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 shêkhs
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.

It was also a "queen of the south," it will be remembered, who came to
hear the wisdom of Solomon. Sheba, the Saba of classical antiquity, was
an important kingdom of south-western Arabia, which had grown wealthy