Hovav the Midianite: Why Was the End of the Story Cut?

Moses’ father-in-law is given more than one name (Hovav, Reuel, Jehtro) and more than one ethnicity (Midianite, Kenite) in the Bible. For more on these issues, Zev Farber’s TABS essay, “Moses’ Father-in-Law: Kenite or Midianite?”

A further variant of supernatural guidance emerges from the priestly tradition concerning the cloud, in Numbers 9:17-23.

For a discussion of these texts and what they imply about the tradition history of Hovav and the Kenites, see Farber, “Moses’ Father-in-Law.”

Jethro is an alternative name to Reuel, and Hovav is the son of Reuel. See, Exodus 2:16-3:1; Numbers 10:29.

A third alternative account is found in Num 11:14-29.

In some texts, the Midianites are enemies. See, Num 25:6-18; 31:1-16; Judg 6:1-6.

My student, Akiva Tal Hameiri discusses this at length in his recently completed doctoral thesis.

Teman, Seir and Paran are all in the surroundings of Edom, i.e. in the area between Petra and Eilat. 

 This hypothesis has been suggested by numerous scholars, each presentation with its own unique features. For some classic treatments, see: Karel van der Toorn, “YAHWEH,” DDD,1714-16; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Midianite–Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Origins of Judah”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 33.2 (2008): 131-153; H.H. Rowley,From Joseph to Joshua: Biblical Traditions in the Light of Archaeology (London: Oxford University Press, 4th edn, 1958), 149-56. See also questions 3 and 4 in the TABS interview with Dudu Cohen, “An Israeli Tour Guide with a Ph.D. in Bible.”

Scholars have suggested two main etymologies for the appellation shasu, a nomadic tribes inhabiting the wilderness regions south and east of Canaan :

1. It may be related to the Semitic root Sh.S.H. meaning to rob/steal (as in “And they rob [shosim] the threshing floors” in 1Samuel 23:1).
2. It may come from an Egyptian word meaning to move/migrate.

I discus this issue in a forthcoming article in the journal, Vetus Testamentum.

B. Rothenberg and J. Glass, “Midianite Pottery,” Eretz Yisrael 15, 5741, 85-114 [Hebrew]; B. Rotenberg and J. Glass, “The Midianite Pottery,” in Midian Moab and Edom, the History and Archeology of Late Bronze and Iron Age Jordan and North-West Arabia (eds. J.F.A Sawyer and D. J. A. Clines; JSOT Sup. 24; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1983), 65-124; P. J. Parr, “Pottery of the Late Second Millennium B. C. from North West Arabia and its Historical Implications” in Araby the Blest: Studies in Arabian Archeology, (ed., D. T. Potts; Copenhagen 1988), 73-89; idem, “Qurayya,” AB Dictionary, 5 (1992), 594-5; L. Stager, “Forging an Identity, the Emergence of Ancient Israel,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World (ed., M. D. Coogan; New York & Oxford, 1988), 144-148.

Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, vol. 1 (trans. J. Bowden; London: OTL, 1994), 49-55. The aversion to the Midianites apparent in some of the biblical traditions stems, it seems, from the tensions between priestly houses; see Frank. M. Cross, From Epic to Canon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998), 59-63.

The Arabah Expedition, Midianite Timna: Valley of the Biblical Copper mines: An Archaeological Exhibition from the Excavations in the Timna Valley (Israel) 1964-1970(Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, at the British Musuem, October-November 1971).

Ibid, p. 16. The basic notions about the Midianite iconoclastic activity after the Egyptian hegemony were reconfirmed also in the recent excavation done by Uzi Avner, See, U. Avner, “Egyptian Timna – Reconsidered”, in Unearthing the Wilderness (ed., J. M. Tebes; Leuven 2014), 103-162. 

See summary of findings by J. Patrich in The Formation of Nabatean Art (Jerusalem and Leiden 1990), 174-175. The sole ritual symbol found in the Midianite tent shrine’s holy of holies was a bronze serpent with a gilded head. This finding is, of course, reminiscent of the story of the bronze serpent made by Moses (Numbers 21: 8-9); see Benno Rothenberg, “Mikdash ha-kurim be-biq’at timna,” Yisrael – Am ve-Aretz, Haaretz Museum Yearbook, vol. 1 (19) , 5744 (1983-4), 85-122.

For the prohibition in biblical Israel, see N. Na’aman, “No Anthropomorphic Graven Image,” UF 31 (1999), 391-415; T. N. D. Mettinger, “A Conversation with My Critics: Cultic Image or Aniconism in the first Temple” in Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context – A Tribute to Nadav Na’aman (eds., Y. Amit et al; Winona Lake, Indiana 2006), 273-296.