The vast desert between Iraq in the east and the Red Sea in the west. In the Bible the name was probably used for all the desert area in the east of Palestine, including Sinai. The climate is severe, with extremes of hot and cold and little rain except in the mountains, but caravans of camels kept open an important north–south trade route. There were Arabs in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2: 11), and Paul explains that immediately after his call on the road to Damascus he went off to Arabia (Gal. 1: 17), which was probably the Nabataean kingdom, not a great distance from Damascus, which was in the Roman province of Syria.