Madai (מָדַי) is the third son of Yefet, identified uniformly by ancient sources — including Josephus — with the Medes. The Medes were an Indo-Iranian people who settled in the Zagros mountains of northwestern Persia and established one of the dominant empires of the ancient Near East. Hebrew uses Madai as the standard term for both Media and the Medes throughout the Old Testament.
The Medes' most significant historical act was the destruction of Nineveh in 612 BCE, in alliance with Babylon. This fulfilled the prophecy of Nahum almost exactly as written — the city that had terrorized the ancient Near East for centuries fell in a single campaign. The prophet Isaiah had earlier written of Madai as the instrument of God's judgment against Babylon: "Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them" (Isaiah 13:17).
In Daniel's visions, the Median-Persian empire is the second kingdom of the great statue — silver chest and arms — and the "bear raised on one side" of Daniel 7. Darius the Mede appears in Daniel 5–6 as the ruler who succeeds Belshazzar after the fall of Babylon, and under whose reign Daniel survives the lion's den. The combined Medo-Persian empire was the dominant world power through which the Jewish exiles returned to their land under Cyrus's decree.
