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Josephus is the most extensive external source about the Nabataeans (Hackl et al. 2003), the nation of nomadic merchants living in a territory running from the Southern Hauran (east of the Decapolis) to the mountainous region of the Northern Hedjaz (east of the Red Sea) as well as in the Northern Negev Desert and the Sinai Desert (ssss1). The famous city of Petra in the fertile plains of Moab was its capital. Josephus recalls that the Nabataeans descend from Ishmael, whose 12 sons dwelt in the territory extending from the Euphrates to the Erythrean Sea, which was called Nabatene (AJ 1.220–221). He sometimes calls them Nabataioi (“Nabataeans,” e.g. BJ 1.178; AJ 12.335), but mostly uses the name Arabes (“Arabs”) when he refers to the Nabataeans (Millar 1993a), perhaps because this name original meant “nomads” (cf. ssss1). Josephus does not offer a coherent history of the Nabataeans, but he mentions them frequently as a neighboring nation of the Jews in connection with actions by the Maccabean and Herodian Jewish leaders, especially in book 1 of The Jewish War and books 12–18 of The Jewish Antiquities. The Nabataean royal family was intertwined with the Herodians through the marriage of Herod’s father Antipater with Cypros/Cypris, who probably was a Nabataean princess, although Josephus does not say so explicitly (BJ 1.181; AJ 14.121–122; cf. also the Nabataean Syllaeus’s attempt to marry Herod’s sister Salome, BJ 1.566; AJ 16.220–225; 17.10; the daughter of the Nabataean king Aretas IV was married to Herod Antipas, AJ 18.109; Kokkinos 1998: 95, 183–184, 229–232, 268). During internal Jewish power conflicts prominent Jews sometimes fled to the Nabataeans or attempted to do that (e.g. Herod in 40 BCE, BJ 1.266–267, 274–279; AJ 14.361–362, 370–376), which once again suggests that the ruling families of both nations were connected. Nevertheless, the Nabataeans were also competitors of the Jews: they sometimes decided to support Jewish rulers in their conflicts, but more than once they fought them if they thought they could benefit from that. Herod the Great fought several battles against the Nabataeans after they refused to refund him (BJ 1.364–371, 380–385; AJ 15.106–160; 16.271–299). A passage from Herod the Great’s commander speech before a decisive battle against the Nabataeans offers a negative characterization of them, which is given in by their – in Herod’s view as presented by Josephus – treacherous behavior before the battle: “for I suppose you [i.e. Herod’s soldiers] know of the lawlessness of the Arabs [i.e. the Nabataeans], and how treacherously they deal with everyone else, as is the custom of a barbarous people that also lacks any notion of God. Of course, the main reason that they were hostile to us was greed and jealousy; they were waiting to make a sudden attack in our confused state” (AJ 15.130). The Nabataeans had murdered Herod’s envoys, but interestingly, Herod explains their misdeeds (besides treachery and unreliability, 15.110, 130, 132, 134, 140, also lawlessness, 15.130, 136, 140, 156, and greed, 15.134) by arguing that they were a barbarous nation that lacked any notion of God. The knowledge of God is apparently the principle difference between the Jews and the Nabataeans, and Herod implies that the Jews have the support of the God of Israel and the Nabataeans do not (AJ 15.144–146). This brings us ultimately back to Josephus’s basic message that the God of the Jews determines what happens in human history.