And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken it.
And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans. The Persian Artaxerxes Mnemon and Darius Ochus, and chiefly the Greek Alexander, reduced the Phoenician and Philistine powers. Thirty thousand Tyrians, after the capture of Tyre by the last conqueror, and multitudes of Philistines on the taking of Gaze, were sold as slaves. The Jews are hero said to do that which the God of Judah does in vindication of their wrong-namely, sell the Phoenicians, who sold them, to a people "far off," as was Greece, where the Jews had been sold. Retributive justice. The Sabeans at the most remote extremity of Arabia Felix are referred to (cf. Jeremiah 6:20, "from Sheba ... a far country;" Matthew 12:42, "The queen of the south (Sheba) ... came from the uttermost parts of the earth," etc.) Three fathers of distinct races bore the name of Sheba; one a descendant of Ham, the other two of Shem. The Hamite Sheba was son of Raamah, son of Cush, and occupied probably the region on the Persian Gulf called Raamah. The Shemite Sabeans were some descended from Sheba, the son of Joktan, and dwelt in the southwestern extremity of Arabia, still called 'Ard-es-Saba,' 'land of Saba,' and were famed for their riches: these are the Sabeans meant here. The other Shemite Sabeans were descended from Abraham and Keturah, and dwelt in Arabia Deserta, not far from Syria which they often invaded. They are probably the marauders meant by Job under the name "Sabeans" (Job 1:15).