Province of Judah Yêhūd Mêdīnāta (Aramaic) | |||||||||
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c. 539 BCE–c. 332 BCE | |||||||||
Standard of Cyrus the Great | |||||||||
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Status | Province of the Achaemenid Empire | ||||||||
Capital | Jerusalem 31°47′N 35°13′E / 31.783°N 35.217°E | ||||||||
Common languages | Aramaic, Hebrew, Old Persian | ||||||||
Religion | Judaism, Samaritanism | ||||||||
Demonym(s) | Jewish, Judean, Judahite, or Israelite | ||||||||
Historical era | Axial Age | ||||||||
c. 539 BCE | |||||||||
539 BCE | |||||||||
538 BCE | |||||||||
538 BCE | |||||||||
• Construction of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem | 520–515 BCE | ||||||||
c. 332 BCE | |||||||||
Currency | |||||||||
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Today part of |
Yehud Medinata,[1][2][3][4][5] also called Yehud Medinta[a] or simply Yehud, was an autonomous administrative division of the Achaemenid Empire. It constituted a part of Eber-Nari and was bounded by Idumaea (now part of Achaemenid Arabia) to the south, lying along the frontier of the two satrapies. Spanning most of Judea—from the Shephelah in the west to the Dead Sea in the east—it was one of several Persian provinces in Palestine, together with Moab, Ammon, Gilead, Samaria, Ashdod, and Idumea/Arabia, among others.[10] It existed for just over two centuries before the Greek conquest of Persia resulted in it being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires.
Following the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE, Yehud province absorbed the Babylonian province of Yehud, which, in turn, had been established to absorb the Kingdom of Judah after the Judah's revolts against Babylon. Upon the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Cyrus the Great issued the so-called Edict of Cyrus, which is described in the Hebrew Bible as his authorization and encouragement of the return to Zion, thereby ending the Babylonian captivity. The province's overall population is gauged as having been considerably smaller than that of the fallen Israelite kingdom. The name Yehud Medinata is originally Aramaic and was first introduced after the Babylonian conquest of Judah.[1]
The Persian period marked the start of the Second Temple period in Jewish history. Jewish returnees had come from various areas of the empire. Governor Zerubbabel, who led the first returnees, laid the foundation of the Second Temple. Leaders such as Ezra and Nehemiah followed, and their efforts to rebuild Jewish life in Judah are chronicled in biblical books named after them. Another significant Persian period achievement was the canonization of the Torah, traditionally credited to Ezra. This process played an important role in shaping Jewish identity and had a lasting impact on Western civilization.[11]
The Babylonians translated the Hebrew name [Judah] into Aramaic as Yehud Medinata ('the province of Judah') or simply 'Yehud' and made it a new Babylonian province. This was inherited by the Persians. Under the Greeks, Yehud was translated as Judaea and this was taken over by the Romans. After the Jewish rebellion of 135 CE, the Romans renamed the area Syria Palaestina or simply Palestine. The area described by these land titles differed to some extent in the different periods.
...in the book of Esther,...the opening verse of the Hebrew text tells us that King Ahasuerus ruled over 127 medinas from India to Ethiopia — which the Targum, the canonical Jewish translation of the Bible into Aramaic, renders not as medinata, 'cities,' but as pilkhin, 'provinces.'
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The current thinking about Persian period Yehud entails an (ethnically) multi-faceted population, a much better understanding of its archaeology, as well as the interaction between the smallish province of Yehud with other Persian provinces in Palestine, including Moab, Ammon, Gilead, Samaria, Ashdod, Idumea, etc., that were all part of the fifth Persian satrapy called Ebir-Nāri. This interest is not only due to a more careful and differentiated analysis of the material culture (i.e., the archaeology of Persian period Palestine), but also to the fact that most modern scholars view this period as the hotbed of creative literary activity during which most books of the Hebrew Bible were edited or composed thus meriting a closer look.
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