Ishmaelites or Midianites

(Genesis 37:25 to 30 and 36)

The problem here is that it appears that those who are called Ishmaelites are also called Midianites. A rather sceptical school mistress once pointed this out as a mistake in Scripture. Many years later it was noticed that the same alternative use of the names Ishmaelites and Midianites is found in Judges 8:22 and 24. One cannot therefore assume that a mistake has been made because it would mean that exactly the same mix-up of names had been made in two quite separate places in Scripture !

The Ishmaelites were sons of Ishmael the son of Abraham by Hagar; the Midianites were sons of Midian the son of Abraham by Keturah (Genesis 16:15 and 25:1). That there was a good deal of inter-marrying is very likely. In verse 33 of Judges 6 it speaks of "All Midian and Amalek and the children of the east" so that the armies that were involved in the oppression of Israel were in fact something of a mixed multitude. The Amalekites, incidentally, apparently sprang out of Esau (Genesis 36:12).

However, the most likely explanation for the Midianites being called Ishmaelites is that although the place "Midian" derived its name from the son of Abraham mentioned above and therefore those that lived there were called Midianites, the Ishmaelites had no land of their own and moved from place to place as the Bedouin do today. Having mingled with the Midianites and probably moved around in the land of Midian they were called Midianites, although as to ancestry they were Ishmaelites. It is clear that there was a land of Midian (Exodus 2:15) but no land of Ishmael, just as there is no land of Bedouin today. It is not extraordinary that something like this may have happened, as British today is almost a synonym for English, though probably the former term strictly applies to all those that live in Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), whereas the latter term only applies to those of English descent who are the predominant inhabitants of England.

The question arises as to where the land of Midian was. Youngs concordance says it was the "land beyond the Jordan, in Edom, the Sinai peninsula, and Arabia Petraea". This is a particularly wide area. The Sinai peninsula is probably included because mount Sinai is traditionally located there and it was in the mount Sinai area that Moses spent forty years before he was called to take the Israelites out of Egypt (Acts 7:30). It was there that the Israelites were to go after leaving Egypt (Exodus 3:12). However, it seems more likely that mount Sinai was somewhere in Arabia.

This is because:-

1. Mount Sinai is said to be in Arabia (Galatians 4:25).

2. Abraham's son, Midian was one of those who were sent away into the East country (Genesis 25:6). It is difficult to reconcile this with the idea that the land of Midian was in the so-called Sinai peninsula directly South of Canaan, where Abraham was dwelling when he sent his sons away.

3. The Midianites/Ishmaelites who took Joseph to Egypt having come from Gilead were passing through Dothan (Genesis 37:17), which is between the hills of Samaria and the Carmel range, when they bought Joseph. They would not have been in that area had they been going directly from the Sinai peninsula into Egypt.

4. The name Red sea perhaps means sea of Edom, because Edom means red (see Young's concordance under Red sea and Edom). If this is so, it was more likely that it was what is now called the gulf of Akaba that the Israelites crossed, than what is now named the gulf of Suez, because the former is much nearer mount Seir, the land of the Edomites (Genesis 32:3). Crossing the gulf of Akaba would have taken them into Arabia. Both the gulf of Suez and the gulf of Akaba are branches of the Red sea so there is no difficulty posed regarding the name whichever branch was the correct one.