MADIAN and MADIANITES TI (Heb. 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 indicated by the patronymic "Midianites" (Gen. 37:38; Num. 25:17).
The name, not found thus far 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 Quran to indicate a region and city in Arabia along the eastern coasts of the Gulf of Elan (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 is shown in which the prophet Su'aib, identified with Jethro, prayed, and the spring where Moses used to lead the flock of his father-in-law to water.
From the central region, original or at least the most important, Madian extended into the neighboring lands: into the Sinai peninsula and into Transjordan. The zone straddling the Gulf of Elan, where Moses took refuge after fleeing from the Egyptian court (Ex. 2:15) and of which Jethro was chief and priest (ibid. 2:15; 3:1), called Madian, is delimited not far from Sinai, between Edom and Pharan, along the road from Egypt toward the north. The nomadism of the Madianites is in fact clearly attested in biblical tradition. Presented as descendants of Madian, son of Abraham and Keturah (Gen. 25:2), they are relegated with rich gifts 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 Sabaeo-Minaean inscriptions, others in the toponymy of southern Arabia, and one (Epha) appears in the annals of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser as designating a tribe (Ḥajapa) stationed near those of Thema and Saba. According to a felicitous interpretation of W. F. Albright (Bull. of Amer. Schools of orient. researches, 83 [1941], p. 84, note 8), the ethnic name of Kūšu in the Egyptian "proscription" texts would be, as the parallelism established in Hab. 3:7 suggests, the archaic designation of the Madianites. These constituted an extensive tribal federation with groups and subgroups (the Kenites: Judg. 1:16; 44:11), devoted to caravan traffic, especially along the ancient road of Kadesh-barnea-Moab and Palmyra. As merchants they are found together with the Ishmaelites in Palestine (Gen. 37:28) and in Egypt (37:35).
Settled in the 'Arbhāth Mā'ābh to the northeast of the Dead Sea, they became a scandal for Israel, which defeated in war four vassal princes of Sehon, Amorite king of Heshbon (Num. 22:47; 25:6-15;
Josh. 13:21). In the time of the Judges, together with the Amalekites and the Bānē Qedhem, they flooded like locusts, with their tents and camels, the cultivated fields of the plain of Esdrelon, until they were defeated and put to flight by Gideon, who killed their leaders Zebee and Salmana (Judg. 6-7). After the period of the Judges they disappear almost entirely from the history of Israel: probably, under pressure from the north by the Aramaic tribes, they withdrew into their central region, to be subsequently absorbed by other Arab tribes.
Bibliography4 works
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