So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east; they came up against them;
"This is the earliest instance of such a phenomenon of which we have record. The effective domestication of the camel had been accomplished somewhat earlier deep in Arabia and had now spread to tribal confederacies to the south and east of Palestine, giving them a mobility such as they had never had before." [Note: Bright, p. 158.] 