MADIAN and MADIANI TI (Hebr. Midhjān; Septuagint Māšīav).
Name of a region south of Palestine (Ex. 2, 15) and of its inhabitants (Ex. 3, 1; 4, 19; 18, 1; Num. 24, 47), sometimes designated by the patronymic “Madianites” (Gen. 37, 38; Num. 25, 17).
The name, not so far encountered in Assyro-Babylonian or Egyptian documents, is used by Ptolemy (Māšīāyā: Geogr., VI, 7, 27), by Flavius Josephus (Antiq. Iud., II, 11, 1), by Eusebius (Māšīavā: On., 124, 8), and by the Qur’an to designate a region and city in Arabia along the eastern shores of the Elanitic Gulf (el-'Aqabah). According to the indications of the Arab geographers, Madian corresponds to the ruins of Hawrah, near the oasis of el-Bed' or Moğā'ir Su'aib, where the cave in which the prophet Su'aib prayed is shown—he is identified with Iethro—as well as the spring where Moses watered his father-in-law’s flock.
From the central region, its original or at least most important area, Madian extended into the neighboring lands: the Sinai Peninsula and Transjordan. The zone astride the Elanitic Gulf, where Moses took refuge after fleeing the Egyptian court (Ex. 2, 15) and of which Iethro was chief and priest (ibid. 2, 15; 3, 1), called Madian, is situated not far from Sinai, between Edom and Pharan, along the route from Egypt toward the north. The nomadism of the Madianites is in fact clearly attested in the biblical tradition. Presented as descendants of Madian, son of Abraham and Cetura (Gen. 25, 2),
they are, with rich gifts, relegated toward the east ('eres qedhem: ibid. 25, 6), that is, into the interior of the Syro-Arabian desert.
Some names of the sons of Madian (Abida, Eldaa: ibid. 25, 4) have been found in Sabaean-Minaean inscriptions, others in the toponymy of southern Arabia, and one (Epha) appears in the annals of the Assyrian king Theglathphalasar as designating a tribe (Ḥajapa) settled near those of Thema and Saba. According to a felicitous interpretation by
W. F. Albright (Bull. of Amer. Schools of orient. researches, 83 [1941], p. 84, note 8), the ethnic name Kūšu in the Egyptian “proscription” texts would be, as the parallelism established in Hab. 3, 7 suggests, the archaic designation of the Madianites. These formed an extensive tribal federation with groups and subgroups (the Cineans: Iudc. 1, 16; 44, 11), engaged in caravan trade, especially along the ancient route from Cadesbarne to Moab and Palmyra. As merchants they are found together with the Ishmaelites in Palestine (Gen. 37, 28) and in Egypt (37, 35).
Stationed in the 'Arbhāth Mā'ābh northeast of the Dead Sea, they became a scandal to Israel, which defeated in war four vassal princes of Sehon, the Amorite king of Hesebon (Num. 22, 47; 25, 6-15;
Ios. 13, 21). In the time of the Judges, together with the Amalekites and the Bānē Qedhem, they poured over the cultivated fields of the plain of Esdrelon like locusts, with their tents and camels, until they were defeated and put to flight by Gedeon, who killed their leaders Zebee and Salmana (Iudc. 6-7). After the period of the Judges they almost entirely disappear from the history of Israel: probably, under pressure from the north by the Aramaean tribes, they withdrew into their central region, only later to be absorbed by other Arab tribes.