The land Moses flees to and shepherds in for forty years (Exodus 2:15) — home of the MIDIANITES, a people descended from Abraham through Keturah (Genesis 25:2), so distant kin to Israel. Their territory lay in northwest Arabia, east of the Gulf of Aqaba, spreading north into the Transjordan and the Sinai's edges — caravan-traders (it was Midianite/Ishmaelite traders who bought Joseph, Genesis 37:28). Here Moses marries into the household of the priest of Midian and, at Horeb/Sinai 'the mountain of God' at the desert's far side (Exodus 3:1), meets Jehovah in the burning bush. Later the relationship sours — Midian joins Moab to hire Balaam (Numbers 22–25) — but at the exodus it is Midian that shelters the deliverer and gives him a wife and a wise father-in-law.