Arba ( - literally "Four") was a man mentioned in the

Book of Joshua The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian exile. It tells of the ...

. In , he is called the "greatest man among the Anakites." Joshua 15:13 says that Arba was the father of

Anak Anak (; , homophone to a word for "giant, long neck, necklace"; ) is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. His descendants are mentioned in narratives concerning the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. According to the Book of Numbers, Anak was a foref ...

. The Anakites (Hebrew

Anakim Anakim ( ''ʿĂnāqīm'') are mentioned in the Bible as descendants of Anak. According to the Old Testament, the Anakim lived in the southern part of the land of Canaan, near Hebron (Gen. 23:2; Josh. 15:13). states that they inhabited the regio ...

) are described in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

s. Little is known of his genealogy except that Joshua 15:13 describes him as the father of Anak, while the following verse refers to Sheshai,

Ahiman Ahiman () is the name of two persons in the Bible: * One of the three giant sons of Anak (the other two being Sheshai and Talmai) whom Caleb and the Israelite spies saw in Mount Hebron (Book of Numbers 13:22) when they went in to explore the Pr ...

, and

Talmai Talmai (, ; 'my furrows') is a name in the Bible referring to a number of minor people. Its Aramaic version was associated with the Greek Ptolemy (see that article for the list of corresponding names and surnames), and is the origin of Bartholom ...

as "sons of Anak." According to Joshua,

Caleb Caleb ( ; , Tiberian vocalization: , Modern Israeli Hebrew: ) is a figure who appears in the Hebrew Bible as a representative of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Following the Israelite conquest of Ca ...

drove these three out of his portion of the land of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

. The Bible also states that the city of

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

was in ancient times known to be called ''Kirjath-Arba'' or "Kiriath Arba" ("city of Arba"; after Arba). A modern-day

settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), downward movement of a structure's foundation *Settlement (finance), where securities are delivered against payment of money *Settlement (litigatio ...

does exist east of Hebron named

Kiryat Arba Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba () is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the southern Israeli-occupied West Bank. Founded in 1968, in it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the ...

References

Book of Joshua people Rephaites Anakim {{Tanakh-stub