Between the Midianites and the Israelitish fugitives from Egypt there had been close affinity.  Moses had found a refuge in Midian, and his wife and children were Midianite in race.  His father-in-law, “the priest of Midian,” had visited him under the shadow of Sinai, and had given him his first lessons in political organisation.  A Midianite remained to guide the Israelites through the wilderness, and the Kenites, who took part with the tribe of Judah in the conquest of Canaan, appear to have migrated from Midian.  It was not until just before the invasion of Palestine that the old bonds of friendship and mixture between Israel and Midian were broken asunder.  Midianite hosts had overrun the land of Moab as at a later time they overran the land of Israel, and the Israelites had forsaken Yahveh for the worship of the Midianite Baal-Peor.  This was the result of intermarriage; the Israelites had taken Midianite wives and conformed to the licentious rites of a Midianite god.

Israel, however, was saved by its Levite priests.  They rallied round Yahveh and Moses, and in the struggle that ensued the forces on the side of the national God proved the stronger.  The Midianitish faction was annihilated, its leaders put to death, and the Midianites themselves attacked and despoiled.  Among the slain was the seer of Pethor, Balaam the son of Beor.

The Moabites must have hailed the Israelites as saviours.  They had delivered them from their two assailants, the Amorites on the north, the Midianites on the east.  But the Midianite power was broken only for a time.  We hear at a subsequent date of the Edomite king Hadad “who smote Midian in the field of Moab,” and a time came when Midianite shekhs overran Gilead, and penetrated into the valleys and villages of Manasseh on the western side of the Jordan.  After their defeat by Gideon, however, we hear of them no more.  They passed out of the Israelitish horizon; henceforth their raiding bands never approached the frontiers of Israel.  The land of Midian alone is mentioned as adjoining Edom; the Midianites who had traversed the desert and carried terror to the inhabitants of Canaan become merely a name.

Midian was originally governed by high-priests.  This was the case among other Semitic peoples as well.  In Assyria the kings were preceded by the high-priests of Assur, and recently-discovered inscriptions show that in southern Arabia, in the land of Sheba, the high-priest came before the king.  Jethro, “the priest of Midian,” represented a peculiarly Arabian institution.

The name of “Arab” was applied to certain tribes only of northern Arabia.  We hear of them in the Old Testament as well as in the Assyrian inscriptions.  In the Old Testament the name seems to include the Ishmaelite clans to the east of Edom.  Their “kings,” it is said, brought tribute to Solomon; a colony of them was established at Gur-Baal in the south of Judah.  We learn from the Assyrian texts that they could be governed by queens; two of their queens indeed are mentioned by name.