Isham, Chester, a Congregational minister, was born in 1798, and, after a course of preparatory study at the Latin Grammar School in Hartford, Conn., entered Yale College, where he graduated in 1820. Shortly af- terwards he went to Andover Seminary to prepare for the ministry, upon which he had decided soon after his conversion while at Yale College. In 1824, on the completion of his theological course of study, he accept- ed a call to a newly-formed church at Taunton, where he had been preaching during the latter part of the last year spent at Andover. But the great exertions which the work demanded of him' were too severe upon his constitution, and the svTnptoms of consumption appear- ing shortly after, he went South in the hope of recover- ing his health. He continued failing, however, and re- turned to Boston April 19th, to die among his friends. Dr. Leonard Bacon, who was a classmate of Chester Ish- am at Yale, speaks very highly of his attainments and religious bearing, ni Sprague's Annuls of the American Pidpif, ii, 704 sq.
Ishaneki (cfi'cf hnnrD, a Russian sect which arose in lOOti, under the fear that the printed Church books were tainted with error, since they differed from the old BIS. copies which had been so long in use. They stout- ly adhere to the letter of Scripture, deny different orders among the clergy, and any gradation of rank among the people, but under Alexander I obtained toleration, though they had previously been exposed to constant persecution. — Eadie, Eccles. Diet. s. v. See also Eck- ardt, Modem Russia, s. v.
Ish'bah (Hebrew Yishbach,' 7\^^^''^,praisfr ; Sept. 'linafta), a descendant of Judah, and founder (" father") of Ivshtemoa (q. v.); he probably was a son of Mered by his wife Hodiah (1 Chron. iv, 17). B.C. post 1G12. See INIkkkd. He is perhaps the same as Ism (q. v.) in verse 20, and apparently identical with the Nahaji (q. v.) (,fvor. 19.
Ish:bak (Hob. Yishhuk', par^/crtner,- Sejit. 'lirr- (iuiK, 'liaj^oK), one of the sons of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. XXV, 2 ; 1 Chron. i, 32). B.C. post 2024. "We are told that Abraham "gave gifts" to the sons of Keturah, " and sent thera away from Isaac his son eastward, unto the east country" ((ien. xxv, 1-G). They settled in the region east of the Arabah, in and near iVrount Seir, and southward in the peninsula of Sinai (Gen. xxxvii, 28, 36 ; Exod. iii, 1 ; Numb, xxxi, 9, 10). See Keturah.
The settlements of this people are very obscure, and Poole (in Smith's Diet, of the Bible, s. v.) suggests as pdssilile that they may be recovered in the name of the valley called Subuk, or, as it is also called, " Sibdk, in the
Dahniv" (Mardsid, s. v.). The Heb. root precisely cor- responds to the Arabic (sabaq) m etymology and signi- tication. The Dahna, in which is situate Sabak, is a fertile and extensive tract belonging to the Beni-Te- mim, in Nejd, or the highland of Arabia, on the north- east of it, and the borders of the great desert, reaching from the rugged tract (" hazn") of Yensu'ah to the sands of Yebrin. It contains much pasturage, with compara- tively few wells, and is greatly frequented by the Ai-abs when the vegetation is plentiful {Mushtarak and Ma- rdsid, s. v.). There is, however, another Dahna, nearer to the Euphrates (ib.), and some confusion may exist regarding the true position of Sabak ; but either Dahna is suitable for the settlements of Ishbak. The first-men- tioned Dahna lies in a favorable portion of the widely- stretching country known to have been peopled hy the Keturahites. They extended from the borders of Pal- estine oven to the Persian Gulf, and traces of their set- tlements must be looked for all along the edge of the Arabian peninsula, where the desert merges into the cultivable land, or (itself a rocky undidating plateau) rises to the wild, mountainous country of Nejd. Ishbak seems from his name to have preceded or gone before his brethren : the place suggested for his dwelling is far away towards the Persian Gulf, and penetrates also into the peninsula. See Arabia. There are many places, however, of an almost simOar derivation (root shabak), as Shebek, Shibdk, and Esh-Shobak ; the last of which has especially been supposed (as by Schwarz, Palest, p, 215; Bunsen, Bibehcei-k, I, ii, 53) to preserve a trace of Ishbak. It is a fortress in Arabia Petra?a, and is near the well-known fortress of the Crusaders' times called El-Karak. This great castle of Shobek "stands on the top of the mountain range which boimds the vallej' of Arabah on the cast, and about twelve miles north of Pe- tra, on the crest of a peak commanding a wide view. It was built by Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, in A.D. 1115, on the site of a much more ancient fortress and city, and it was one of the chief strongholds of the Crusaders. The name they gave it was JiJons Regalis; but bj' the Arabs, both before and suiee, it has been uniformlj' call- ed Shobek. It was finally taken from the Franks by Saladin in A.D. 1188 {Gesta Dei Per Francos, p. 426, 611, 812; Bohadin, Vita Suladini, p. 38, 54, and Index Gcographicus, s. v. Sjanbachum). The castle is still in tolerable preservation, and a few families of Arabs find within its walls a seciu-e asylum for themselves and their flocks. It contains an old church, with a Latin inscrip- tion of the crusading age over its door (Biu-ckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 416; Hand-book for Syr. and Pal. p. 58; see Forster, Geogr. of Arabia, i, 352; Robinson, Bib. Res. ii, 164)" (Kitto). See Idum.ilv.