The rule of the Sabaean princes extended to the borders of Egypt and Canaan, and Sheba was the brother of Hazarmaveth and of Dedan alike.

For Dedan was a north Arabian tribe, whose home was near Tema, and whose name may have had a connection with that sometimes given by the Babylonians to the whole of the west.
Such, then, was Arabia in the days of the Hebrew writers.

The south was occupied by a cultured population, whose rule, at all events after the time of Solomon, was acknowledged throughout the peninsula.

The people of the north and the centre differed from this population in both race and language, though all alike belonged to the same Semitic stock.

The Midianites on the western coast perhaps partook of the characteristics of both.