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ARETAS
1. Name of several kings of an Arabian people called the Nabateans, considered to be descendants of Nebaioth, Ishmael’s oldest son (Gn 25:12-16; 1 Chr 1:29). According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ishmael’s descendants inhabited an area all the way from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, calling it Nabatene. Their capital city, Sela, was called Petra in NT times.
2. The Aretas of 2 Maccabees 5:8, before whom Jason the priest was accused, ruled about 170 BC. The Nabateans were evidently friendly toward the Maccabeans (1 Macc 5:24-28; 9:35). Josephus mentioned two other kings named Aretas. It was Aretas III, originally named Obodas, who extended Nabatean control and occupied Damascus during his reign (87–62 BC).
3. The NT contains a reference to still another Aretas. The apostle Paul had to escape from Damascus by being let down in a basket through a window in the wall because the governor there under King Aretas was guarding the city in order to seize him (2 Cor 11:32-33). That Aretas has been identified as Eneas, who took the title Aretas IV and ruled from 9 BC to AD 40. He attacked and defeated Herod Antipas over a boundary dispute and also as revenge. (Antipas had divorced Aretas’s daughter in order to marry Herodias.)