It seems probable that the ancient Arab tribe o( Be?n- Teim, of whom Abulfeda speaks {Hist. Anteislam. ed. Fleischer, p. 198), were connected with this place, and were the more recent representatives of the children of Tema. Forster would further identify the tribe of Tema with the Beni-Temiin, who had their chief stations on the shores of the Persian Gulf; but his proof does not seem satisfactory {Geoc/. of Arabia, i, 289 sq.).
It is interesting to find memorials of the nation found- ed by this son of Ishmael, not merely referred 9o by classic and Arab geographers, but existing to the pres- ent dav, in the very region where we naturally look for them (see U'Anville, Geoff. Ancienne, ii, 250; Abulfeda, Descript. Arab. p. 6 sq.; Seetzen, in Zach, Monatl. Co?-- respondenz, xviii, 37-1). Like other Arab tribes, the chil- dren of Tema had probably a nucleus at the town of Teima, while their pasture-grounds extended westward to the borders of Edom, and eastward to the Euphrates, just as those of the Beni Shumraar do at the present time. — Kitto.
Te'man (Heb. Teyman, 'j^'^PI, the right, also the south, as often ; Sept. Qaijxav v. r. Qs[ic(v and Qafiav ; Vulg. Theman v. r. Meridies, Auster), the name of a man, and also of a people and countrj\
1. The oldest son of Eliphaz the son of Esau (Gen. xxxvi, 11). B.C. cir. 1960. It would appear that Te- man was the first duke or prince (Cj^IaX) of the Edom- ites (v, 15); and that, having founded a tribe, he gave his name to the region in which it settled (v, 34).
2. The country of the Temanites, which formed in after -ages the chief stronghold of Idumrean power. Hence, when the Lord by the mouth of Ezekiel pro- nounced the doom of Edom, he said, "I will make it desolate from Teman" (xxv, 13). The Temanites were celebrated for their courage; hence the force and point of Obadiah's judgment: "Thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed" (ver. 9). They were also famous for wisdom; in allusion to which characteristic, and per- haps with special reference to Job's friend Eliphaz the Temanite, Jeremiah mournfidly asks, " Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished?" (.Jer. xlix, 7; Job ii, 11; comp. Baruch iii, 22. See Pusey, On Obadiah, ver. 8).
The geographical position of "the land of Teman," or, more literally, the "land of the Temanite," as it is called in Gen. xxxvi, 3-1 ('^DTC'^riri |^"ixp; Sept. Ik tiiq yijg Oamavwv, A. V. " Temani"), is nowhere defined in Scripture ; but there are several incidental notices which tend to fix it with considerable certainty. 1. It is in- timately connected with Edom, and manifestly either formed a province of it, or lay upon its border (Jer. xlix, 7, 20). In one passage it is included in the same curse
with Bozrah, the capital of Edom : "I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah" (Amos i, 12). 2. Habakkuk joins Teman in parallelism with Mount Paran (iii, 3) ; and this might probably in- dicate that tlie portion of Edom lying over against Ka- desh, beside which rose ]Mount Paran (q. v.), was calle<l Teman. Perhaps, as the northern section of Edom was called Gebal, tlie southern section may have got the name Teman. 3. Ezekiel groups Teman in such a way with Edom and Dedan as would lead to the conclusion that it lay between them, and therefore on the south and south-east of the former (Ezek. xxv. 13). See Dk- DAN. On the whole, it would appear that Teman was the name given by Esau's distinguished grandson to his possessions in the southern part of the mountains of Edom. As the tribe increased in strength and wealth, they spread out over the region extending southward along the shore of the Gulf of Akabah, and eastward into Arabia. This view is confirmed by a passage in the book of Joshua, hitherto considered obscure and dif- ficult, but which the advances recentlj' made in Biblical geography tend to elucidate. The sacred writer com- mences his description of the territorj' of Judah in these words : "This, then, was the lot of the children of Judah ; even to the border of Edom the wilderness of Zin south- ward was the uttermost part of the south coast" (xv, 1). Besides being unintelligible, this is not a literal transla- tion of the Hebrew; and the renderings of the Sept. and Vulg. are still worse. The Hebrew may be trans- lated as follows: Towards (or along, ?X) the border of Edom, the wilderness of Zin to the Negeb (n2"i3) from the extremity of Teman" ("^"'n n^p^Q). The writer is describing the south-eastern section of the territory. It extended along the border of Edom, including the wilderness of Zin from the extreme (north-western) cor- ner of Teman to the Negeb. Teman is unquestionably a proper name, as is shown by the word n!ip'2 being placed before it. So also is Negeb. The wilderness of Zin extended up as far as Kadesh, and a part of it was thus allotted to Judah. Teman included the mountains of Edom as far north as Moiuit Hor, opposite Kadesh ; and thus the territory of Judah reached to its extreme north-western corner. The Negeb included the downs along the southern base of the Judrean hills, and lay be- tween them and the wilderness of Zin. The aljove trans- lation is found in part in the Arabic version, and is adopted by Houbigant.