And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.
Zimran - [Septuagint, Zombran, has been supposed by some identical with Zambram, the metropolis of the Kinaidokolpitai whose settlement was on the borders of the Red Sea, west of Mecca; and by others to be the Zamareni, now the Shammar tribe dwelling between the Red Sea and the Euphrates.]
Jokshan. [Knobel considers that this name was transmuted into qaashan whose posterity, the Kassanitai (Ptolemy, 6:7), were located on the Red Sea, on the south of the former.]
Medan, and Midian. Foster maintains ('Historical Geography of Arabia') that these continued separate tribes; but the prevailing opinion is, they merged into one, or were at least so closely allied that their names were used interchangeably (Genesis 37:28; Genesis 37:36). The city Maadan, or Medayen-according to Burckhardt, the Modiana of the classics-was situated on the eastern shore of the Elanitic Gulf. From the southern region the Midianites extended along the eastern frontier of Palestine, some branches of them stretching into the remote pasture grounds of Sinai.
Ishbak [Septuagint, hiesbook] - traced in the Arabic Shobek (which has the same radicals), a castle twelve miles north of Petra.
Shuah - the youngest of Keturah's sons. Foster tries to identify this name with the Chaldean х Showa` (H7771)] Shoa (Ezekiel 23:23). But the two words are totally different. It may, perhaps, be found in 'Saiace' of Pliny (chapter 6:32), near the mouth of the Euphrates. Above Babylonia, on both sides of the Euphrates are the Tsukhi, perhaps the Shuhites. The Shuhites were probably descendants of Shuah (Job 2:11).