IN addition to the sons already passed in review there remain three; “and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were sons of Joktan” (ver. 29).
The local habitation of “Ophir” has been contested most notably; but no sufficient ground appears to look for it outside the peninsula. Josephus (Ant. viii. 6-4) referred it to India, as did Vitringa (Geog. Sac. 114), and Reland in his dissertation on the question, and of late Lassen, Ritter, Bertheau; again, Sir W. Raleigh to the Molucca, Islands; and Pererius, Sir J. E. Tennent, Thenius, Ewald and Gen. Chesney (Euphrates ii. 126) to Malacca and the adjoining tracts. On the other hand, Huet, Bruce, Robertson the historian, Heeren, and Quatremore placed Ophir in Africa; and Plessis and A. Montanus contended for Peru, arguing from the word “Parvaim I” But Michaelis (Spicil. ii. 184), Karsten Niebuhr (Decor. de l'Arabie), Gosselin (Lech. sur la Geog. des Anciens, ii. 99), Vincent (Comm. and Nay. ii. 265-270), Crawford (Desc. Diet.), Forster (Geog. of Arabia i. 161-175), Thirst, Kalisch, Knobel (Volk. 190), and Winer (Realw.), assign it to Arabia. The learned I3ochart (Phaleg ii. 27) was inclined to two Ophirs, one in Arabia, the other in Ceylon; as D'Anville admitted two, one in Arabia, the other in Africa. Gesenius, both in his Thes. and elsewhere, thought that the balance of evidence between Arabia and India was so even that he declined giving a decisive judgment.
The fact is, however, that ever since the maps of Sale and of D'Anville, as Mr. Forster observes (i. 167), Ofor or Ofir appears as the name of a city and district in the mountains of Oman, seated on their eastern side, near the source of the Oman river, and within about a degree, or a little more, of the coast; and the adjoining coast, lying due east under Ofir, was still celebrated in the elder Pliny's time (Nat. H. vi. 32) for its traffic in gold, “littus Hammaeum ubi auri metalla.” This answers to the town and coast of Maham, as laid down in modern maps for that precise locality.
One of the chief arguments against Arabia by those who looked elsewhere is the absence of gold as a known product of the country for many years. But Dean Vincent had anticipated the objection by his remark that silver is not now found at Carthagena in Spain, where the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans, obtained it in great abundance. Niebuhr (iii. 256) says of this very province Oman, “there is no want there of lead and copper mines"; and Mr. Wellsted (Travels in Arabia, i. 315) states that the notion is untrue that Arabia is wholly destitute of the precious metals. “In this province we meet with silver, associated as usual with lead. Copper is also found: at a small hamlet, on the road from Seined to Neswah, there is a mine which the Arabs at present work; but the others are wholly neglected. Even in the vicinity of Maskat the hills are very metalliferous.” In ancient times the testimony is distinct that Arabia was a gold-producing land. Thus Agatharchides the geographer who lived in the second century before Christ testifies to it (Hudson's Geog. Min. i. 60); a little later wrote Artemidorus, whose account Strabo reproduces (xiv. 18); Diodorus Sic. is no less plain in his Eibliotheca (ii. 50, iii. 44); and Pliny the elder as we have seen; to whom from Eusebius' Praep. Evang. ix. 30 we may add the testimony of Eupolemus before the Christian era: only that he affirms Ophir to be an island with gold mines in the Erythrean sea, i.e., the sea that compassed Arabia, west, south, and east. At the least Ophir was the emporium whence not gold only but algum trees, red sandalwood or whatever else is meant, and precious stones, were brought.
No one denies that peacocks, apes, and ivory point further east than Arabia; but Ophir was their meeting place and mart. It is to be noticed that Uphaz, as equivalent to Ophir, means “isle of fine gold,” if there was another such place besides the inland one still bearing the name.
The family of “Havilah” have left their mark in the country in a distinct manner, though the name is as usual somewhat disguised by the difference of pronunciation which prevailed when there was little of known pervading literature to fix it. Only we have to take into account that there was a Cushite Havilah which extended itself in its branches over the peninsula from the N.E. to the S.W. These we have to discriminate from the Joktanite tribe which found their place, it would seem, chiefly among their kindred. But as the names of their respective patriarchs were identical, so the same changes of form prevailed over the descendants of each, and the places which derived their designation from them. Thus Khaulan or Haultim evidently sprang from Havilah, harder or softer, as also Hevila and Flail, and Strabo's Chaalla, as we may see in Niebuhr. So Dr. Wells long ago from Bochart noticed the Chaulothaei of Eratosthenes, the Chaulosii of Festus Avienus, the Chablasii of Dionysius Periegetes, and the Chavilei of Pliny. Mr. Forster puts the case yet more strongly that, when in Ptolemy we read Huaela or Huaila, and in Niebuhr Huala, or more correctly Hauiiah, we have before us literally the Havilah of the Hebrew Scripture, Aval or Alial being a dialectic softening which prevails on the Persian Gulf. In Yemen, and north of it, it can hardly be doubted that the Joktanite section of Havilah prevailed.
Nor is there any serious question as to the descendants of “Jobab” in the clan of Jobaritae. They are mentioned by C, Ptolemy as dwelling in the south and near the Sachalitae, who gave their name to the well known hay. Besides, we hear of the Beni Jobub or Jubbar of Niebuhr, as the existing name of a tribe S.E. of Beishe or Baisath Joktan, halfway between lizal (Sand) and Sabata (the modern Zehid). Thus there seems no sufficient reason to doubt the identification. The variations of form at most found in this case in no way hinder the recognition of the ancient designation; while the measure of change is no more than time brings about in the immovable east, even in a land so shut out from intercourse with mankind in general. It is truly remarkable that, for every member of Joktan's numerous sons, living representatives should be traceable, attesting in a simple but striking way the inestimable value of God's word, long before human records, even then few and failing, till long after.