Sabtah (Part 1/3)
Setting the framework for a complex analysis on Nile peoples
When identifying Sabtah we cannot ignore the root of “Sab” being contained wholly inside Sabtah’s name. This could imply Saba and Sabtah were located in a similar location, or Sabtah claimed descent on some level from Saba. The latter is less likely since Sabtah is not a “son” of Saba, but a brother, implying the root Sab is in both names as a result of similar regional ethnogenesis. Since Sabtah comes after, it would imply their group comes later which lines up with the early founding date of the Nilotic peoples - identified with Sab - as early as 3000 BCE.
It is crucial to note that these founders are not necessarily those that “founded the nation” but rather the people who go on to form the nation which may take place centuries later. Due to the timeless wisdom of Hashem the importance of a people later in history doesn’t preclude their inclusion in the Table of Nations. For example, the earlier Cimmerians are not necessarily Bronze Age people, but would be relevant inside the Torah’s timeline of events, and thus including them earlier to explain their later arrival is a necessary imperative.
Where this exact cut off exists is difficult to say, but must come after the events during the closing period of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Any people relevant in that period surely would be mentioned, and the repetitious nature of Chronicles relisting the Table of Nations could be taken as an affirmation of this fact. Alternatively, Chronicles could be trying to show changes in said nations, but this would only be obvious for certain nations such as the Dodanim, or Dorians, becoming Rhodians in that period. A full discussion of this effect might be necessary in order to unravel the prophecies of various prophets, and later Rabbinic allusions, but for our purposes this is extraneous; an exact cut off point for this discussion isn’t necessary since we are looking for a nation, or people from the Biblical time frame.
The most logical place to start is identifying the meaning of the term Sabtah in lieu of strong leads for a physical location. The word Sabtah doesn’t appear in Hebrew, however a possible etymological root for the term is found in Arabic where the term means “to break” or to beat. Scholars have made leaps of faith to assume this implies a “breaking through” of the enemies of this nation, but that’s a bit of a stretch. It’s hard to take this link any further, and the audience for the Torah wouldn’t exactly be speaking Arabic so in their minds this term wouldn’t mean much.
The closest Hebrew term is the word “Sabab” which means “to turn or to go around”, often used to mean a “circuit” or some sort of circular motion being taken; almost implying a shifting location for these people. The name could therefore mean “encirclement”, but etymological links for this word are not much to base our search on, unless they correlate with some other known place name. No location ancient or modern has been found with this name, adding fuel to this mystery.
Of potential interest is the city of “Ceuta” in North Africa - which is actually a Spanish enclave - called “Sebtah” in Arabic. This name comes from the Roman term “Septem”1 which was a shortened form of the earlier name “Septum Fratres”.2 This term means “Seven Brothers” in Latin3 and clearly has a separate origin than Sabtah, and the city was a much later Phoenician colony. However, it would be interesting owing to the origin of the Phoenicians as a Canaanite people, this city would still be considered inside the “Hamitic” family, so we cannot rule out potential links without further analysis.
While extremely tenuous, there is the location of Ezhimala, a hill in the Kannur region of southern India. This region was a major trade exporter of valuable goods similar to those found in Kush, and India is oftentimes identified by some less reliable authors as a potential location for Cush’s sons. The coasts of India are decently well documented in the aforementioned Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, however, I view this as unlikely in the case of Sabtah since the only reference to him in this location is a potential name for the hill “Sapta-Sailam”. The region was also mostly unsettled and lacked verifiable Kingdoms until 200 BCE following the arrival of Alexander and the Greeks in India. By this point, anything could have explained the name of the region and since it’s not replicated in any of the cities, towns, kingdoms, or areas in the surrounding lands it’s unlikely a related term to the Hebrew Sabtah. Similarly is the region of Sabah in Borneo Island, Malaysia, whose etymological origin is unknown.
However, we must reaffirm that since Sabtah is a son of Cush, he would be located in the Cush region - not North Africa, or South Asia - and potentially speak Cushitic; but as we have seen with previous sons not everyone is a “Cushitic” speaker. In the case of Nilo-Saharan, there is a large admixture of Cushitic language features. While tempting to identify Sabtah with the Semitic Ethiopians, it wouldn’t be exactly a clear identification based on any solid evidence, and when we next reach Raamah we will see how they slot into him and his children much more clearly. This leaves essentially the regions around the Nile, but still more northern than the locations that the Nilotics, Ethiopians, and Somalis founded.
Short little intro to break up what would be a fairly long section otherwise. Next time we will dig into some ancient sources to see what the region looked like, and identify a specific group with Sabtah.
Walter E. Kaegi (4 November 2010). Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa. Cambridge University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-521-19677-2.
In, e.g., Pomponius Mela.
Smedley & al. (1845), p. 49.