Soak Bible

Media

“Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” So Daniel reads the writing on the wall in Belshazzar’s last hour, and the next verse says “Darius the Median took the kingdom.” The Medes appear only a handful of times in Scripture, but at both ends of a long story. Earlier, Assyria settled exiles from Samaria “in the cities of the Medes.” Later, Daniel’s visions open in the first year of Darius, “of the seed of the Medes.” They show how God’s people kept living under one power after another. Daniel 5 is the place to start.

5 verses

2 Kings

2 Kings 17:6

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

Daniel

Daniel 5:28

PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Daniel 5:31

And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

Daniel 9:1

In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;

Daniel 11:1

Also I in the first year of Darius the Mede, even I, stood to confirm and to strengthen him.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.

We first hear of this people in the Assyrian cuneiform records, under the name of Amada, about B.C. 840. They appear to have been a branch of the Aryans, who came from the east bank of the Indus, and were probably the predominant race for a while in the Mesopotamian valley. They consisted for three or four centuries of a number of tribes, each ruled by its own chief, who at length were brought under the Assyrian yoke (2 Kings 17:6). From this subjection they achieved deliverance, and formed themselves into an empire under Cyaxares (B.C. 633). This monarch entered into an alliance with the king of Babylon, and invaded Assyria, capturing and destroying the city of Nineveh (B.C. 625), thus putting an end to the Assyrian monarchy (Nah. 1:8; 2:5,6; 3:13, 14).

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Media now rose to a place of great power, vastly extending its boundaries. But it did not long exist as an independent kingdom. It rose with Cyaxares, its first king, and it passed away with him; for during the reign of his son and successor Astyages, the Persians waged war against the Medes and conquered them, the two nations being united under one monarch, Cyrus the Persian (B.C. 558).

The “cities of the Medes” are first mentioned in connection with the deportation of the Israelites on the destruction of Samaria (2 Kings 17:6; 18:11). Soon afterwards Isaiah (13:17; 21:2) speaks of the part taken by the Medes in the destruction of Babylon (comp. Jer. 51:11, 28). Daniel gives an account of the reign of Darius the Mede, who was made viceroy by Cyrus (Dan. 6:1-28). The decree of Cyrus, Ezra informs us (6:2-5), was found in “the palace that is in the province of the Medes,” Achmetha or Ecbatana of the Greeks, which is the only Median city mentioned in Scripture.

Based on Nave's Topical Bible by Orville J. Nave (1896). Dictionary entries from Easton's Bible Dictionary. Public domain. KJV scripture text, public domain.