Dictionaries :: Judaea, or Judea

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Judaea, or Judea:

(from Judah) a territorial division which succeeded to the overthrow of the ancient landmarks of the tribes of Israel and Judah in their respective captivities. The word first occurs (Daniel 5:13). Authorized Version "Jewry," and the first mention of the "province of Judea" is in the book of Ezra (Ezra 5:8). It is alluded to in Nehemiah 11:3 (Authorized Version "Judah".) In the apocryphal books the word "province" is dropped, and throughout them and the New Testament the expressions are "the land of Judea," "Judea." In a wide and more improper sense, the term Judea was sometimes extended to the whole country of the Canaanites, its ancient inhabitants; and even in the Gospels we read of the coasts of Judea "beyond Jordan." (Matthew 19:1; Mark 10:1). Judea was, in strict language, the name of the third district, west of the Jordan and south of Samaria. It was made a portion of the Roman province of Syria upon the deposition of Archelaus, the ethnarch of Judea, in A.D. 6, and was governed by a procurator, who was subject to the governor of Syria.