hypocrisy". Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, referred to sedentary Arabs, living in cities such as Mecca and Medina, and referred to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation as shown in the prior Qur'anic verse. Following the Islamic conquest of the 8th century, however, the language of the nomadic Arabs came to be regarded as preserving the highest purity by the grammarians following Abi Ishaq, and the term "language of the Arabs" came to denote the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins. Cf. the modern toponyms Algarve and Arava In Assyrian The term mâtu arbâi describing Gindibu is found in Assyrian texts and is translated as of Arab land. Variations of the ethnonym are also found including: , , and . The presence of Proto-Arabic names amongst those qualified by the terms arguably justifies the translation "Arab" although it is not certain if they all in fact represent the same group. They may plausibly be borrowings from Aramaic or Canaanite of words derived from either the proto-Semitic root or . It is in the case of the Assyrian forms that a possible derivation from ("west") is most plausible, referring to people or land lying west of Assyria in a similar vein to the later Greek use of the term Saracen meaning in Arabic "Easterners", for people living in the east. In Hebrew In Hebrew the words ʿarav and ʿaravah literally mean "desert" or "steppe". In the Hebrew Bible the latter feminine form is used exclusively for the Arabah, a region associated with the Nabateans, who spoke Arabic. The former masculine form is used in Isaiah 21:13 and Ezekiel 27:21 for the region of the settlement of Kedar in the Syrian Desert. 2 Chronicles 9:14 contrasts "kings of ʿarav" with "governors of the country" when listing those who brought tribute to King Solomon. The word is typically translated Arabia and is the name for Arabia in Modern Hebrew. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible uses instead the literal translation "desert plain" for the verse in Isaiah. The adjectival noun ʿaravi formed from ʿarav is used in Isaiah 13:20 and Jeremiah 3:2 for a desert dweller. It is typically translated Arabian or Arab and is the modern Hebrew word for Arab. The New Revised Standard Version uses the translation "nomad" for the verse in Jeremiah. In the Bible, the word ʿarav is closely associated with the word ʿerev meaning