the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Medes
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Medes are mentioned in Acts 2:9 in connexion with the special events of the Day of Pentecost. These sojourners in Jerusalem would be descendants of Jewish settlers among the Medes, with perhaps a few Median proselytes. In Biblical times, the Medes are closely associated with the Persians, along with whom they occupied the western portion of Iran, extending north and south from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from the Zagros Mountains on the west to the nearer edge of the great desert separating Media and Persia from Bactriana and Sogdiana on the east. Along this western portion of Iran, Media Minor lay to the north, Media proper in the middle, and Persia to the south.
The Medes were Aryans using a cuneiform script of their own, and worshipping (after the earlier half of the 7th cent. b.c.) according to the faith of Zarathustra. Their art shows little originality or development, and their manners, simple and uncorrupted at first, quickly degenerated under foreign influence. The so-called Median Empire lasted from 647 to 550 B.C., after which date Cyrus founded the Medo-Persian dominion, in which the Persian branch, hitherto subject, became the ruling power.
A. W. Cooke.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Medes'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/medes.html. 1906-1918.
