Midianites

The Midianites are a desert people descended from Abraham's son Midian, born to Keturah after Sarah's death. They cross Israel's path at every major joint: as the traders who carry Joseph into Egypt, as the household that shelters the fugitive Moses, as the seducers at Peor, and as the locust-swarm oppressors broken by Gideon's three hundred. Their land — south and east of the Gulf of Aqaba — is at once Moses' refuge and the source of Israel's recurring crisis.

Descent from Abraham through Keturah

Midian is one of six sons born to Abraham by his second wife after Sarah. "And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bore him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah" (Gen 25:1-2). Five sons of Midian — Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah — head the clans of the people who bear his name (Gen 25:4). The Chronicler preserves the same line: Keturah, Abraham's concubine, bore Midian, and "the sons of Midian: Ephah, and Epher, and Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah" (1 Chr 1:32-33). The Midianites stand, therefore, as Israel's distant cousins through Abraham — a kinship that does not soften any of the conflicts that follow.

Caravan Traders Who Carry Joseph to Egypt

The first time the Midianites appear after the Genesis genealogy, they are merchants on the spice road. Joseph's brothers, sitting down to bread after throwing him into the pit, lift up their eyes and see "a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt" (Gen 37:25). Judah proposes selling him; "and there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty [shekels of] silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt" (Gen 37:28). The chapter closes with the sale completed: "And the Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard" (Gen 37:36). The narrative interleaves "Midianites" and "Ishmaelites" without distinction, and Gideon's editor centuries later still glosses Midian's gold earrings with the same equation: "(For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites)" (Judg 8:24).

The Land of Midian as Moses' Refuge

When Moses kills the Egyptian and Pharaoh seeks his life, "Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and he settled in the land of Midian after having moved to the land of Midian. And [one day] he sat down by a well" (Ex 2:15). At the well he meets seven daughters of "the priest of Midian," drives off the bullying shepherds, and waters their father's flock (Ex 2:16-17). Their father — called Reuel here, Jethro in most subsequent passages, and Hobab through his son in Numbers — takes Moses in, gives him his daughter Zipporah, and so Moses becomes a Midianite son-in-law and shepherd (Ex 2:18-22). Forty years later it is "the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian" that Moses leads to Horeb when the bush burns (Ex 3:1). Even after the exodus, Moses returns to Jethro to take his leave — "And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law" (Ex 4:18) — and the Midianite priest later visits the camp at Sinai, blesses Yahweh, and shares a sacrificial meal with Aaron and the elders (Ex 18:1, 12). Numbers preserves the same in-law relation under another name: "And Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law" (Num 10:29). Long after, the fugitive Hadad uses the same Midianite corridor in reverse: "And they arose out of Midian, and came to Paran" on the road to Egypt (1 Kgs 11:18).

The Snare at Peor

The kinship breaks down on the plains of Moab. "And Moab said to the elders of Midian, Now this multitude will lick up all that is round about us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field" (Num 22:4) — and the two peoples join Balak in hiring Balaam. Balak takes Balaam "to the top of Peor, that looks down on the desert" (Num 23:28). When the curses fail, Midian's daughters succeed where Balaam could not: Israel is drawn into the worship of Baal-peor, Phinehas executes the Israelite man and the Midianite woman Cozbi, and Yahweh issues the standing word: "Vex the Midianites, and strike them; for they vex you⁺ with their wiles, with which they have beguiled you⁺ in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor" (Num 25:16-18). Joshua, a generation later, treats Peor as an unhealed wound: "Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we haven't cleansed ourselves to this day, although there came a plague on the congregation of Yahweh?" (Josh 22:17).

The valley across from Beth-peor becomes one of the fixed coordinates of Mosaic history. Israel camps there before crossing Jordan (Deut 3:29); the law is restated there in the land taken from Sihon (Deut 4:46); and there, in that same valley, "he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab across from Beth-peor: but no man knows of his tomb to this day" (Deut 34:6). Joshua's tribal allotment locates Beth-peor with "the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth-jeshimoth" (Josh 13:20).

The Phinehas Campaign of Numbers 31

Yahweh's "vex them" command is executed at the close of Moses' life. "Avenge the sons of Israel of the Midianites: afterward you will be gathered to your people" (Num 31:2). Moses arms a thousand from each of the twelve tribes — twelve thousand in all — and sends them out under Phinehas son of Eleazar, "with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand" (Num 31:6). They war against Midian as Yahweh commanded; they slay every male; "and they slew the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword" (Num 31:8). The women and little ones are taken captive; "all their cities in the places in which they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire" (Num 31:10); the spoil of cattle, flocks, and goods is brought back to the camp on the plains of Moab (Num 31:9, 11-12). The campaign closes Moses' active leadership and answers Peor.

Locust Oppression in the Days of the Judges

The Midianites return as Israel's punishers in the time of the judges. "And the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh: and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years" (Judg 6:1). Their oppression is described as a yearly raid on the harvest: "when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the sons of the east; they came up against them … For they came up with their cattle and their tents; they came in as locusts for multitude; both they and their camels were without number" (Judg 6:3, 5). "And Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the sons of Israel cried to Yahweh" (Judg 6:6, cf. Judg 6:7). The agricultural picture is precise: Gideon is first found "beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites" (Judg 6:11).

Gideon's Three Hundred

The angel of Yahweh meets the unlikely deliverer where he is hiding. Gideon protests: "Look, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house" (Judg 6:15). He builds an altar — "Then Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh, and called it Yahweh-shalom: to this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abiezrites" (Judg 6:24) — and "the Spirit of Yahweh came upon Gideon; and he blew a trumpet" (Judg 6:34). Yahweh thins his army: "Everyone who laps of the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, him you will set by himself" (Judg 7:5), until only three hundred remain. "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you⁺, and deliver the Midianites into your hand" (Judg 7:7). Gideon, with Jerubbaal his other name, "encamped beside the spring of Harod: and the camp of Midian was beneath him in the valley" (Judg 7:1, 8). He divides the three hundred into three companies "with trumpets, and empty pitchers, with torches inside the pitchers" (Judg 7:16) and gives the cry: "For Yahweh and for Gideon" (Judg 7:18). Coming in at "the beginning of the middle watch" (Judg 7:19), they break Midian.

The pursuit captures Midian's chief men: "And they took the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb; and they slew Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the wine press of Zeeb" (Judg 7:25; cf. Judg 8:3, "God has delivered into your⁺ hand the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb"). The men of Israel ask Gideon to rule over them: "Rule over us, both you, and your son, and your son's son also; for you have saved us out of the hand of Midian" (Judg 8:22). Gideon refuses on theological grounds: "I will not rule over you⁺, neither will my son rule over you⁺: Yahweh will rule over you⁺" (Judg 8:23). He does, however, ask for the gold earrings of the spoil — Ishmaelite earrings (Judg 8:24) — and from them "Gideon made an ephod of it, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went whoring after it there; and it became a snare to Gideon, and to his house" (Judg 8:27). The verdict on the campaign itself, however, holds: "So Midian was subdued before the sons of Israel, and they lifted up their heads no more. And the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon" (Judg 8:28). Gideon "died in a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites" (Judg 8:32).

Camels, Gold, and Prophetic Memory

The wealth that arms Midian and that Gideon afterward strips from them — caravans, camels, dromedaries, gold earrings — becomes, in the prophets, a sign of how the nations will one day come to Zion. "The multitude of camels will cover you, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba will come; they will bring gold and frankincense, and will proclaim the praises of Yahweh" (Isa 60:6). Habakkuk recalls the older terror: "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; The curtains of the land of Midian trembled" (Hab 3:7). The same Midian whose wealth had been Israel's plunder is, in the eschatological vision, brought as offering; the same tents that camped against Gideon tremble before Yahweh's marching theophany.