Kedar

Ke'dar (Heb. Kedar', קֵדָר, dark-skinned; Sept. Κηδάρ), the second son of Ishmael, and founder of the tribe that bore his name (Ge 25:13). B.C. post 2061. The name is used in Scripture as that of the Bedouins generally, whose characteristic traits are ascribed to them (Song 1:5; Isa 21:16; Isa 42:11; Isa 60:7; Jer 2:10; Jer 49:28; Eze 27:21); more fully, "sons of Kedar" (בֶּנֵי קֵדָר, Isa 21:17); in Ps 120:5, Kedar and Mesech are put for barbarous tribes Rabbinical writers expressly identify them with the Arabians (Pseudojon. on Genesis 25, and the Targum on Psalm 120; comp. the Jewish expression " tongue of Kedar" for the Arabic language), and the Arabs acknowledge the paternity (Pococke, Spec. 46). The Kedarenes (as they were called in later times) do not appear to have lived in. the immediate neighborhood of Judcea (Jer 2:10; comp. Ps 120:5). Jerome (Onomast. s.v. Μαδιάν) places them in the Saracenic desert, on the east of the Red Sea, which identifies them with the Cedrei of Pliny (v, 12) as neighbors of the Nabatheans (comp. Isa 40:7). Stephen of Byzantium reckons them (Κεδρανῖται) as inhabitants of Arabia Felix; but Theodoret (on Psalm 109) assigns them a locality near Babylon (see Reland, Palcest. p. 86 sq.). Ptolemy calls them Darrce (Geog. 6:7), evidently a corruption of the ancient Hebrew; and Forster supposes that it is the same people Arrian refers to as the Kanraitce, which he thinks should be read Kadraitce (Geogr. of Arabia, i, 247). A very ancient Arab tradition states that Kedar settled in the Hejaz, the country round Mecca and Medina, and that his descendants have ever since ruled there (Abulfedae Hist. Anteislamica, ed. Fleischer, p. 192). From Kedar sprung, the distinguished tribe of Koreish, to which Mohammed belonged (Caussin, Essai,i, 175 sq.). Of the history of the head of the tribe little is known, but his posterity are described as being rich in flocks of sheep and goats, in which they traded with the Syrians (Eze 27:21; Jer 49:39), as dwelling in tents of black hair (Cant. i, 5), though some of them occupied cities and villages (ערים and חצרים; Isa 43:11) in the midst of the wilderness of Arabia, apparently in a mountainous and rocky district, and as being skilful in the use of the bow (Isa 21:17); particulars which eminently agree with all descriptions of the manners and mode of life of the nomade Arabs bordering Palestine on the east, from the Red Sea to Asia Minor (Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, ii, 231 sq.; Wallin, in the Journ. of R. Geog. Soc. vols. xx and xxiv). SEE ARABIA.