▪ Jeffery1938: »The philologers would derive the word from
tabaʕa ‘to follow’, and explain the title as meaning that each king followed his predecessor, cf, Bagh. on xliv, 36. / Fraenkel,
Vocab, 25, connected it with the Eth [Gz]
tabʕa ‘strong, manly’, and Nöldeke in Lidzbarski’s
Ephemeris, ii, 124, supports the connection. The word itself, however, is clearly SAr, and occurs in the inscriptions in the compound names
tbʕ-ʔl,
ʔlh-tbʕ,
tbʕ-krb, etc. Hartmann in
ZA, xiv, 331-7, would explain it from √BTʕ = Hbr √BṮʕ, but this seems very unlikely.
1
, and everything is in favour of the other derivation. The word was apparently well known in pre-Islamic Arabia, for it occurs not infrequently in the old poetry.
2
.«