Search the Site

Donate

Media, Medes


Mee´dee-uh, meeds

The names of a place and people often associated with Persia (especially in the books of Esther and Daniel). Media became a province of the Persian Empire in 549 BCE when the Medan overlord was conquered by Cyrus the Great. The area of Media appears as one to which deportees from the Northern Kingdom were taken in 722 BCE (2Kgs 17:6; 2Kgs 18:11). In the stories related in the book of Esther and in (Dan 5 and Dan 6), the laws of Medes and Persians are described as unalterable (Esth 1:19; Dan 5:28). The Medes appear as the divine instrument of judgment on Babylon in (Isa 13:17; Jer 51:11, Jer 51:28); also with Elam in (Isa 21:2, cf. Jer 25:25); in a picture of total judgment on Babylon at the hands of all the nation). (Dan 5:31; Dan 9:1; and Dan 11:1) mention a “kingdom of the Medes” (unknown in history) that existed between the fall of the Babylonians and the rise of the Persians. (Acts 2:9) includes Media as one of the areas from which Jewish pilgrims have come to Jerusalem.

  • Powell, Mark Allan, ed. HarperCollins Bible Dictionary. Abridged Edition. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.