The city of Tema, located in the northern Arabian desert, was at the place roads crossed from Damascus to Mecca and from the Persian Gulf to Aqaba (Isaiah 21:14; Jeremiah 25:23). They might have named it after an ancestor who descended from Ishmael (Genesis 25:15). It was different from "Teman," which was Eliphaz’s home in Edom.
Sheba, situated in southwest Arabia, was a trading city for valuable goods (Psalm 72:10, 15; Isaiah 60:6; Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:22–23; 38:13).