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KEDAR.—The name of a nomadic people, living to the east of Palestine, whom P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] (Gen_25:13) regards as a division of the Ishmaelites. Jeremiah (Jer_49:28) counts them among the ‘sons of the East,’ and in Jer_2:10 refers to them as symbolic of the East, as he does to Citium in Cyprus as symbolic of the West. In Isaiah (Isa_21:17) they are said to produce skilful archers, to live in villages (Isa_42:11), and (Isa_60:7) to be devoted to sheep-breeding. The latter passage also associates them with the Nebaioth. Jeremiah alludes also (Jer_49:29) to their nomadic life, to their sheep, camels, tents, and curtains. Ezekiel (Eze_27:21) couples them with ‘Arab. [Note: Arabic.] ’ and speaks of their trade with Tyre in lambs, rams, and goats. In Psa_120:5 Kedar is used as the type of barbarous unfeeling people, and in Son_1:5 their tents are used as a symbol of blackness. The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (b.c. 668–626), in his account of his Arabian campaign (cf. KIB [Note: IB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek.] ii. 223), mentions the Kedarites in connexion with the Aribi (the ‘Arab’ of Ezekiel) and the Nebaioth, and speaks of the booty, in asses, camels, and sheep, which he took. It is evident that they were Bedouin, living in black tents such as one sees in the southern and eastern parts of Palestine to-day, who were rich in such possessions as pertain to nomads, and also skilful in war.
George A. Barton.