maelite as
Midianite in descent.

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