Midian

Midian was the fourth son of Abraham by his concubine Keturah (Genesis 25:2), whom Abraham sent away eastward with gifts so that the inheritance might rest on Isaac (Genesis 25:6). His descendants, the Midianites, became a loose confederation of nomadic and trading tribes ranging across the deserts east and south of Canaan — the Sinai peninsula, the region of the Gulf of Aqaba, and northwestern Arabia. Kindred to Israel yet often its adversary, Midian threads through the Pentateuch and Judges in turns as host, snare, oppressor, and the occasion of a famous deliverance.

Midianite traders first appear carrying the young Joseph down into Egypt (Genesis 37:28, 36). Most importantly, the land of Midian was the place of Moses' long exile and formation: fleeing Pharaoh, he came to a well, defended the seven daughters of the priest of Midian, and married Zipporah, daughter of Reuel (also called Jethro), tending his flocks for forty years (Exodus 2:15–21). It was there, at Horeb in the wilderness, that the LORD met him in the burning bush and commissioned him to deliver Israel (Exodus 3:1–2). Later Jethro, priest of Midian, rejoiced at the exodus and gave Moses his wise counsel to appoint judges over the people (Exodus 18:13–24).

Yet Midian also became a source of grievous harm. At Baal-peor, on the plains of Moab, Midianite women lured Israel into idolatry and immorality, bringing a deadly plague, so that the LORD commanded war against Midian; in the ensuing campaign Israel slew its five kings and Balaam the soothsayer (Numbers 25:1–9; Numbers 31:7–8). In the days of the judges, Midian rose again as a fierce oppressor, sweeping in each year with camels "like locusts in number" to devour Israel's harvests for seven years, until the LORD raised up Gideon, whose three hundred men routed the vast Midianite host by night (Judges 6:1–6; Judges 7:19–22).

That overthrow so impressed itself on Israel's memory that "the day of Midian" became a byword for God's sudden, decisive deliverance of his oppressed people. Isaiah promises that the yoke of the oppressor will be broken "as on the day of Midian," and that the LORD will wield his whip against the enemy "as in the slaughter of Midian" (Isaiah 9:4; Isaiah 10:26), and Asaph prays that the nations would be routed "as you did to Midian" (Psalm 83:9). Thus Midian stands in Scripture as a kindred desert people whose land cradled Moses and the burning bush, whose seduction at Peor warned Israel against compromise, and whose defeat under Gideon became an enduring emblem of the salvation that the LORD works for those who cry to him.