Media

(from the Sanskrit, “middle of the earth”) (Gen. 10:2, Is. 21:2, and others)—this country, which most likely took its name from Madai, son of Japheth, occupied in ancient times a well-known part of the Persian kingdom, and was bordered on the north by the Caspian Sea and Armenia, on the south by Persia proper, and on the west by Assyria. Media was considered a most fertile and cultivated land and was divided into Greater and Lesser Media. Ninus, king of Assyria, annexed Media to his kingdom, and Assyria possessed it until the time of Sennacherib, when it fell away from Assyria, and one of the descendants of Ninus again became king of the Medes (700 years before Christ).

In 556 it was conquered by Cyrus the Great, who fully annexed Media to Persia and formed the Medo-Persian kingdom. From that time onward, therefore, the laws and chronology of the Medes and Persians are always mentioned together in the Book of Esther and Daniel. The Lord used the Medes to punish the Babylonians. “A grievous vision is declared unto me,” exclaims the prophet Isaiah; “the robber robbeth, the spoiler spoileth: go up, O Elam, besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease” (21:2).

But the Medes themselves were made to drink the cup of God’s wrath at the hand of Darius (Isaiah 13:17–18, Jer. 25:25). The Medes were skilled archers and brave warriors, and made great advances in the arts. The Median language undoubtedly had certain peculiarities and differences from Persian (Acts 2:9). Their religious teaching and rites were, it seems, entirely identical with those of the Persians. Among the inhabitants of Azerbaijan (or Atropatene) there is a tradition that Zoroaster was a native of Urmia; besides this, they have many other traditions, undoubtedly very ancient.

The population at present consists mostly of Muslims, but there are also Christians (of the Nestorian sect) who have existed here for more than 1,200 years. They speak Syriac and are often called the Protestants of Asia.