Medan

The third son of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2. There is a place also called by this name and some have thought, that it is the same as is called in our Lord’s time Magdala. Some suppose that the name means judgment; and others render it, the waters of Dan.

Me´dan or Madan, son of Abraham, by Keturah (Gen 25:2). He and his brother Midian are supposed to have peopled the country of Midian, east of the Dead Sea.

A son of Abraham and Keturah, Gen 25:2 . He is supposed to have settled in Arabia, near Midian his brother.\par

Me’dan. (contention). A son of Abraham and Keturah. Gen 23:5; 1Ch 1:42.

("strife".) Gen 25:2. Son of Abraham and Keturah. Identified with Midian in Gen 37:28; Gen 37:36. The Keturahites early merged into the Ishmaelite tribes.

[Medan’]

Son of Abraham and Keturah. Gen 25:2; 1Ch 1:32. His descendants have not been traced.

MEDAN.—One of the sons of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:2 = 1Ch 1:32). The existence of such a tribe, however, is very doubtful. In Gen 37:36 ‘Medanites’ is miswritten for Midianites (see RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ), and there is every likelihood that in the former passage ‘Medan’ is a doublet of ‘Midian,’ the next word in the verse. Medan is unknown elsewhere in the Bible, nor is it represented by the name of any people in any extra-Biblical document. To connect it with the name of an Arabian god Madân, or with the similar name of a wady in N.W. Arabia, is very hazardous, both because the associations are remote, and because the word-form is common in Semitic, and is liable to occur in various relations.

J. F. M‘Curdy.

mē´dan (מדן, m^edhān, “strife”): One of the sons of Abraham by Keturah (Gen 25:2; 1Ch 1:32). The tribe and its place remain unidentified, and the conjecture that the name may be connected with the Midianites is unlikely from the fact that in the list of the sons of Abraham and Keturah Midian is mentioned alongside of Medan.