Persian period

Yehud Medinata

Province of the Persian Empire

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c. 539 BCE–c. 332 BCE

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Coat of arms

Yehud Medinata (in pink) under the Persian Empire

Capital

Jerusalem
31°47′N 35°13′E / 31.783°N 35.217°ECoordinates: 31°47′N 35°13′E / 31.783°N 35.217°E

Historical era

Achaemenid Empire

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Cyrus' invasion of Babylonia

c. 539 BCE

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Wars of Alexander the Great

c. 332 BCE

Coat of arms

Yehud Medinata (Aramaic for "the province of Judah"), Yahud Medin'ta, or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, roughly equivalent to the older kingdom of Judah but covering a smaller area, within the satrapy of Eber-Nari. The area of Yehud Medinata corresponded to the previous Babylonian province with the same name, formed after the fall of the kingdom of Judah to the Neo-Babylonian Empire (c.597 after its conquest of the Mediterranean east coast, and again in 585/6 BCE after suppressing an unsuccessful Judean revolt). Yehud Medinata continued to exist for two centuries, until being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires following the conquests of Alexander the Great.

There is not complete agreement on the chronology of the Babylonian and Persian periods: the following table is used in this article, but alternative dates for many events are plausible. That is especially true of the chronological sequence of Ezra and Nehemiah, with Ezra 7:6-8 stating that Ezra came to Jerusalem "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the King," without specifying whether he was Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE) or Artaxerxes II (404-359 BCE). The probable date for his mission is 458 BCE, but it is possible that it took place in 397 BCE.

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