MIDIANITES
MIDIANITES
Descendants of Midian, a nomade race in Arabia, numerous, and rich in flocks, herds, and camels, Isa 60:6 . The original and appropriate district of the Midianites seems to have been on the east side of the Elantic branch of the Red Sea, where the Arabian geographers place the city Midian, Mal 7:29 . But they appear to have spread themselves northward, probably along the desert east of Mount Seir, to the vicinity of the Moabites; and on the other side, also, they covered a territory extending to the neighborhood of Mount Sinai. See Exo 3:1 18:1 Nu 22:25,31 Jdg 6:1-8 :35. In Gen 25:2,4, compared with Gen 25:12-18, they are distinguished from the descendants of Ishmael, though elsewhere we find the two people intimately associated, so that they are called now by one name and now by the other. See Gen 37:25, compared with Gen 37:36 . Their capital city was called Midian, and its remains were to be seen in the time of Jerome and Eusebius. It was situated on the Arnon, south of the city Ar, or Areopolis.The Midianites were idolaters, and often led Israel astray to worship their gods. They also not infrequently rendered the Hebrews tributary, and oppressed them. See Num 22:1-41 25:1-18 31:1-54. Often when the Israelites had sown, and their harvest was nearly ready to be gathered in, the Midianites and Amalekites, children of the eastern desert, came down like locusts in countless swarms, with their cattle and tents and camels, to devour and carry off the fruits of the ground, and not only rob but destroy their owners. And often did the Jews, lacking the strength or the faith or the leadership necessary for effectual resistance, seek refuge in mountain-dens and caverns till the invaders retired. Gideon was their deliverer in one such period of oppression, Jdg 6:7 . The modern Ishmaelites still follow the ancient practice, and their violent incursions, robberies, and murders might be described in the same terms that were used with reference to their fathers by the historians of old.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Midianites
(In A.V. MIDIANITES).
An Arabian tribe (Sept. Madienaîoi and Madianeîtai, Lat. Madianitæ). Comparison of Gen., xxxvi, 35, with xxxvii, 28, 36 proves that the Biblical authors employ indifferently the simple form Madian (Sept. Madián, Lat. Madian) instead of the tribal plural. The collective Madian appears in Judges, vi-viii, and seems to have been subsequently preferred (cf. Isaiah 9:3; 10:26; Psalm 83:10). In I Kings, xi, 18, and Hab., iii, 7, for example, if Madian denotes a country, it is by transposition of the name of the people, which was not the primitive usage. By a specious, but inconclusive, argument, P. Haupt (“Midian und Sinai” in “Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft”, lxiii, 1909, p. 506) has even recently sought to prove that Madian was an abstract term denoting a religious association such as the Greeks called an Amphictyony (’amphiktuonía). The term Madianites must, in that case, have been used somewhat as we say Mussulmans.
The Madianites were introduced into history in the texts of Gen., xxv, 1-4 and I Chron., i, 32 sq. which assigns as their ancestor an eponym called Madian, the son of Abraham by Qetourah (D. V. Cetura), which signifies “incense” or conveys the idea of incense and aromatics (cf. Deuteronomy 33:10). Of the five other sons which Abraham had by Cetura the only other one who can now be identified is Shûáh (D. V. Sue). For a long time Delitzsch had suggested a connection between this name and that of Suhu, a country, mentioned in the Assyrian documents (“Wo lag das Paradies”, Leipzig, 1881, 297 sq.), which is the desert region between the Euphrates and Syria (see Ed. Meyer “Die Israeliter und ihre Nachbarstämme”, Halle, 1906, 314.–Dadan, too, may probably be considered as a geographical name in the region of Teima). The continuation of the genealogy settles its character and permits a better identification of the Madianites: Madian must have had five sons, ‘Êpha, ‘Êphér, Hanok, Abîdâ‘, and ’Éldâh. The last two are used as proper names in the Sabeo-Minean inscriptions, but are otherwise unknown. The first three, which occur in later Israelitish genealogies (see Numbers 26:5; 1 Chronicles 2:47; 4:17), have been rightly compared with local and ethnological designations in southern Arabia (see the more important citations from Arabian authors collected in Dillmann, “Die Genesis erklärt”, 6th ed., Leipzig, 1892, 308 sq.). For ‘Êpha in particular there is the valuable witness of the Assyrian texts. The annals of Tiglath-Pileser (D. V. Theglathphalasar); (d. 727 B.C.) mention among the tribes of Teima and Saba a tribe called Hayapa. It may be inferred from these indications that the genealogy of Madian is a literary process by which the Bible connects with the history of the Hebrew people the Arabian tribes of the regions which we now call Nejd and Jáûf. Madianites is, then, to be regarded as the generic name of an immense tribe divided into several clans of which we know at least some of the names.
This notion established, there will be scarcely any difficulty in tracing through sacred history the rôle played by the Madianites, without having recourse, as has too often been done, to alleged contradictions in the sources. Some of these–e.g., Gen., xxxvii, 28, 36 (cf. Isaiah 60:6)–represent them as merchants engaged chiefly in the transportation of aromatics by their camel caravans. Others–e.g., Ex., ii, 15 sq.; iii, 1–depict them as shepherds, but somewhat sedentary. In one place (v.g., Exodus 18:76-12, and Judges 1:16; see the commentaries of Moore, Lagrange, etc., for the exact reading) the Madianites in general, or the special clan of the Qenites (D.V. Cinites), appear as ;the friends and allies of Israel; in another (v.g., Judges 6-8:and Numbers 25:32) they are irreconcilable enemies; Hab., iii, 7, manifestly localizes them in southern Arabia, by parallel with a Hebrew name which designates a country of eastern Kish, most certainly distinct from Ethiopian Nubia. (This distinction, first established by Glaser, then by Winckler and Hommel, has been discussed by Lagrange in “Les inscriptions du sud de l’Arabie et l’exégèse biblique” in “Revue Biblique”, 1902, 269 sqq. Ed. Meyer, who denies the distinction, in “Die Israeliten”, 315 sqq., does not bring forward any solid argument against it.) Num., xxii, 4, and especially Gen., xxxvi, 25, place them beyond contradiction in almost immediate relation with Moab, so that Winckler (“Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellungen”, I, Leipzig, 1895, 47 sqq.) assigns to them as habitat, according to the most ancient tradition, the country later occupied by the Moabites.
It is evidently a matter for Biblical criticism to examine the particular point of view of the various accounts in which the Madianites occur, and to explain, for instance, why Madianites and Ishmaelites are employed in apparent equivalence in Gen., xxxvii, 25, 28, and Judges, viii, 24, 26. For the rest, much light is shed on the history of this ancient and powerful tribe by analogies with what we know concerning the great Arabian tribes, their consititution, their division, their habitat, their relations with the neighbouring tribes or sedentary peoples. As we find them in the Pentateuch the Madianites were an important tribe in which were gathered the chief clans inhabiting Southern Arabia. The area wherein these nomads moved with their flocks stretched towards the west, probably to the frontiers of Egypt, and towards the north, without well-defined limits to the plateaux east of the Dead Sea, and towards Haurân. (Compare the modern tribe–much less important, it is true–of the Haweitâte.) It was with them that Moses sought refuge when he was fleeing from Egypt (Exodus 2:15), as did the Egyptian officer in the well-known account of Sinouhit. His welcome to the tribe and the alliance which subsequently resulted therefrom, when Moses and his people were marching towards Sinai, are like common occurrences in the history of modern tribes. But the Madianites were not all, nor exclusively, shepherds. Masters of the eastern desert, if not also of the fertile countries of southern Arabia, they at least monopolized the traffic between Arabia and the Aramean countries, on the north, or Egypt, on the west. Their commercial caravans brought them into contact with the regions of culture, and thus, as always happens with nomads, the spectacle of the prosperity of more settled peoples aroused their covenousness and tempted them to make raids. When Israel was forming its political and religious organizations at Mount Sinai, it was in peaceful contact with one of the Madianite clans, the Cinites. (One considerable school in recent times has even undertaken to prove that the religion of Israel, and especially the worship of Jahwe, was borrowed from the Cinites. Lagrange has shown, in “Revue Biblique”, 1903, 382 sqq., that this assumption is without foundation.) It has even been established that a portion of this clan united its fortunes with those of Israel and followed it to Chanaan (cf. Numbers 24:21 sq.; Judges 1:16; 4:11, 17; 5:24; 1 Samuel 15:6 sq.). However, other Madianite clans scattered through the eastern desert were at the same time covetously watching the confines of the Aramean country. They were called upon by the Moabites to oppose the passage of Israel (Num., xxi8i, sqq.). As to these “Mountains of the east”, (Hárere Qédem) of Num., xxiii, 7, whence was brought the Madianite diviner Balaam, cf. “the east country” of Gen., xxv, 7, to which Abraham relegated the offspring of his concubine Cetura; cf. also the modern linguistic usage of the Arabs, to whom “the East” (Sherq) indicates the entire desert region where the Bedouin tribes wander, between Syria and Mesopotamia, to the north, and between the Gulf of Akabah and the Persian Gulf to the south.
Nothing is to be concluded from this momentary alliance between the Moabites and a portion of the Madianites, either with regard to a very definite habitat of the great tribe on the confines of Moab, or with regard to a contradiction with other Biblical accounts. In the time of Gedeon, perhaps two centuries after the events in Moab, the eastern Madianites penetrated the fertile regions where Israel was for a long time settled. This was much more in the nature of a foray than of a conquest of the soil. But the Madianite chieftains had exasperated Gedeon by slaying his brothers. The vengeance taken was in conformity with the law of the times, which is to this day the Arabian law. Gedeon, as conqueror, exterminated the tribe after having slain its leaders (Judges 8). From this time the tribe disappeared almost entirely from the history of Israel and seems never to have regained much of its importance. The installation of the eastern Israelitish tribes forced these Madianites back into the desert; the surviving clans fell back towards the south, to Arabia, which had been their cradle, and where some portions of the tribe had never ceased to dwell. This was their centre in the time of Isaias (lx, 6), probably also in the time of Habacuc (iii, 7; about 600 B.C.); here, at any rate, all the Assyrian documents of Theglathphalasar (745-27) and Sargon (722-05) make mention of one of their clans. However, the conflict between the South-Arabian tribes increased, and new waves of population, flowing northwards to the regions of culture, were to absorb the remains of the ancient decayed tribe. According to the testimony of Greek geographers and, later, of Arabian authors, the Madianites would seem to have taken up their permanent abode on the borders of the Gulf of Akabah, since there existed there a town called Modiána (Ptolemy, “Geogr.” VI, vii, 2; but according to Flavius Josephus and Eusebius, Madiané), whose ruins have been described by the explorer Rüppel and, more recently, by Sir R. Burton (“The Gold Mines of Midian” and “The Land of Midian revisited”, London, 1878 and 1879), now known as Mûghâir Shuaib, not far from the abandoned harbour of Maqua, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Akabah. If, as there is every reason to believe, it was the Madianites whom Procopius had in mind under the somewhat distorted name of Maaddenoí (Persian War, I, xix; ed. Niebuhr, Bonn, 1833, p. 100), the tribe still existed exactly in the region mentioned under the reign of Justinian. But this document shows us in a manner the death-throes of the tribe which was then dependent on the Himyarites and doubtless was soon rendered wholly extinct by absorption in the Islamite hordes.
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WINCKLER and BURTON in works cited above in the body of this article. Also BONACCORSI in VIGOUROUX, Dict. de la Bible, x. v.; CHAPMAN in HASTINGS, Dict. of the Bible, s. v. Midian, Midianites.
HUGUES VINCENT Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Midianites
Midianites, a tribe of people descended from Abraham’s son Midian. His descendants must have settled in Arabia, and engaged in trade at an early period, if we identify them with those who in the time of Jacob appear, along with the Ishmaelites, as merchants traveling from Gilead to Egypt, and who, having in their way bought Joseph from his brethren, sold him in the latter country (Gen 37:28; Gen 37:36). It is, however, very difficult to conceive that the descendants of a son of Abraham, born so many years after Isaac, had become a tribe of people at the time when the descendants of Isaac himself were so few. One is therefore much inclined to suppose that these Midianites were different and distinct from those descended from Abraham’s son; and there appears the more ground for this when at a later period we find two tribes of Midianites, different in locality and character, and different in their feelings towards the Israelites. If this distinction be admitted, then it would be necessary to seek the earlier Midianites in those dwelling about the eastern arm of the Red Sea, among whom Moses found refuge when ‘he fled from Egypt,’ and whose priest or sheikh was Jethro, who became the father-in-law of the future lawgiver (Exo 3:1; Exo 18:5; Num 10:29). These, if not of Hebrew, would appear to have been of Cushite origin, and descended from Midian the son of Cush. We do not again meet with these Midianites in the Jewish history, but they appear to have remained for a long time settled in the same quarter, where indeed is the seat of the only Midianites known to Oriental authors.
The other Midianites, undoubtedly descended from Abraham and Keturah, occupied the country east and south-east of the Moabites, who were seated on the east of the Dead Sea; or rather, perhaps, we should say that, as they appear to have been a semi-nomad people, they pastured their flocks in the unsettled country beyond the Moabites, with whom, as a kindred, although more settled tribe, they seem to have been on the most friendly terms, and on whose borders were situated those ‘cities and goodly castles which they possessed’ (Num 31:10). These Midianites, like the other tribes and nations who had a common origin with them, were highly hostile to the Israelites. In conjunction with the Moabites, they designedly enticed them to idolatry as they approached Canaan (Num 31:2; Num 31:7; Num 25:6; Num 25:14-18); on which account Moses attacked them with a strong force, killed all their fighting men, including their five princes or emirs, and made the women and children captives (Numbers 31). The account of the spoil confirms the view which we have taken of the semi-nomad position of the Midianitesnamely, 675,000 sheep, 72,000 beeves, 61,000 asses, 32,000 persons. This was only the ‘prey,’ or live stock; but besides this there was a great quantity of ‘barbaric pearl and gold,’ in the shape of ‘jewels of gold, chains, and bracelets, rings, earrings, and tablets.’
Sometime after the Israelites obtained possession of Canaan, the Midianites had become so numerous and powerful, that, for seven successive years, they made inroads into the Hebrew territory in the time of harvest, carrying off the fruits and cattle, and desolating the land. At length Gideon was raised up as the deliverer of his country, and his triumph was so complete that the Israelites were never more molested by them (Jdg 6:1-7; Judges 7; Judges 8). To this victory there are subsequent allusions in the sacred writings (Psa 83:9; Psa 83:12; Isa 9:4; Isa 10:26); but the Midianites do not again appear in sacred or profane history.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Midianites
Descendants of Midian, son of Abraham by Keturah
Gen 25:1-2; Gen 25:4; 1Ch 1:32-33
Called Ishmaelites
Gen 37:25; Gen 37:28; Jdg 8:24
Were merchantmen
Gen 37:28
Buy Joseph and sell him to Potiphar
Gen 37:28; Gen 37:36
Defeated by the Israelites under Phinehas; five of their kings slain; the women taken captives; cities burned; and rich spoils taken
Num 31
Defeated by Gideon
Jud 1:6-8
Owned multitudes of camels, and dromedaries, and large quantities of gold
Isa 60:6
A snare to the Israelites
Num 25:16-18
Prophecies concerning
Isa 60:6; Hab 3:7
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
MIDIANITES
descendants of Midian
Gen 37:28; Gen 37:36; Num 31:2; Jdg 6:7; Jdg 7:1; Jdg 7:25