MEDIA and MEDES ('it). The same He brew word is used in the O. T. as the name of a son of Japhet, of the nation which he founded, and of their country. Hence we find it rendered in four different ways in our A. V. In most cases these renderings are arbitrary, and tend to confuse rather than explain—(I.) Modal, the proper ren dering (Gen. X. 2 ; MaSoi ; Alex. Maki ; Madai: I Chron. 1. 5, Maktic) ; (2.) Aledes (Mgoi, 2 Kings xvii. 6; xviii. I I; Esther i. 19; Is. xiii. 17; Jer. xxv. 25 j Dan. ix. I ; v. 28 ; .M4.3eia, Ezra vi. 22 ; Afedoi); (3.) Media pliSoi, Medal, Esther i. 3 ; X. 2; Is. xxi. 2; Dan. viii. 20) ; (4.) Afede, only in Dan. xi. I.
Early History. —In Gen. x. 2 we are told that Madai was the third son of Japhet (cf. I Chron. i. 5). The names in that invaluable ethnological summary were not merely those of individuals but of the nations which descended from them; for the historian says, ' By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations' (ver. 5). For a period of fifteen centuries the Medes are not again mentioned in Scripture. Then Isaiah, in pronouncing the prophetic doom of Babylon, says, I will stir up the Medes against them' (xiii. 17). This prophecy was uttered about B.C. 72o. There is no direct evidence connecting Madai the son of Japhet, and the nation he founded, with the Medes (Madai) of whom Isaiah speaks ; but the names are identical in Hebrew ; and the genea logical tables of Genesis appear to have been in tended to show the origin of those nations which afterwards bore an important part in the history of God's people.
Berosus, the Babylonian priest and historian, states that at a very remote period (fir. B. C. 2000) the Medes ruled in Babylon (Eusebius, Chron. i. 4)- Though we may not be able to rely upon either his dates or his facts, yet we may infer from his words and references, that the Medes were one of the great primeval races which established them .selves in central Asia. Herodotus gives a very graphic and circumstantial account of the early history of the Medes, and the establishment of the empire : The Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; but when Med8a, the Colchian, came to them from Athens, they changed their name. Such is the account which they themselves
give' (vii. 62). This is opposed to what appears to be the opinion of the sacred writers; hut there can be no doubt that during the time of ascendency of Greek arms, literature, and art, eastern nations were all anxious to claim some sort of connection with Greece, and this may account for Herodotus' story (cf. Rawlinson's Ilerod., iv. 6i, 1st ed.) The Medes appear, however, to have been a branch of the Arian family, who probably had their primitive seat on the east bank of the Indus, and thence sent their colonies eastward into India, and westward to Media, Persia, Greece, etc. (Muller, Science of Language). It has been sup posed by some that there was a Scythic tribe of Madai who conquered and held Babylonia long previous to the irruption of the Arian family, and that it is to them Berosus alludes. There are no good grounds for this belief; and it is worthy of note as tending to disprove the theory, that the name Mede ' does not appear upon the Assyrian monuments before the year B.C. 880 (Rawlinson's Commentary on Assyrian Inscriptions). To that date is assigned the inscription on the famous black obelisk, discovered by Layard at Nimrftd, which contains a record of the victories of Temen-bar the Assyrian monarch. In the twenty-fourth year of his reign he invaded the territory of the Medes ( Vaux, Nineveh and Persetolis, p. 263, where a translation of the inscription is given). At this time the Medcs were independent, occupying an extensive country with many cities, and divided, like the Persians, into a number of tribes having each a chief. This remarkable monument thus fixes the date of the first conquest of the Medes by the Assyrians ; but it does not determine the date of the settlement of the former in Media. Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that the way in which the nations are grouped in that inscription seems to indicate that the Medes when attacked were in the act of migrating (Commentary). This, however, is very uncertain.