Tema is the name of a people and a place in the desert lands east of Israel. It first appears as one of Ishmael’s sons, listed beside Hadar and Jetur. Job later mentions “the troops of Tema,” who looked for water on their travels and were disappointed. Isaiah tells the people of Tema to bring water and bread to a thirsty man on the run, a picture of hospitality in dry country. Jeremiah lists Tema among nations that will drink from the cup of judgment. Reading Isaiah 21 shows the kindest side of the name.
4 verses
Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:
The troops of Tema looked, the companies of Sheba waited for them.
The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.
Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners,
Matthew George Easton, 1897
South; desert, one of the sons of Ishmael, and father of a tribe so called (Gen. 25:15; 1 Chr. 1:30; Job 6:19; Isa. 21:14; Jer. 25:23) which settled at a place to which he gave his name, some 250 miles south-east of Edom, on the route between Damascus and Mecca, in the northern part of the Arabian peninsula, toward the Syrian desert; the modern Teyma’.
William Smith, 1884
(a desert), the ninth son of Ishmael, (Genesis 25:15; 1 Chronicles 1:30) whence the tribe called after him, mentioned in (Job 6:19; Jeremiah 25:23) and also the land occupied by this tribe. (Isaiah 21:13,14) (B.C. after 1850.) The name is identified with Teyma , a small town on the confines of Syria.