Nabatea, Nabateans

Nab´uh-tee´uh, nab´uh-tee´uhnz

A region and a people east and southwest of the Dead Sea. The Nabatean king Aretas IV (9 BCE—40 CE) gave his daughter in marriage to Herod’s son Antipas in a mutual effort to heal Jewish-Nabatean relations. About 28 CE, Antipas divorced his Nabatean wife to marry Herodias, eventually occasioning the execution of John the Baptist according to (Matt 14:1-12 and Mark 6:17-29). Aretas attacked Antipas’s forces, defeating them in a skirmish, but bringing on the threat of Roman intervention in 37 CE. It was also under this Aretas that Paul’s life was endangered in Damascus ca. 34–35 CE (2Cor 11:32-33; Acts 9:23-25).