Yehud (Persian Province)

Yehud, also known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud Medinta (), was an administrative province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the region of Judea that functioned as a self-governing region under its local Jewish population. The province was a part of the Persian satrapy of Eber-Nari, and continued to exist for two centuries until its incorporation into the Hellenistic empires following the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The area of Persian Yehud corresponded to the previous Babylonian province of Yehud, which was formed after the fall of the Kingdom of Judah, the southern Israelite kingdom that had existed in the region prior to the Jewish–Babylonian War and subsequent Babylonian captivity. It had a considerably smaller population than that of the fallen kingdom. Yehud Medinata was the Aramaic-language name of the province, which was first introduced by the Babylonians during their governance of the same region prior to the Persian conquest in 539 BCE.

Attempt at matching biblical to historical chronology

There is no 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 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 (404–358 BCE). The probable date for his mission is 458 BCE, but it is possible that it took place in 397 BCE.

Background

In the late-7th century BCE, Judah became a vassal-kingdom of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, but there were rival factions at the court in Jerusalem, some supporting loyalty to Babylon and others urging rebellion. In the early years of the 6th century BCE, despite the strong remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah and others, the Judahite king Jehoiakim revolted against Nebuchadnezzar II. The revolt failed, and in 597 BCE, many Judahites, including the prophet Ezekiel, were exiled to Babylon. A few years later, Judah revolted yet again. In 589, Nebuchadnezzar again besieged Jerusalem, and many Jews fled to Moab, Ammon, Edom and other countries to seek refuge. The city fell after an 18-month siege and Nebuchadnezzar again pillaged and destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. Thus, by 586 BCE, much of Judah was devastated, the royal family, the priesthood, and the scribes, the country's elite, were in exile in Babylon, and the former kingdom suffered a steep decline of both economy and population.

The former kingdom of Judah then became a Babylonian province Yehud, with Gedaliah, a native Judahite, as governor (or possibly ruling as a puppet king). According to Miller and Hayes, the province included the towns of Bethel in the north, Mizpah, Jericho in the east, Jerusalem, Beth-Zur in the west and En-Gedi in the south.James Maxwell Miller and John Haralson Hayes, ''A History of Ancient Israel and Judah'' (1986) , p.xxi, 425. The administrative centre of the province was Mizpah. On hearing of the appointment, the Jews that had taken refuge in surrounding countries returned to Judah. However, before long, Gedaliah was assassinated by a member of the former royal house, and the Babylonian garrison was killed, triggering a mass movement of refugees to Egypt. In Egypt, the refugees settled in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros, and Jeremiah went with them as moral guardian.

The numbers deported to Babylon or who made their way to Egypt and the remnant that remained in Yehud province and in surrounding countries are subject to academic debate. The Book of Jeremiah reports that a total of 4,600 were exiled to Babylon. To such numbers must be added those deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE after the first siege to Jerusalem, when he deported the king of Judah, Jeconiah, and his court and other prominent citizens and craftsmen along with a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Judah, numbering about 10,000. The Book of Kings also suggests that it was 8,000.

History

Biblical version

In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persians. That event is dated securely from non-biblical sources. In his first year (538 BCE), Cyrus the Great decreed that the deportees in Babylon could return to Yehud and rebuild the Temple. Led by Zerubbabel, 42,360 exiles returned to Yehud, and where he and Jeshua the priest, although they were in fear of the "people of the land", re-instituted sacrifices.

According to Book of Ezra, Jeshua and Zerubbabel were frustrated in their efforts to rebuild the Temple by the enmity of the "people of the land" and the opposition of the governor of "Beyond-the-River" (the satrapy of which Yehud was a smaller unit). () However, in the second year of Darius (520 BCE), Darius discovered the Decree of Cyrus in the archives and directed the satrap to support the work, which he did, and the Temple was completed in the sixth year of Darius (516/515 BCE). ()

The Book of Ezra dates Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem to the second year of Artaxerxes. Its position in the narrative implies that he was Artaxerxes I in which case the year was 458 BCE. Ezra, a scholar of the commandments of Yahweh, was commissioned by Artaxerxes to rebuild the Temple and enforce the laws of Moses in Beyond-the-River. Ezra led a large party of exiles back to Yehud, where he found that Jews had intermarried with the "peoples of the land" and immediately banned intermarriage. ()

In the 20th year of Artaxerxes (almost definitely Artaxerxes I, whose twentieth year was 445/444 BCE) Nehemiah, the cup-bearer to the king and in a high official post, was informed that the wall of Jerusalem had been destroyed and was granted permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild it. He succeeded in doing so but encountered strong resistance from the "people of the land", the officials of Samaria (the province immediately to the north of Yehud, the former kingdom of Israel) and other provinces and peoples around Jerusalem. ()

In chapter 8, the Book of Nehemiah abruptly switches back to Ezra, apparently with no change in the chronology, but the year is not specified. The Book of Nehemiah says that Ezra gathered the Jews together to read and enforce the law (his original commission from Darius but put into effect only now, 14 years after his arrival). Ezra argued to the people that failure to keep the law had caused the Exile. The Jews then agreed to separate themselves from the "peoples of the land" (once again, intermarriage was banned), keep Sabbath and generally observe the Law. ()

Current scholarship

The Babylonians removed only a portion of the population of Jerusalem; of those exiles, only a small portion returned to Jerusalem (539) after the Persian conquest of Babylon, and did so over several decades. The population of Persian-period Jerusalem and the area was smaller than once believed, only a few thousands. Much of the literature which became the Hebrew bible was compiled during the Persian period, and Persian Yehud saw considerable conflict over the construction and function of the Temple and matters of cult (i.e., how God was to be worshiped). Persia controlled Yehud using the same methods it used in other colonies, and the bible reflects this, and Yehud's status as a Persian colony is crucial to understanding the society and literature of the period. The restoration of the Davidic kingdom under Persian royal patronage was clearly the project of the exile community in the early post-Exilic period. The returnees attempted to restore in Yehud the First Temple threefold leadership template of king (Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel), high priest (Joshua, descended from the priestly line), and prophets (Haggai, Zechariah). However, by the middle of the next century, probably around 450 BCE, the kings and prophets had disappeared and only the high priest remained, joined by the scribe-sage (Ezra) and the appointed aristocrat-governor (Nehemiah). This new pattern provided the leadership model for Yehud for centuries to come.

Administration and demographics

Yehud was considerably smaller than the old kingdom of Judah, stretching from around Bethel in the north to about Hebron in the south (although Hebron itself was unpopulated throughout the Persian period), and from the Jordan River and Dead Sea in the east to, but not including, the Shephelah (the slopes between the Judean highlands and the coastal plains) in the west. After the destruction of Jerusalem the centre of gravity shifted northward to Benjamin; this region, once a part of the kingdom of Israel, was far more densely populated than Judah itself, and now held both the administrative capital, Mizpah, and the major religious centre of Bethel. Mizpah continued as the provincial capital for over a century. The position of Jerusalem before the administration moved back from Mizpah is not clear, but from 445 BCE onwards it was once more the main city of Yehud, with walls, a temple (the Second Temple) and other facilities needed to function as a provincial capital, including, from 420 BCE, a local mint striking silver coins. Nevertheless, Persian-era Jerusalem was tiny: about 1,500 inhabitants, even as low as 500 according to some estimates. It was the only true urban site in Yehud, the bulk of the province's population lived in small unwalled villages. This picture did not much change throughout the entire Persian period. The entire population of the province remained around 30,000. There is no sign in the archaeological record of massive inwards migration from Babylon, in contradiction to the biblical account where Zerubbabel's band of returning Israelite exiles alone numbered 42,360.

The Persians seem to have experimented with ruling Yehud as a client-kingdom, but this time under the descendants of Jehoiachin, who had kept his royal status even in captivity.Herbert Niehr, "Religio-Historical Aspects of the Early Post-Exilic Period", in Bob Becking, Marjo Christina Annette Korpel (eds), ''The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic & Post-Exilic Times'' (Brill, 1999) pp.229–231
/ref> Sheshbazzar, the governor of Yehud appointed by Cyrus in 538, was of Davidic origin, as was his successor (and nephew) Zerubbabel; Zerubbabel in turn was succeeded by his second son and then by his son-in-law, all of them hereditary Davidic governors of Yehud, a state of affairs that ended only around 500 BCE. This hypothesis—that Zerubbabel and his immediate successors represented a restoration of the Davidic kingdom under Persian overlordship—cannot be verified, but it would be in keeping with the situation in some other parts of the Persian Empire, such as Phoenicia.

The second and third pillars of the early period of Persian rule in Yehud, copying the pattern of the old Davidic kingdom destroyed by the Babylonians, were the institutions of High Priest and Prophet. Both are described and preserved in the Hebrew Bible

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