Yehud Medinata
| Province of Judah Yêhūd Mêdīnāta (Aramaic) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c. 539 BCE–c. 332 BCE | |||||||||
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Standard of Cyrus the Great | |||||||||
Palestine under the Persians (George Adam Smith, 1915): Jews (Judea) Samaritans (Samaria) | |||||||||
| Capital | Jerusalem | ||||||||
| Demonym | Jewish, Judean, Judahite, or Israelite | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
| • Coordinates | 31°47′N 35°13′E / 31.783°N 35.217°E | ||||||||
| 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 | |||||||||
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| Today part of | |||||||||
Yehud Medinata, also called Yehud Medinta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: יְהוּד מְדִינְתָּא Yəhūḏ Məḏīntā) or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire. Located in Judea, the territory was distinctly Jewish, with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and political leader. It lasted for just over two centuries before being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires, which emerged following the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire.
Upon the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire established its own Yehud province to absorb the Babylonian province of Yehud, which, in turn, had been established by the Neo-Babylonian Empire to absorb the Kingdom of Judah upon the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Around this time, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued what is commonly known as the Edict of Cyrus, which is described in the Hebrew Bible as a royal proclamation that ended the Babylonian captivity and initiated the return to Zion. In the new province, repatriated Jews began to revive their national identity and reconstruct the Temple in Jerusalem.
The province 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 Idumaea/Arabia, among others. The province's overall population is gauged as having been considerably smaller than that of the fallen Israelite kingdom. The name Yêhūd Mêdīnāta is originally Aramaic and was first introduced after Judah fell to the Babylonians.
In Jewish history, the Persian period marks the start of the Second Temple period. Governor Zerubbabel, who led the first Jewish returnees, laid the foundation of the Second Temple. Other Jewish leaders followed, such as Ezra and Nehemiah, and their efforts to rebuild Jewish life in the region are chronicled in biblical books named after them. Another significant Persian-period achievement was the canonization of the Torah, traditionally credited to Ezra and playing an important role in shaping the Jewish identity.