MIDIANITE

also called Ishmaelite in the Old Testament, member of a group of nomadic tribes related to the Israelites and most likely living east of the Gulf of Aqaba in the northwestern regions of the Arabian Desert. They engaged in pastoral pursuits, caravan trading, and banditry, and their main contacts with the Israelites were from the period of the Exodus (13th century BC) through the period of the judges (12th11th century BC). According to the Book of Judges, the Israelite chieftain Gideon drove the Midianites into western Palestine, after which they largely disappear from the biblical narrative. According to the Book of Genesis, the Midianites were descended from Midian, who was the son of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham by the latter's second wife, Keturah. Jethro, priest-leader of the Midianite subtribe known as the Kenites, and his daughter Zipporah (a wife of Moses), influenced early Hebrew thought: it was Yahweh, the lord of the Midianites, who was revealed to Moses as the God of the Hebrews. Circumcision was practiced by the Midianites before the Israelites.