The Kedarites are mentioned together with the Nabataeans (Gen. 25:13; 1 Chr. 1:29; Is. 60:7). In the prophetic books, the bēnē-Qēdhār are the principal representatives of the nomadic Arabs inhabiting the desert to the east of the Jordan. They were a people of shepherds with black tents, similar to those of the present-day Bedouins, made from the hair of goats or camels (Cant. 1:4 [Heb. 5]). They also had villages (Is. 42:11). Their flocks were their wealth (Is. 60:7; Jer. 49:28; Ezek. 27:21). Renowned archers (Is. 21:16–17) and cruel raiders (Ps. 119 [120]:5), they are recorded alongside the Nabataeans in cuneiform monuments (Qidrī and Qadrī) and by Pliny (Nat. Hist., V, 65).
The region they inhabited (Assyrian māt-Qidrī) lay to the east of the Jordan (Jer. 2:10), between Gilead and the more definite desert, occupying the present territory of the great tribe of the Serārat, between the Wādi Sīrhān and el-Fēgēr northwest of Teima.