Midyan

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An ancient people and desert region in northwestern Arabia, descended from Abraham's son, mentioned frequently in the Hebrew Bible
2. The Biblical land of the Midianites, a nomadic tribe associated with the Sinai and Arabian deserts and with Moses' time in exile
3. A historical territory and tribal group in the Hebrew scriptures, located in the desert lands east of the Gulf of Aqaba

Etymology: Midian is the name of a people and a region in the Hebrew Bible, and the Hebrew form "Midyan" is the source of the English name. In Genesis, Midian is one of the sons of Abraham by his second wife, Keturah, so the name is presented as a kinship label for a group of desert tribes. Those tribes lived in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula and the lands east of the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Bible links them with Moses, who takes refuge among them after fleeing Egypt and marries Zipporah, daughter of a Midianite priest. The meaning of the name is uncertain. Some scholars connect it to a Semitic root meaning "strife" or "judgment," related to the Hebrew "din," but this is a suggestion rather than an established derivation. The Arabic form "Madyan" is a cognate, and the Greek and Latin forms that reached English through the Septuagint and Vulgate Bible translations gave us "Midian" and the adjective "Midianite."