Midian

About Midian

Midian was a nation descended from Abraham through his wife Keturah (Genesis 25:2). The Midianites lived in the desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula, particularly in the area east of the Gulf of Aqaba. Moses fled to Midian after killing an Egyptian and married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite priest (Exodus 2:15-22). Jethro later visited Moses and offered him wise counsel (Exodus 18:1-27).

During the time of the judges, the Midianites, along with the Amalekites and other eastern peoples, oppressed Israel for seven years (Judges 6:1-6). God raised up Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites (Judges 6:11-24). Gideon, with a small army of 300 men, defeated the Midianites and their allies, who were "as numerous as locusts" (Judges 7-8).

The Midianites were involved in the incident at Peor, where Israelite men were enticed into sexual immorality and idolatry (Numbers 25:1-18). As a result, God commanded Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites (Numbers 25:17-18; 31:1-54).

In later biblical history, the Midianites are mentioned as traders who bought Joseph from his brothers and sold him into slavery in Egypt (Genesis 37:28, 36). The prophet Isaiah refers to the defeat of Midian as a symbol of God's power to deliver his people (Isaiah 9:4; 10:26). The Midianites are also mentioned in the genealogy of Edom (Genesis 36:35; 1Ch.1.46) and in a psalm calling for God's judgment on Israel's enemies (Psalm 83:9).

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.