and it is a point agreed upon by the Arabs that Mesha was one of the most ancient names of Mecca; they believe that all the mountainous part of the region producing frankincense went in the earliest times by the name of Sephar; from whence Golius concludes this tract to be the Mount Zephar of Moses, a strong presumption of the truth of which is that Dhafar, the same with the modern Arabs as the ancient Saphar, is the name of a town in Shihr, the only province in Arabia bearing frankincense on the coast of the Indian ocean ^F20 .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F15: Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.
• F16: Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 23.
• F17: Onomastic. Sacr. p. 116.
• F18: In Pocock. Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 34.
• F19: In Juchasin, fol. 135. 2.
• F20: Universal History, vol. 18. p. 353.